5 minute read
The cherry on the cake
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Real homes
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The cherry on the CAKE!
We chat to ‘wonder baker’, author and TV cook Juliet Sear about her gorgeous new kitchen, which has to work doubly hard as a recipe testing space and filming location.
What’s your earliest memory of cooking and baking? My earliest memory of cooking is making fried eggs when I was little, and I made my first family roast dinner when I was eleven. I didn’t really bake at all as my mum used to only cook savoury food. My auntie was the baker, so I used to watch her make lots of cakes. I only got into baking once I moved in with my husband and I started throwing dinner parties.
How did you go about turning a passion into a career as a baker and author? I started making birthday cakes for friends and family to earn some extra money when the kids were babies and toddlers. That turned into something a bit bigger when I started to supply a local café with cakes and savoury tarts. It kind of took over the kitchen at home, but I enjoyed it and I liked being able to be my own boss. I used to juggle things around nursery and kids’ clubs.
Once all the kids had started school, I got a part-time job at Little Venice Cake Company in London and spent a couple of years working there, and learnt lots of techniques and skills from a lady called Christine Lee. We used to have a really good laugh and we’re still friends today. After that, I started my own business, which was more than fifteen years ago now, and that led to being on TV, writing books, being in magazines and making cakes for celebrities. Please tell us a little about your home – what style of property is it, what are your favourite rooms and why? I live in London in a classic Georgian-style house with big windows and high ceilings. My favourite room is the bathroom as I love a bath. It’s the first room we renovated after moving in. We put in a new bathroom in a Victorian style to go with the house, including a slipper bath, which is the place I go to unwind and relax.
What are your favourite things to bake at home? Definitely bread. I love eating bread and it’s something that fills the house with an incredible smell. I love to have fresh sourdough on the go so all my family can have delicious homemade sourdough on tap. It’s really easy to make too.
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What did your kitchen renovation project involve and why did you choose this style and colour of kitchen? It was quite a big project as we had to move lots of the plumbing and gas supply, which meant digging up the entire floor in the dining room and kitchen. We also had to move a manhole and access point outside, which was a right kerfuffle!
We went for shaker-style cabinets as we didn’t want the kitchen to be too modern; it felt like it went with the house and the rest of our style. We worked with a fantastic kitchen design company called Olive and Barr, and they helped us to visualise the space and maximise the storage and workspace.
I had a bee in my bonnet that I wanted the walls to be pink. I’d seen lots of pink keep popping up and I felt it was the right colour for the walls. We went for setting plaster in the end, which is a subtle pink. We love green too and it goes well with pink, so we tried lots of combinations of green test paints with the setting plaster until we found the one we liked.
You’ve teamed up with Rangemaster – tell us about the collaboration and how you will be using your new Elise 110cm dual fuel range cooker? It’s been brilliant working with Rangemaster, I’ve always loved the brand and my mum had one in their kitchen. I think the style of the range is beautiful, it’s very timeless. It is really fantastic for baking; it’s important for me to get a really good even bake on all my cakes and even if I’m using all the racks and it’s full, the sponges come out perfectly.
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I also love to have the family over for a big old Sunday roast, so having so many gas rings is so handy. It means I can have all the veg, gravy and maybe a pudding on the go all at once!
Do you have any tips for anyone who is thinking about installing a new kitchen? These days my kitchen is also my workplace, as I don’t have a bakery anymore, so we really had to think long and hard about storage, work surface areas, having a range cooker with two ovens, having two fridges and space for filming and photography.
At the same time, it’s also our family kitchen and the room we probably spend the most amount of time in. The best thing we did was get a good designer. Nicole and Al at Olive and Barr really were great. They listened to us, made suggestions, mocked up visuals and helped us get to a point where we’ve maximised the space. So that’s my tip: spend some time thinking about what’s important to you and get a designer to help you make it happen and, importantly, visualise it.
