Coutts Food - Mrs Gill’s Country Cakes

Mrs Jacqueline Gill has just made some fine looking gingerbread men with little bow ties for a wedding. They’re just one more tasty creation from Mrs Gill’s Country Cakes, a business born out of the 1987 stock market collapse. Much like now, those were difficult times. But as she says, “You either go down or fight you way out of it.” And Mrs Gill is a fighter.

In those days life was the rural idyll. “When I got married you gave up what you were doing before; that became your job,” she says. ‘That’ was a country life in a Devon farmhouse bringing up three children surrounded by ponies, dogs and ducks. Husband Julian was a Lloyd’s broker with his own company in Exeter. Then, overnight, everything changed. Lloyd's went bust and with it the good life. “I can make cauliflower do three meals,” she says. “It is possible if you get your head down and get on with it.” But Mrs Gill is of the generation that rolls its sleeves up and tackles a problem head on. So, when a friend who ran charity fairs suggested she bake some cakes to sell she knew she had no option. The only snag; baking wasn’t her forté. Those early days were trial and error, but the cakes started to get rave reviews. She made some cakes for a Christmas fair and sold out. More fairs followed and then shops started showing interest. But she was still working out of the family kitchen and used to bake 24 hours a day.

Mrs Gill has no formal training but what she’s hit on is our nostalgia for the cakes our mothers made. “It’s a homemade cake made with store cupboard ingredients. The sort you would go and buy to make a cake yourself,” she says.

The cakes moved around her aga’s five ovens. “I put them in one oven for an hour, then up into another overnight for eight hours. The last lot went into the top oven at midnight and then I was up at 6am for the next lot to go in. I made 18 in 24 hours,” she says and admits “it was very slow.” Not surprising then, with interest growing, she had to move into commercial premises. Today she’s still in those kitchens and her cakes are now in the food halls of some of London’s swankiest stores such as Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.

Mrs Gill has no formal training but what she’s hit on is our nostalgia for the cakes our mothers made. “It’s a homemade cake made with store cupboard ingredients. The sort you would go and buy to make a cake yourself,” she says. They’re not organic, but are GM free. The eggs are free range, most of the fruits aren’t coloured, and the chocolate is Belgian. And because she uses very little flour they have a long shelf life. All of which has meant a host of awards, not least for Mrs Gill’s famed fruit cake which, when decorated, adorns many a Christmas table.

The ‘very ornate’ Christmas cake is rich with fruit and weighs three pounds. In the early days husband Julian helped with the mixing. But big batches are impossible because they can’t lift the bowl. So it’s not surprising that people are keen to place their orders early. One of Mrs Gill’s ‘star turns’ is the almond cake. It’s sticky and moist with masses of ground almonds. It was designed as a quick solution for ‘the harassed young woman with lots of children and a working life’ who’s looking for a dessert.

“I’m not afraid of making the wrong decision – it holds people back.”

That Mrs Gill’s Country Cakes surfaced from disaster and has thrived comes from her determination to succeed. In the early days she forged through by experimenting. Mistakes were made, recipes were adapted. Now she could expand, but is happy where she is for the moment. Today Waitrose is on her list of suppliers, alongside notable mail order companies such as Forman & Field and Dukeshill Ham Company. The bakery in Tiverton in Devon isn’t a shop front, but people do come to collect cakes and discuss requirements. Wedding cakes are popular. There are the corporate gifts for clients like Volvo and Bacardi. And members of the House of Commons enjoyed her cakes for many years.

Mrs Gill believes she’s ‘been lucky’. Yet it seems much comes from her attitude rather than just luck. As a child she used to sail and race. “We all learnt to make decisions and live with them. If you’re sailing and the wind comes up you’ve got to make a decision. So I’m not afraid of making the wrong decision – it holds people back.” She says she does rise to the challenge and admits it’s ‘probably frightfully irritating’. And she speaks fondly of ‘a wonderful woman who said there’s no such word as can’t’. “It sounds so old-fashioned, but it’s those stupid things that keep you going,” says Mrs Gill.

Old-fashioned she may be, but that combined with her nostalgic cakes is clearly a recipe for success. Today, more than ever, there’s nothing nicer than sitting down to a cup of tea and a slice of bygone times. The smells of dark Belgian chocolate and ginger have visitors to the bakery swooning. As do the little gingerbread men that ‘looked really sweet.’

For more information visit www.countrycakes.co.uk. 

By Michele Nevard