How my last two Saturdays went

(truffles on display)

(my stall with two handsome chaps that work the French cheese stall behind me.)

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Howdy. Happy New Year.

Are you enjoying your holiday? Me? Well…, I WAS thinking;
“yay! no more work & no more Xmas dinner mayhem! Tis the time to slow pace & rest!” … But instead…, my body decided to go in to ‘rest’ literally & got me bedridden with the most drowsy flu for three days. It was the “achy-everywhere with heavy-head” kinda flu, & not the fun “stay in bed & catch up with a spot of reading while partner-brings-hot-milk” type.

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Well, if I tell you that I made twice as much as usual on the last Saturday (20th) at the market, maybe you’ll realize that I put in twice the workload for it. Hence it is maybe not much of a surprise that my body thought it best to stick me in a bed to re-energize before the New Year’s Eve wake-up-athon (which this year’s lasted til 3.30am, hick!).

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I sold:

32 boxes of assorted chocolate truffles, 16 flourless chocolate cakes, 3 lemon drizzle cakes, 14 eight-inch tarts, 12 five-inch tarts, as well as the individual heart-shaped ones & the usual tower of brownies.
That is, in ingredients terms, I used about 12 kilograms of chocolate, roughly 8 kilograms of sugar & 6 kilograms of butter.

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It truly was the record mega make-athon ever. When I list the things I’ve made like this, even I must say, it’s unbelievable. When some customers ask where I make it, & I say at home, with a standard home-oven, they’re surprised that I can produce so much, & as D puts it, at this rate, one-day, the oven is gonna go caput…, quite possibly soon.

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I piped, rolled & coated over 500 chocolate truffles. Remembering my lesson from previous years’ Christmas market day, I pre-packed 20 boxes on Friday night. I think I finished around 2.30am.

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Come Saturday, I asked D to drive me & the goods to the market earlier than usual to set-up. THIS day is THE best sales day of the year for a cakes & chocolate stall like mine. As I’m going to take all of January off, tis the time to do as much as I can.
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The chocolate boxes went one by one. But hang on? Isn’t the pace a bit slow? My sleep-deprived head spun thoughts of “Oh no…!?”‘s… The cake sales were slow on the up-take too. Afterall, it was a gappy 5 days more to go til Christmas, & then there is the purse tightening credit-crunch… It felt as though there were less visitors this year.
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Nevertheless, eventually I sold out on the truffles. The last 4 boxes went to my dear regular customer E who also bought 4 boxes last Christmas. She tells me that it was so popular with her folks last year that she’s back for the same! Bless…
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I glance at the wall-clock in the burger shop situated opposite my stall. Truffle sell-out time this year was 1:30pm. In Year 2006, I finished selling truffles at 11:30am, then Year 2007 was at 12:40pm. It’s taking longer to sell every year it seems, but then again I’m making more & more every year so maybe these numbers don’t really mean a thing.

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I should somehow make like 700 truffles next Christmas market… (Although, the Saturday will fall on the 19th – 6 long days til Christmas Day… hm…)
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Eventually, with a bit of struggle (shouting “saaale…!”), the cakes went too. Huuuge relief, that, especially when I think back to what happened on:
The previous Saturday (the 13th), it was the complete opposite. It wasn’t my worst-ever sales day to date, but it certainly belonged to that end of the spectrum.
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Double rain drop sign was a permanent show on the weather forecast that week, & no surprises, that Saturday started with pouring rain. The tarpaulin roof cover had holes & some of my chocolates & cakes were rained on. I was furious & frustrated. I urged the market-boys double up my roof cover. They eventually did a good job.
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Half the market stalls decided to not show up (or went home in the morning), & the customers certainly had better things to do than do shopping in such a horrible rain. Only the hard-core locals were there & I stayed til 5pm, but I still had loads left. Me & my damaged goods went back home pretty sorry for oneself…

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So anyways, I was one ultra-happy-woman to do so well on the 20th. I took in record sales too. Well, only a £2.90 more than the previous years’ actually! But hey, a record is a record right? ;-)
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Like I mentioned earlier, I’m taking all of January off. My first work-date of the year will be February 7th, in time for selling chocolates for Valentines Day. Hope to see you romantics then! t xxx