When Meg Rivers' young children clamoured for a sweet treat, she was reluctant to give them commercial bakes made with artificial flavours, preservatives and colours. She started to bake her own wholesome cakes, traybakes and cookies using good-quality 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 Africa she decided to turn her hobby into a mail-order business and Meg Rivers Artisan Bakery was born. After Meg's death in 2001, family friend Julian Day took over the running of the bakery. In this artisan cookbook, 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. There are chapters on Family Cakes, Small Cakes, Traybakes, Cookies, Loaves and Tarts, and recipes for Ginger Cake, Wheat-free Chocolate & Hazelnut Torte, Flapjacks, Amaretti Cookies, Apricot & 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.
