To market, to market

One of the mums in my mother's group is an exceptional baker. Each Thursday when we get together with the kids she usually brings some scrumptious cake, cupcake or biscuit that she has made and we all gorge ourselves silly. We would comment all the time "this is delicious, you should sell these". Similar comments were made by her work colleagues when she would take her baked goods to work. She had dreams of having a biscuit stall at the local farmers market, so I offered my support. Sinnamon was born. Before I knew it I was involved and excited to be doing something other than 'home duties'.







Lots of baking, biscuit testing, recipe creating ensued. An application was made and accepted by the local farmers market to hold a stall. Packaging, signage and stall display were needed, recipes needed to be perfected - it was all happening.


On the day of our first market, just as the sun was rising, we and everyone else are rugged up against the cold winter morning and bustling about to get our stalls and displays ready for the market open time of 8.00am. There are trucks unloading display fridges, flat top trucks with crates of fruit and vegetables. Regular stall holders came to say hello and size us up, wanting to know who the new kids on the block were and are we competition. Thankfully, because we had done our research, we knew no one else at the market solely sold biscuits, and not the adult/indulgent ones we were making.

One of my creations. A Sticky Date pudding-in-a-biscuit.

We had told everyone we knew to come and visit our stall, but we couldn't have been happier when our first customer (at 8.33am) purchased a few packets of biscuits and they were a complete stranger. Our second customer came along a few minutes later and again it was someone we didn't know. On the inside we were dancing for joy and finally felt validation. The rest of the day was great as friends, family and regular market customers checked us out and bought our biscuits. I had a lot of fun.


We also discovered "the power of the apron". At our stall we all wore an apron as a uniform. When we visited other stalls to get coffees, lunch, produce for home, the other stallholders would recognise us and give us discounts. It was a great feeling to be part of this unwritten market stallholder code - producers supporting producers - and we quickly adopted the practice at our own stall.


So our next market day will be in a week's time. We'll be appearing at the market every fortnight and have set up a blogsite and a Facebook page. http://sinnamon-bake.blogspot.com/


Personally it has given me something outside of the home to focus on and enjoy.