* Rising to the challenge: Liz Wilson of Ma Baker, pictured at work in her Overton-on-Dee bakery. She is among the exhibitors at Llangollen Food Festival on October 15. Contact her at: mabakerbakes@gmail.com or call 07900 321144.
A former schoolteacher who rose to the challenge of swapping the blackboard for the baker’s oven will be showcasing her range of mouth-watering traditional bread at this year’s Llangollen Food Festival.
After taking a bread-making course back in her London
hometown eight years ago Liz Wilson fell in love with the skill overnight.
She says she just baked and baked, enjoying every moment
of it and was soon making enough bread at home to start selling it to friends.
Things really took off during lockdown when time away
from her primary school day-job gave her the scope to start baking in earnest
and her customer-base eventually soared from 60 to 450 in just a couple of
weeks.
Last year Liz decided to look for premises with more
space for baking and she and her husband moved to the picturesque North Wales
village of Overton-on-Dee where she opened her own business under the name of
Ma Baker.
The property, known as the Old Pharmacy House, dates back
over 200 years and provides plenty of room for the couple to have their home
and for Liz to have the professional bakery she had long dreamed of.
She bakes just twice a week, on a Thursday & Friday,
and quickly sells out of everything she produces.
Using two large professional ovens, and with hers the
only pair of hands, she lovingly creates around 150 items of baked goods a
week.
Liz said: “I love what I do. With three or four simple ingredients I can make something that tastes wonderful and makes people smile. The process is calming and satisfying and the smell is amazing.
“Each week I will offer a range of breads which will
always include tinned whites and wholemeal, my Great Taste 3 star award-winning
porridge bread, buckwheat crackers, sourdoughs, granola, biscuits and
focaccias.
“I also have a few specials which will change from week
to week. It could be a dark chocolate bread, cheese, chive and chili, marmite,
walnut, pecan and sultana, hot cross buns or stollen.”
Liz is among a host of top food and drink producers from
across North Wales and beyond who will be taking stands at the one-day
Llangollen Food Festival on Saturday October 15.
“My first visit to the festival was last year,” she said,
“I wasn’t exhibiting but just went to have a look. I enjoyed myself so much I
knew I definitely had to come back as an exhibitor this year.
“I love to be part of the community. My business and I
have already become pretty well-known in Overton but coming to the festival
will help me to get out the word of what I do even further.
“I love to meet people and to tell them about my bread
and the festival will give me the chance to do that. It will also provide the
opportunity to meet other people in the food business. I’m really looking
forward to it.”
This year’s Food Festival will be coming from a variety
of venues in the centre of Llangollen and is open to the public from 10am-5pm.
An array of around 40 stand-holders will be waiting to
show off their products, ranging from the best in home-grown Welsh artisan
delicacies to Bolivian street food, at the Town Hall, in the main entrance to
Llangollen Steam Railway and also at Gales Wine Bar.
There will also be some exciting hands-on workshops on
offer, including local experts giving the kids – and adults too – the chance to
test their skills at making cupcakes or creating a clay masterpiece on a real
potter’s wheel.
Gales Wine Bar will be playing host to a mini beer
festival within the garden area and throughout the day there will cooking be
demonstrations from top local chefs.
After the main daytime event, people are invited back to
the Town Hall from 6pm to challenge their senses with a special one-off tasting
event from the experts of Wales’ own Penderyn Whiskey for which there will be a
charge of £15 a head.
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