Tuesday 30 August 2011

Olive Magazine

We're very excited here at the Scarlett and the Spotty Dog Cakery as we're in Olive Magazine this month (October issue)! Attached below is a link to the picture in the article (the Spotty Dog looks exceptionally sweet!). The article is all about people who've 'ditched their day job and turned their passion into a profession' and I was one of the lucky 5 who got to talk to Emily Kerrigan about my business. Excerpts from the article are below but go and grab yourself a copy of the brilliant mag for loads of great recipes, restaurants and food related travel pieces!





The biscuit maker
Armed with a knack for baking and
a mascot in the form of her pet Jack
Russell, Rebecca Scarlett Hedley gave
up life as a lawyer to start Scarlett & the
Spotty Dog Cakery in 2010. Within
months, delis were selling out of the
old-fashioned goodies she’d baked in her
family’s Northumberland farmhouse.
1 Be true to yourself
I was 26 when I started my biscuit
business. It took nerve to concede
that after years spent qualifying, law
wasn’t the creative role I craved. If I’d
listened to doubters telling me the market
was saturated, I would have lost faith. But
I knew my brownies and flapjacks would
stand out because I used free-range eggs
from my hens and best-quality chocolate,
and wrapped my biccies with scarlet
ribbons and spotty-dog stickers.
2 Accept all offers of help
My family was fantastic. My
parents suggested I move home
and run the business from their country
farmhouse – I earned my keep helping
with DIY. My brother, an accountant,
offered gratefully received advice.
3Set achievable targets
I stuck to small goals – the first
was persuading my favourite local
café to sell my biscuits. Bit by bit, word
spread and the Spotty Dog made its way
onto deli shelves across Northumberland.
The ultimate dream is to open my own
shop – in the meantime I’m slowly
working my way further south.
4 Get online
The internet is a tremendous tool.
The biscuits are sold in cafés as a
direct result of contacts made on Twitter,
and two of my biggest stockists – loveyour
larder.com and notonthehighstreet.com
– are online retailers. I only wish I’d had
the confidence to approach them sooner.
5 Get the right kit
I struggled to meet demand with
my little Kenwood mixer but with
support from a brilliant small regional
business fund I’ve been able to invest in
an industrial-sized one. Everything else is
the same – me, my ethics and my dog
– except that these days, the baking sheets
are bigger and the order book a bit fatter

Olive Magazine October 2011

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Scarlett and the Spotty Dog in the Journal



We hope you might have spotted us in our local paper, the Journal, very recently! Their Food and Drink Editor did a lovely piece talking about Great Taste Award winners in the area and also wrote a full page spread using several of my very own recipes. Links to the articles are attached below and there are going to be lots more exciting press coming up shortly (I'll keep you all posted!). 





The Stars of the 2011 Great Taste Awards
Summer Cakes and Tray Bakes

Wednesday 10 August 2011

A Lovely New Stockist


I just wanted to bring you up to date with a lovely new stockist. We have started supplying the truly brilliant little village shop in Humshaugh, Northumberland. What’s special about this shop is that it’s run by the community for their community. A few years ago, the newsagents and general store was saved from shut down when the previous owners decided to retire following the controversial closure of the in store Post Office. The multi award winning shop is now run by enthusiastic volunteers from the village and sells a great range of products, from the essentials like bread and milk to truly local produce grown by keen gardeners from the village. The shop has such a lovely, bright and welcoming atmosphere-well worth a visit if you’re in the area (just don’t forget to buy one of my cakes....!