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Page 1 of 4 About Barker Bakes
Introduction
Barker Bakes was launched by Palo Barker who has made special cakes for celebrations since 1994, and to quote, "Baking has been my passion since I was 10 years old, and I still love it over 30 years later". She also has advanced qualifications in Cake Decorating and Sugar Flowers from the Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies.
Palo is a member of the British Sugarcraft Guild and has also won awards in wedding cake and sugar flowers categories at the following international shows: Salon Culinere (2009) and Cake International (2010).
Barker Bakes is now family run, providing friendly and personal service to a high standard. Current Birmingham City Council hygiene and compliance rating.
Cakes
The recipes have all been developed over time, and new ones (as tastes change, or something new is suggested) are being evaluated and tested all the time prior to use. We are passionate about our cakes and you will taste the difference as we use no artificial additives or flavourings in them, e.g. we use 2 1/2 lbs luxury white chocolate to make our our 10" (round) white chocolate cake. Our chocolate cakes are made with luxury Belgian chocolate for moistness and cocoa to lighten.
The range, these days, is immense, from traditional fruit to more modern chocolate and carrot cakes being much requested. We will also try to meet requests for new flavours, although this will depend on how the recipe testing and evaluation goes and sufficient time will have to be allowed for this.
We have developed our own vegan and eggless recipes, being unable to find tasty ones available. We cater for all dietary requirements and these should be specified at the order stage. We use sunflower oil for our eggless cakes (our regular cakes use butter not vegetable fat for a superior flavour, although you can request the latter).
The fruit cakes require more notice than other cakes because of the time required to mature properly, and we prefer to bake those at least 3 months prior to the required date, (although we have made these at short notice before now). Other cakes are made close to the use by date to ensure freshness and maximum flavour. We do not prepare our cakes in advance and freeze them as we believe this is detrimental to their flavour, we don't cover that up with liberal buttercream! We also provide a good depth to our cakes, at least 2.5-3 inches so you get maximum value as well as a more impressive looking cake.
The notice required for sponge cakes is a minimum of 2 weeks, however cakes with limited notice will inevitably have more limited decoration options, as some items can only be made in advance, e.g sugar flowers and modelled items. We prefer to have a minimum of 4 weeks notice so that all aspects of the cake (design, baking, covering and decorating) are optimised, however for certain periods we are booked up well in advance e.g summer and Christmas, and it is therefore recommended to book early.
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About Barker Bakes