Classic Artisan Baking

Recipes for cakes, cookies, muffins and more

When Meg Rivers' children were young and they clamoured for a sweet treat in the afternoon, she was reluctant to give them the kind of commercial cakes so often made with artificial flavours, preservatives and colours. She started to bake her own wholesome cakes, traybakes and cookies using good-quality, seasonal ingredients. Word spread about how delicious these treats were and her friends began to place orders. When she got her first order for a cake to be sent to a friend in Africa, she decided to turn her hobby into a mail-order business and Meg Rivers Artisan Bakery was born. After Meg's untimely death in 2001, family friend Julian Day took over the running of the bakery. In this artisan cookbook, photographed by Steve Painter, Julian has collected the bakery's most popular recipes - inspired by English afternoon-tea classics, but with a sprinkling of influences from elsewhere in the world. This beautiful book features chapters on Family Cakes, Small Cakes, Traybakes, Cookies, Loaves and Tarts, and recipes for Wheat-free Chocolate & Hazelnut Torte, Ginger Cake, Flapjacks, Amaretti Cookies, Apricot and Nut Loaf and Lemon Tart. Julian Day has lived and worked in Warwickshire almost all his life. He ran his own food wholesaling business for many years, then in 2001 he was approached to acquire the mail-order bakery business of Meg Rivers Cakes. Establishing a new bakery in a converted cow shed near Shipston on Stour, Warwickshire, he began production using the original Meg Rivers recipes. He continues to run the business with the help of two of his four daughters.