Take 2

It appears that my first attempt at blogging did not give those reading it enough to get their teeth into. 

Please let me make amends.

Mum got me into baking and as a kid I remember the smell of chocolate brownies wafting up the stairs on weekends, calling me to steal one before the relatives for whom they had been baked arrived.

Mum baked classics like Viennese  Whirls dipped in bitter dark chocolate with luscious butter cream fillings, as well as gorgeous chocolate sponges and cookies that never seemed to last, can't think why.

After leaving home to join the Royal Air Force at the tender age of 17 I will admit that baking took a back seat and only featured on trips back home, and the occasional foray into the hot bakery counter in the families NAAFI outside of the camp gates.

In 2001 after three and a half years in the RAF and at the tender age of 21 I left and moved briefly to Aberdeen.

My flat on Bedford road was bang in the middle of student country with the University of Aberdeen on my doorstep.

Most importantly the other key feature of the immediate neighbourhood was a small parade of shops across the road, which featured a chip shop and a beautiful bakery.

It was in this bakery, usually early in the morning in a bid to beat the students, that I learned about the beauty of Butteries. A Buttery as it turns out is a laminated bread with butter packed between the fluffy layers.

Served warm directly into the cake hole was a treat that I rarely missed, as my 21 stone frame would have stood testament to at the time.

Leaving behind the charms of the Granite City of Aberdeen I moved home briefly before meeting my now wife, Callie.

In the January of 2002 I moved to Norfolk with Callie and her infant son Deryn. Callie and I took up work and we settled into becoming a family.

I would occasionally bake a batch of flapjacks, shortbread or a banana loaf but only when time allowed.

In 2004 our second son Dylan arrived to complete our little family.

The years passed and so did a succession of jobs for me and a new house for the family just around the corner from the old one which had to be demolished, it had only been built to last ten years, and that was in 1945!

After some rocky years with multiple redundancies and a financial crisis I finally landed a job as a Sales Manager in Norwich. Six months later and all was well.

Our eldest son Deryn began feeling unwell in the mornings and after two weeks of him having no appetite, we decided to take him for a check up at the doctors.

The Doctor diagnosed Deryn as having a case of Glandular Fever. Had it not been for the advice of a friend of the family we probably would have settled for the diagnosis offered.

The following day we decided to get a second opinion at the A&E department of the local hospital. The verdict was Glandular Fever and we thought nothing more of it.

On the way home I decided that junk food was in order so pulled into the local KFC at Longwater Retail park in Norwich.

Whilst sitting down in the restaurant Callie had a missed call on her mobile and called her voicemail to retrieve the message that had been left.

It turned out that the blood tests that Callie had insisted on had turned something up, and the Doctors would like to speak to us.

Callie immediately became upset and started making wild predictions about Cancer. I tried to reassure her but she was badly shaken.

On arrival at the Jenny Lind children's department at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital we were ushered into a treatment room to await a consultant.

Whilst we waited, a Nurse came and applied a numbing cream to Deryn's wrists and inside of his elbows.

This raised eyebrows amongst us all and heightened the tension in that small room.

Two Nurses came into the room accompanied by a young Registrar and a Consultant.

They took their seats and asked that we all do the same.

Callie and I sat either side of Deryn and waited for the Consultant to break the news.

"There is no easy way to say this, but Deryn has Leukaemia"

These words rocked us to our core. As a family we were stunned and individually we began dealing with it in our own ways. Callie cried, I froze and when we explained to Deryn that he had Cancer, he cried along with his little brother.

The flurry of activity that followed immediately included Deryn being fitted with a canular and then being rushed to the Paediatric Oncology unit at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge.

I shot off home with dylan to pack gear for everyone and to drop Dylan off with his Grandmother.

All the while there is this huge God like voice in my head roaring 

"YOUR SON HAS CANCER"

It was hard to concentrate on driving the car let alone the mental list of clothing and equipment that needed to be sourced, packed and delivered.

The next 18 hours were manic, with snatched sleep and a learning curve that put my entire academic life in the shade.

I learned that although Deryn had been diagnosed with Leukaemia, we were still none the wiser as to which strain of the disease he had.

The treatments for the various strains of cancer were so wildly different it was a tense period waiting to find out.

The following day I drove to Cambridge and after waiting for hat seemed an eternity was called in by the Doctor to be given the news.

Deryn had been diagnosed as having Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia or ALL for short.

It turned out that ALL is the most common and most survivable form of Leukaemia and with proper treatment and the right attitude Deryn was likely to make a good recovery.

I won't go into any more detail as far as Deryn's treatment is concerned because it is very complicated, and taken out of context would numb the brain in seconds.

Back to baking.

It may seem frivolous but when Deryn hit the intense part of his treatment that involved steroids, we were advised to feed Deryn high calorie foods including plenty of fat to help him gain and maintain weight.

So out came the old recipe cards and the measuring spoons.

I started cranking out all of the classics in a bid to keep Deryn on the right side of chubby.....it worked.

Deryn gained weight and kept it up until later that year when he developed Appendicitis. This knocked him for six but he was back home within three days and you would never know the turmoil that his mother had been through on her birthday as she was asked to sign waivers proclaiming the long list of things that could go wrong during surgery which included Deryn expiring during treatment.

A few months later over the Christmas holidays, Deryn developed Pancreatitis which saw him lose masses of weight and spend Christmas and New Year in a Morphine induced coma. I stayed with him through this recent illness.

Deryn tried to keep the weight  on but just couldn't meet the mark, so he had a nasogastric tube fitted.

Within three weeks he was back up to weight and had the tube removed.

He had missed all the mince pies and Christmas cake that I had lovingly created prior to the holidays.

In the early part of 2011 Callie asked me if I would be interested in entering myself into a competition to enter myself as a contestant on the Great British Bake Off.

I had had to give up work to help care for Deryn, and aside from signing on every two weeks i had little to do apart from attend Chemo appointments.

Callie agreed to take up the slack to allow me to take part I the audition process.

I can't disclose the process but suffice to say that I was as shocked as anyone when I was asked to come down to the first audition to meet Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.

I whizzed through the audition process in a whirl of new faces, new recipes and long days of travelling the tube clutching various delicate creations.

Getting asked to appear on the Bake Off is singularly one of the biggest achievements of my life.

I say this because I am by nature not a massively accomplished baker and had had a tough time turning in creative and inspiring recipes, as you may have seen if you have watched the first show in the series!

The first baked good that I had to produce for auditioning was a savoury bake. I initially elected to bake a traditional Norfolk Game Pie, what with living in the heart of Norfolk and all.

However this was not game season, so under the guidance  (barracking/bullying) of my wife I settled on trying to make a traditional hand raised Pork pie.

I found a 750 year old recipe from Leicestershire and set about personalising it as much as I could.

Without wishing to give away all my secrets, I made the jelly stock my own and left the rest alone.

I tested out this initial creation on my friends and family, as well as the butcher that supplied the Pork. It was roundly applauded as a good Pork pie so I set about building a replica ready for the first audition.

Suffice to say that Mary and Paul thought highly enough of that pie, that I set up a small stall on the local farmer's market to sell smaller replicas.

Callie and I managed to sell 52 in an hour and a half. A sell out on our first trip out was encouraging, so we make sure to try and appear each month in our local high street.

Being a necky swine, as my Dad would say, I approached my miller about a supply deal for my pies into his tea room which is attached to his 17th century windmill in Norfolk. 

That deal has born fruit and Simple Pies was conceived.

Although in it's infancy the company has already signed up three customers including Denver Windmill, a new farm shop in Thetford and a new Deli soon to open in Bury St Edmunds.

I have also had interest in samples being sent up to a stately home in the north of England.

The best thing about all of my new customers is that they weren't given a huge sales pitch, just a small pie baked by yours truly to the best of my abilities. It appears that that is enough if your product is of sufficient calibre.

So to my list of hats I can now add Pie Baker, as well as Father, Husband, Rugby player, Former Bouncer etc etc etc.

I have now made it through the first episode of the Bake Off and it was terrifyingly fun. I watched myself and my baking friends having a wonderfully nervous time on the telly, and thought of the long filming days and interesting on site catering!

I hope this helps bring those of you that read this blog a little more up to speed and I hope you enjoy my weekly entries.