Here’s To Celebrating Women

This is the month to celebrate all the amazing women in our lives. It’s International Women’s Day on 8 March and Mother’s Day at the end of the month, and we toast all the mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and aunts, and all who love them, with cake! Our raspberry passionfruit cupcakes, or our pink buttercream cupcakes, to be specific. Or both! Buy a pack for the amazing woman in your life from Waitrose.

Another amazing woman, Fiona Cairns, began her business baking from her kitchen table 40 years ago and it has always been led by, and mostly staffed by, wonderful women. We love a bit of girl power! An especially fond HUZZAH! goes out to our redoubtable Mary Doody, who has been with us for 25 years when we were a small team of just 7 ladies. Mary began her FC career in October 1998 in the converted bakery (in an outbuilding) at Kishore and Fiona’s house. She then came to Fiona’s home kitchen to learn the craft of making sugar decorations - which she continues to do to this day! Mary has many fond memories of the early days, and remembers the new born lambs being brought up the shared drive by the farmer next door in Spring. The farmers’ wife often standing at the gate asking “Any spare cakes?!”.

Thankfully Spring is finally here and some of the best treats of the British produce year are about to arrive. While we wait for asparagus and wild garlic, though, let’s grab what we can of the sharply delicious – and utterly beautiful – early pink rhubarb that’s still around. Have you tried our Fiona Cairns rhubarb and ginger loaf cake? No? That’s because they’ve only just launched, but don’t leave it a second longer: grab yours from Ocado today. 

Talking of seconds, we change to BST on 30 March (yay! At last!) which is also the same Sunday, this year, as Mother’s Day. There’s no better reason to get your Mum an indulgently perfect millionaire loaf cake. We’ll say that again: MILLIONAIRE LOAF CAKE. Get on the phone right now to Ocado and order yours, to enjoy on these mercifully longer, lighter spring evenings.