The Buttercup Bakery

MASSIVE Pre-Gig Nerves! 

Hellloooo and welcome to another post! 

Well, I'm officially less than two weeks away from my very first attempt at selling my own products and guys, I have to tell you, I am bricking it! 

Every time I think I have everything completely organised and sorted (public liability insurance, food hygiene certificate, self-employment registration, etc), someone comes along and says 'You know, you should probably make sure you have this sorted' or 'Did you think about this?'. And of course, that leads me to a lot of face-palm moments. Which leads me to a lot of need to eat chocolate and drink tequila. But I digress. 

So...here's the list of things that I have left to sort, as of this afternoon: 

• Pick up filing cabinet (insurance insists all docs are in a 'fire-resistant cabinet'
• Set up a business bank account and PayPal account to go with it
• Write terms and conditions for orders
• Confirm price-per-product and make up laminated signs for stall 
• Do I need basic bookkeeping? (GOD, I hope not!)
• Buy a sellotape dispenser
• Buy food handling gloves so I don't stick a finger in a cupcake by accident 
• Practise making millionaire's shortbread and choc caramel cheesecake again
• Make a shopping list and yes, BUY everything on the shopping list 
• And, oh yes, actually bake everything for the stall! 

Doesn't look so bad, does it?

And yet, my excitement is still tempered by fear. What if nobody wants to buy anything? What if people don't like the things I bake? What if I short-change everyone and drop the food when I try to put it in bags for them? What if I forget the bags altogether!? Or I run out of change!?

Of course, the truth is, I can't reasonably take care of all of these problems, so it's probably better to focus on little things. Starting with mint chocolate chunk cookies!

Now, I'll make a quick confession here - I really, really don't like mint. But, I hear that most other people actually really like it. So, these bad boys are a chewy dark chocolate cookie loaded with dark chocolate and chocolate mint thins, with a teaspoon of peppermint extract to bring out the sweet, sharp minty flavour. Verdict: they need a little more mint but these will be popping up as a purchasable item in the near future!

Keep an eye out for increasingly panic-stricken blog posts as the next two weeks proceed (and please, if you have any tips for keeping calm, let me know!).