Baking in all forms fascinates me, be in the smallest of kitchens with little equipment through to the biggest factories pumping out thousands of cakes a day. The process is, at its heart always the same and the end result always ends up giving someone a little moment of pleasure. So when I was invited down to a foggy and cold Dorset a few weeks ago to see how the people at Fudges make there products I jumped at the chance. Knowing little about the brand I somehow expected to find a soulless bland factory churning out product with little care or attention. Thankfully that was far from the case. I was welcomed by two members of the Fudges family, both lovely and clearly passionate about running a family business. I learnt that the business started off like any of a thousand small village bakeries, back in 1926 – supplying a local area with its share of bread, it was one of those bakeries that, sadly are very hard to find these days. Real baking and real bread was hit with a killer blow in the 1960′s with the introduction of the mass produced bread made by the big industrial bakeries which ended up forcing small bakeries such as fudges out of business. Thankfully resourcefulness took over and the bakery switched production to biscuits which is of course now their bread and butter (sorry but I love a pun). Continue reading
© Edd Kimber