Cake & Biscuits - Various small enterprises [By @NLi10]

As a grand finale to the Indie food reviews I thought I'd summarise all the good ones I've found over the past week.

Bake Me A Cake - Coconut Cake

I happened to be in town after work one day and noticed a bunch of craft stalls over by the Cathedral that I hadn't seen before. Amongst the jewellery and soft furnishing stalls was one selling cakes and biscuits! It turns out that this stall was run by a friend of mine I used to work with and that she was a pro-baker now, going by the name Bake Me A Cake. Eschewing the fancier options I opted for the coconut cake which turned out to be a good choice.

The slice was ample and really filling and while cake isn't the ideal outdoors December FoodStuffFind (it's a bit cold, and needed a hot drink accompaniment) it was a great bit of cake and full of flavour. Rachel uses eggs from her own hens so it's even closer to the independent food seller ideal than I'd originally imagined.




Biscuits from Centre Parc - Oval Alberts & Lemon Biscuits

While on holiday I spotted these in the on site supermarket and thought they made a nice end to it all. These are by two smaller companies but appear to be stocked beyond the range of normal farm-shop/cottage industry products (Capitalism Ho! indeed). This doesn't really matter though because both of these have the similar personal touch to the product that the previous offerings had, even though they lack the freshness of the other offerings. Biscuits are ideal for upscaled, small businesses as they tend to travel better and have decent shelf lives.

The Oval Alberts (made by Cottage Delight speciality foods) are a savoury biscuit that they suggest having with their pheasant pate. As all forms of pate (even vegetarian) make me feel a bit queazy after eating I stuck to having them just by themselves, although I did dip one in my tea to great effect. Their oatyness and crunch are quite welcome and while they snap quite easily are very pleasing to eat. I do like a good oatcake, a top winter biscuit.

The Lemon biscuits (made by traditional farmhouse biscuits Ltd) are harder than I expected and a lot more lemony but not in an artificial way. I'd say that these are a perfect size too as I've been eating them one at a time without feeling like I should have a 2nd. They'd make great tea party sides to plates and I got to wondering if they also did a vanilla variety. They have a great crunch to them like most 'home baked' biscuits do and the flavour of lemon shortbread was quite compulsive and loved by people at work when I took the remaining box in.

I'm glad that the Xbox Indie Game Uprising made me think of tenuously linked foods that came from similar humble beginnings. I've had a great time and some fantastic flavours and probably been more ecologically sustainable by eating locally. That said my next review was flown over from Australia and then I've really got to get on those Hot Chocolates before the weather realises that it's sent the snow to Britain instead of the rain...

By @NLi10