The actual news headline is Gardener who sawed off arm saved by sausage rolls, and it’s quite a dramatic story:

Mr Stirling knocked on neighbour Steve Francis’ door and told him: “Please help I’ve cut off my arm.” Shocked Steve, 49, said: “He wasn’t screaming, he was as relaxed as can be. I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I looked down and saw his arm was missing.

While paramedics were working on him Mr Francis put the arm in a plastic Tesco shopping bag.
“I then put it in another bag with frozen pastries in to keep it cold,” he added.

There is so much that is so very GB about this story, but our love of sausage rolls is possibly the main thing- the sheer joy of a Great British Snack food actually saving someone’s limb! I wonder if burgers or tacos have ever achieved such medical triumphs?

So please come to Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings and buy some of our traditionally seasoned Full English sausage rolls. They may not save your limbs, but they definitely make a tasty snack!

If millionaire’s shortbread is a bit like a posh Twix bar, the mint chocolate shortbread, which we invented last week by putting together two thirds of the millionaire’s shortbread recipe and a layer of peppermint fondant, is a bit like a posh Viscount or Yoyo biscuit. Americans will have no idea what those are, but British children of the 70’s know them well as the special treats everyone tried to grab first at the birthday party, well ahead of the chocolate digestives and the cheese-and-pineapple-on-cocktail-sticks, and as long as possible before desperation pointed out the egg-and-cress sandwiches. The Viscount is featured on this old “biscuit of the week” post on Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down, which notes absolutely correctly as follows; The skilled Viscount eater will flatten out the foil and use it to make a small model or trinket. (What that says about us Brits, I do not like to think.)

Anyway, the Full English mint chocolate shortbread is a somewhat fancier affair, including home-made peppermint fondant in the middle and good dark chocolate on top. You could definitely serve this as an after-dinner dessert, or even as an after-dinner mint- we found a real Brit to test it last week, and he compared it immediately to After Eights. Although, you have to be careful about comparisons these days, in case someone tries to sue you for knitting a dalek. Obviously there is no real resemblance between our mint shortbread and Viscount brand biscuits, as theirs are factory-made packaged biscuits and ours are home-made from proper ingredients. So we won’t be getting our lawyers onto them.

This knobbly-looking creation is richer than a scone and more crumbly than a cake. It’s a buttery, raisiny rock bun, so called because of the bumpy appearance, although the name has given rise to unfortunately inedible associations in the past. But seriously, not even Hagrid would actually want to eat a rock, and this is not a rock in anything other than the trompe-l’œil sense.

Also called rock cakes, these are usually made in blobs on a baking sheet, but we find they perform much better with a little support, so we use cake tins. The bun above is normal muffin size, available in bags of six, and we also make them “Texas-size” (double) for buying and eating individually. And our secret ingredient (not so secret anymore) is the best plumpest raisins we could find, which happen to be the organic ones produced by Mr Newman.

The new story page is now up, so you can read all about us and why we are here.

Product list coming next.

update: it’s here! see the tag at the top and on the sidebar.

The website is being updated and expanded this week, so please remain calm if you go to a page and there is nothing there, or if something temporarily disappears. It’s a big job, but it will be done soon and we are really looking forward to getting a lot of new information up here for anyone wanting to find out more about us.

Thank you for your patience!

update: Friday afternoon, and we are cooking for tomorrow’s farmer’s market… so this website is going to take a few more days. If you want to get in touch meanwhile about anything at all, please email us:
alice@fullenglishfood.com
shad@fullenglishfood.com

I wrote a new page, Ingredients.

People at the stall last Saturday seemed confused about the non-dairy fats we use and gave us ideas about what to call them. Most people think “margarine” contains hydrogenated fats- I’m not sure if there is a general name for all the new products out there that you can spread on your morning toast etc but which didn’t come from an animal and also don’t have the evil trans fats. The ones we use are from Earth Balance, which is making some great health-conscious products that fit our requirements.

We think baked treats with natural ingredients can be part of a healthy diet, and we care about what’s inside our food. Also, we don’t think it’s just vegans who sometimes want to avoid dairy. It’s about having a balanced and conscious approach to what you eat.

Welcome to our blog/ website.

There is more information about who we are and what we do on the pages (see top and sidebar), which I will be adding to shortly. When we have news, it will appear here on the front page.

So far nothing else to add here except thanks to everyone who has been enjoying our food so far and giving so much positive feedback.

(I meant to take a photo of the stall at the farmer’s market today, but completely forgot. Next week!)