Grandma gets her teeth into Yummers....

....groan, yes I know.....Anyway, moving swiftly on....what I am trying to let you know is that there is yet somewhere else that you can stock up on Yummers ice cream, namely Grandma's Pantry, a deli next door to the North Walsham Garden Centre. They have all the flavours, so what are you waiting for...GO!

Norton's Ice Cream Sunday

Last sunday, it was the first baking hot day of the year and Nortons had the good luck to choose that day as it's Ice Cream Sunday Day - it was a lovely way to meet the people who buy Yummers ice cream and to encourage people to try flavours they hadn't yet tried. Ice cream sales went well and even the cows seemed to enjoy it!!

"Sales from the gate" by Floss and Lou

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COME OVER TO OUR HOUSE ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON AND IF WE'RE IN, WE WILL SELL YOU AN ICE CREAM (and there will be lots of chat for free!!)

A Family Affair!

My very wonderful daughter helped me out over the weekend by writing a sign to go outside the house on sunny afternoons when we are in so that we can offer ice cream sales to passers-by. She made a lovely job of it too. Bravo Flossie!!

This confidence thing is getting out of control....!

I blame Helen (chef at The Greedy Goose tearooms) really, afterall, no-one had ever suggested that I might want to go in for an award for my ice cream before. And ever since my mind has been wrestling with the possibilities and trying to overcome the doubts and self-confidence issues. Tonight I finally broke and googled "food awards". WOW, there are sooooo many different ones - the Food Quality Awards, Foodman Excellence Awards, Grocer Food & Drink Awards, EDP Norfolk Food Awards, Guild of Fine Food Freat Taste Awards - that I don't know which to enter first! Because enter I will....even though it is scary and might in all possibility end up as just a waste of time and money, if I don't enter, I don't stand any chance, do I? As they say, "Gotta be in it to win it!".

Goose is Greedy for Yummers....

....oh yes, I know....I really shouldn't try to write headlines. "Stick to what you're good at" was the advice I was given by my lovely careers advice teacher all those years ago, and according to Helen (chef at The Greedy Goose Tearooms), I'm good at making ice cream! I took her some to try today and she loved them! Yummers ice cream will be available at the Greedy Goose Tearooms, Mannington Gardens from Sunday 9th May.

Super Supper!

This is the swanky interior of The Beechwood Hotel, one of the top places to eat in Norfolk and guess what...I was treated to a most gorgeous supper there by the North Walsham Ladies Supper Club who had asked me to speak to them about Yummers. They were so welcoming and all showed lots of interest in my ramblings about how the business started and how I make such amazing ice cream (yes, confidence has definitely returned after the last post!!). They were even more enthusiastic when I got out some samples of my ice cream for them to try. An ice-cream eating induced hush fell on the room and I think I got a roomful of women converted to real ice cream (believe me, they were easy to convert!). Thank you, ladies.

Worries and wobbles....

This afternoon, I had a sudden anxiety that Yummers ice cream wasn't as good as I thought it was. The feeling wasn't brought on by any specific event, i just suddenly lost confidence in my product, wondered if everyone who raves about it was lying, wondered if I was really better than the huge "local" competitor. So when I went over to Nortons, I picked up a tub of my competitor's ice cream and had a taste.....aaaah, panic over....yes, Yummers ice cream is much better! Yummers is ice cream as it should taste, as it would taste if you made it at home and when I looked at the ingredient listing of my competitor's product, I realised firstly why it is half the price of Yummers and secondly why it doesn't taste as good........

1. cream - first by volume in Yummers ice cream, fourth by volume in competitor's product (after sugar!!)


2. emulsifer - this is what stops the ice cream splitting and gives it a creamy texture. Yummers uses egg yolks in the custard for this, competitor uses mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids


3. thickener - Yummers uses double cream and cooked custard to thicken, competitor uses guar gum


4. stabiliser - this keeps the ice cream texture. Yummers uses a short shelf life to keep the texture good, competitor uses sodium alginate.

Add to that the plastic and waxed paper packaging that will ensure my competitor lives on for hundreds of years via landfill compared with the 2 years that Yummers packaging takes to decompose and....nuff said! Confidence returns!

The Galley at Horning

Another new outlet in my local area....The Galley at Horning is a tiny shop crammed to the hilt with every wonderful thing you can imagine, a true aladins cave of treasures. I love it's amazing variety and unabashed over-statedness. And you can now find treasures of an ice creamy kind in there too as they have decided to stock Yummers ice cream in their freezers.......

New ice cream outlets!!

Very exciting (and increasingly busy) times in the Yummers kitchen as I have recently taken on three new customers who are going to sell Yummers ice cream this summer. They are (drum roll, please!)......Smallsticks Barn Cafe at Cart Gap (near Happisburgh), The Hornbeam Cafe (125 miles away in Walthamstow, London!) and Nortons Farm Shop in Frettenham. It's so exciting to see my products in more little cafes and I wish them all every success in the coming season. Fingers crossed for some sunshine!

New Frozen Food Menu!!! (including bread....)

I have finally got my act together and published the Spring 2010 Frozen Food Menu onto the yummers.net website. It includes soups, bread, pizza and ready meals, all handmade (of course), taste tested and prounounced fabulously tasty!! Have a look.......

Butter!

Just a quick note to say that I went to Norton's Dairy this afternoon to get some butter. On Monday, I am making my first lot of additions for this month's batch of ice cream and needed butter for the toffee and crumble. I treated myself to a pack of salted butter too and tried it out on some toast when I got home....the verdict......mmmmmmmmmmmm! Butter just made from double cream with no additives, flavourings, colour or preservatives, well i can't tell you how different it tastes. I'm a convert!

Gimingham Lunch Club

Gimingham is a little village a few miles away from Yummers HQ and they run a lunch club every Thursday for about 20 of the villagers. They usually get meals sent up from the school kitchens in the next village, but a key member of the organising committee is on holiday for 6 weeks and so instead of closing, they have decided to do soup and bread for the duration. I am honoured that they are trying soups from the new Yummers Spring Menu.

More Dairy Free Success!!

I have had another breakthrough in the bid to get a fabulous dairy free Yummers ice-cream on the menu!

Today, having woken up with the niggling thought that "just chocolate" ice cream wasn't very Yummers-ish, I decided to try to make some dairy free cinder toffee to go in it....success!
So now there will be cinder toffee in the dairy free choc ice cream and it will be called.....Dairy Free Teaser

Never one to be slow at making a decision.....I phoned Nortons dairy this morning, had a chat to the very helpful lady there, was suitably impressed and put my first order in. Yes! It's official - Yummers has gone local!!!

Milk, cream, butter and eggs in Yummers food are now all sourced from Nortons - a mere 12 miles away from Edingthorpe.

Local vs supermarket

I had a great evening in The Hornbeam Cafe on Friday night and got chatting about Yummers to a guy who works there. We were talking about local milk vs UK milk from the supermarket.
A couple of summers ago, when I first started Yummers I looked into the possibility of using milk from a dairy about 5 miles from me (my closest one) as it seemed the obvious choice and I was aware that supermarkets use milk as a loss leader and pay farmers a pittance for their product. But when I got into working out costs and time, it seemed too expensive and would take too much time to collect.
But my consience has been pricked again and I am going to go to the local dairy tomorrow to investigate the possibility of Yummers ice cream becoming a more locally local product.....watch this space!

New year, new product.....

Exciting times in the Yummers kitchen.....I have finally made a non-dairy ice cream that tastes amazing!

Having worked hard all winter trying different soya, rice and tofu products in a bid to improve upon the non-dairy ice creams out there all ready, I was just about to give up when .....kazam!... inspiration hit me and I had one final go resulting in a fabulously tasty chocolate ice cream.

It is suitable for those with a lactose intolerance or who just want something a little lower in fat that other Yummers ice cream.

If you try it, let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Thanks.
Clare
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