Tag: @BakedIn

Baking and bellringing successes

Family and friends gather online on a Thursday evening for a virtual #bellringing session. We’ve been doing this all through lockdowm and even though real life practices are up and running again, this group still meets virtually, every week to practice things we wouldn’t ordinarily get to ring in our towers.

New methods are proposed every month with the objective of attempting a quarter peal on the last week of the month. September’s method was Sandal Treble Bob Minor. None of us had rung this before.

So, we attempted a quarter peal on the last Thursday of the month and it was going along nicely, good striking and very few trips. Unfortunately the attempt was stood up because two bells had swapped over. That was a real shame.

Friday mornings bring a second opportunity for practicing these methods with a slightly different group, but the core few are the same.

Having got plenty of time before ringing was due to start I decided to make a start on this week’s bake; a chocolate orange loaf cake. I managed to get the cake batter in the oven and cooked, the crystallised peel and the orange drizzle done before ringing started.

We decided to attempt the quarter peal again as there were only six of us again. There were a few more mistakes than previously, and the treble had lag issues which almost caused problems. However this time around we successfully scored the quarter. A first in method for everyone.

Hot on the heels of that success, I finished the cake off by making the chocolate frosting and assembled it all. I must admit to being slightly chuffed with how it turned out.

Later in the evening I gave a PR presentation to the Recovery Champions, a group of ringers who are helping their local areas get back to ringing after the pandemic. Nearly 50 people joined the session which included some lively debate on how to kick start recruitment again.

In between all this, as its now autumn and the weather has definitely taken a turn for the cooler and wetter, I did the great wardrobe swap over. Summer clothes now bagged up and vacuum sealed and autumn and winter jumpers getting an airing and iron.

I feel that I’ve had a super productive day with some great wins. Yay for Friday.

Great Customer Service

I have a BakedIn subscription whereby every month a green box arrives with some dry ingredients and a recipe card and with a few additions, enables me to create, usually, something that looks and tastes great.  Due to a recent change of bank card information my subscription renewal didn’t go through.  The first I realised was when I received an email saying that they were sorry that I hadn’t renewed my subscription but that I’d be welcome back any time.  No pressure, no fuss. I immediately went on to the site to renew my subscription and change the card information.

However, what I hadn’t noticed was that the date for the renewal to start was September 2021.  I saw the September date and thought that meant that was when the 6 months subscription expired.  Didn’t think any more of it.  Realised that I wouldn’t be getting the March box, so ordered that separately.  That arrived in the next couple of days, the bake was done and scoffed and all was right with the world.

Then I started to see people posting their April bakes on the group Facebook page.  I don’t recall getting the email to tell me what other ingredients I needed to buy.  Figured that it had got caught in the spam eliminator and that my green box would be arriving eventually.  As the days ticked on, I thought that I really should have had the box by now.  I emailed the company and attached a screen shot of my account details.  I explained what had happened about the card but that I thought I would have received April’s box.  Within a few hours I had a response telling me that the renewal start date was set to September so I wasn’t going to get anything until then, but if I wanted them to, they could reset it to start from May.  That would mean that I’d have to order April’s box separately, but they gave me a discount code so that the shipping would be free (usually £2.99).  I emailed back and said yes please to rearranging the renewal date and thanked them for the discount code.  I then got another response to confirm that everything had been updated and May’s box should arrived at the right time.

All of this was completed by email in the space of under 48 hours.  There was no hard push, there was no fault apportioned.  No fuss, no hassle. 

I have had cause to contact them before when one of my boxes had one of the bags of ingredients missing.  I did say that it wasn’t a problem as I had whatever it was in the cupboard anyway, so was able to continue with the bake, but thought that I’d better let them know in case there was a packaging problem and others may have had the same issue.  They contacted me back within an hour, apologising and said that they would send another complete box immediately.  I didn’t really want another box of that particular bake, but their speed of response and willingness to put things right without argument or creating a fuss is a fantastic example of what customer service should be.  It’s a shame many other organisations don’t behave similarly. 

If you want to get into baking, try new skills and recipes, then I thoroughly recommend BakedIn.  Something different every month.