Right from an early age I have loved cooking, my hero being Fanny Craddock, which I watched with my Mum on the t.v.
When I was 15 I stared my journey in catering working in cafes and hotels on the Island .Entering in to the Isle Of Wight College in 1977.
After I graduated I got a job cooking for the officers at Osborne House in the residential part of the house. Stayed there for 4 years only leaving to start a family. Going back to work I had to have a job to fit around my family so I went to work at Waxham House residential home in Ryde and ended up staying off and on for 16 years.
Since I was 16 I had been decorating cakes as a hobby ,but in 2000 I decided to finish work and start my cake business called Cakes For Occasions. During this time I really honed my Shortbread recipe to offer to my customers as part of a Christmas package including cake and mince pies.
The Shortbread was so popular that my customers encouraged me to launch these as a business. After much research which took us about 4 years of finding packaging ,shelf life testing and finding my distinctive label we where open for business in 2012 as Luxurious Shortbread.
I started to supply some local shops and attend shows, which was great fun to meet my customers. A natural progression was to open my shop as people wanted somewhere to by all my different flavours apart from at the shows. This has proved very successful and I love meeting my customers who many have become friends.
This journey would not have been possible without the unfailing support of my wonderful family and friends. Especially my Husband, Sons and my lovely Mum, who put up with a lot so I could grow my business.
All of my shortbread and Taffetys are hand made, packed and labelled by me .
Taffetys
The name Taffetys came about after a look in the local dialect book. Wanting a unique name this was one off 4 choices but was the favourite of our Grandson. It means Dainty.
2014 I was asked to develop an original biscuit .My choice was a farmhouse type with flour that is milled on the Island.
After nearly 30 variations over the course of 7 months, we managed to come up with 3 biscuit recipes to try out in a blind taste test held at Made On The Isle Of Wight during Easter 2015 .
We had very enthusiastic tasters and the winner was the recipe we now use.
We have adapted our recipe and now create our own flour, using a secret blend!
This has proved a real hit with our customers and our Taffetys are better than ever.
We hope you enjoy them.