Baking is the in-thing, but it can be tricky. One woman who has got it right – and caught the eye of TV judges – is North Yorkshire baker Alex Franks. Ashley Barnard reports

DAILY baked bread, scones, cakes, quiches and pies, as well as tempting puds and patisserie make the Angel’s Share bakery a delight for the senses.

Now Alex Franks’ artisan bakery at The Station, Richmond, has caught the attention of TV judges to win her place in a regional final of culinary talent competition Britain’s Best Bakery on ITV, which launched in early January.

The show sees contestants from all over the country battle it out to win approval from judges Mich Turner MBE, cake maker to the stars, and award-winning chef and artisan baker Peter Sidwell. With the regional heats and finals out of the way, Alex and her bakery team have made it to the final week, starting Monday.

Alex, from Patrick Brompton, has run the Angel’s Share at The Station for six years and also had a successful deli in Darlington. Not content with baking, she also runs the Angel’s Share Pasta Shop next door – a homage to all things Italian, with sauces, pesto, home-made pasta and olive oils. She creates freshly cooked ready-meals that can be heated up at home, complete with salads and desert dishes.

Alex’s love of bread came from a year of living in Germany while studying a degree in German.

“In Germany, they love their bread and that really stayed with me,” she says. “After my degree, I worked in London in banking, but whenever I came home to North Yorkshire I would help my mum in her catering business.

“I slowly started doing more with her until I left banking altogether and joined the business catering for weddings and events – it gives you such a buzz and I worked just as hard and as long hours as I did in banking.”

Alex was pregnant with her first son, Louis, when she first looked into opening her business.

“I took it on when he was 11 weeks old, just before Christmas,” she says. “I still had another wedding to cater for in between Christmas and New Year, so it was very busy.”

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Alex hard at work in the bakeries kitchen

Along with her baker, Di Dinsdale, who does most of the bread, and her mum, Gillian Ives, Alex regularly concocts new bread recipes, with recent specials including a bonfire night loaf with baked beans and sausage, a lemon and dill bread, and a father’s day bread with sausage and brown sauce.

But her favourites are her classics – the Lancer rye loaf, a Richmondshire loaf, which is white with rye and polenta on top for a crispy finish, and the Brompton bread, made with buttermilk.

Her Cumberland ham, sage and apple pie is also a winner, drawing praise from the Britain’s Best Bakery judges in her first appearance on the show.

“The first task was to take in nine baked items that represented us. We took breads, patisserie and tarts and our speciality bake was the Cumberland pie,” says Alex. “We had previously won a Waitrose small producers’ award with that, so we already knew it was a winner, and it paid off. They were blown away with the pie, so I’m delighted we chose it. I think it was the bake that got us through to the next round.”

Alex says she and her team had watched the show last year but she didn’t think about entering until she got a call from producers of the programme asking her to consider having a go.

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Some of the breads they produce

“They rang us late in the day and I said I’d think about it, but wasn’t sure. I later told a colleague at The Station, just joking about it, and he said, well why don’t you give it a go?

“I thought about it and when the producers rang back, I said let’s go for it. I’m my own boss, so I don’t have anyone telling what to do, but I couldn’t think of the last time I did something that scared me, so I pushed myself.”

Alex says the experience of being on the show has been fascinating. She has enjoyed meeting other bakers from across the country and is very proud to be the last contestant standing from the North-East and North Yorkshire.

“It has been really exciting watching the past couple of days because I already knew who got through to the finals with us,” she says.

“The response to the show has been great – we have had people coming in telling us they watch every day, and even people from as far afield as Newcastle, York and Durham have been coming in after watching us. The final challenges were great fun to do, so I can’t wait to see them on the show this week.”

The Northern Echo:
The award-winning Cumberland pie