Audlem WI – A Censored Tour of Roberts Bakery

Due to the fact that I have a solid academic training background, I can now write hundreds of words on any topic without possessing a shred of accurate information. Audlem WI usually allow my random rantings to be published, after all better the enemy you know, however I am sad to report that I have been censored!

Before any of the WI ladies had even alighted from their cars, a cri de coeur went out that no photos were to be taken of any of our members touring around the bakery in hair nets! Surely if it was good enough for Ena Sharples, it was good enough for us? Normally I would ignore such pathetic pleas, as for a woman to appear glamorous, she merely has to stand still and look natural even though this usually requires quite a heavy amount of make up at our age. How could a hair net and white coat, complete with black sturdy safety boots detract from this?

Reluctantly I took a selfie, after all my hairstyle is called 'I tried', and to hell with the consequences! Print and be damned I say!

And so it came to pass that a motley crew of ten WI members gathered together anticipating the culinary delights of a bakery tour after passing muster by filling in a stringent set of hygiene questions which included removal of all jewellery including crowns and sceptres, no perfume, no nail varnish, no false eyelashes and no walking sticks!

We were given black safety boots, red hair nets and jackets, so that should we accidentally fall into a vat of dough, we could be spotted, (the blue ones were for the staff, they leave employees in there for added taste) before finally being allowed to follow a handsome young man named Steven who was to be our tour guide.

One of the best parts of growing older is that you can flirt all you like since you have become harmless and as you can imagine ten ladies in the prime of their lives, being invited to follow an Adonis-like Steven led to much fluttering of eye lashes, however we all agreed that the hair nets were a bit of a passion killer!

The smell of good bread baking is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.

The sight of small balls of dough being weighed, kneaded, proven, shaped, thrown into tins, baked, sliced and packaged was a sight to behold. As we moved from one area to another we marveled at the accuracy and speed of each process. Each dough ball is weighed, it has to be more than the finished loaf to allow for shrinkage, and at each stage if the product doesn't reach a certain standard it is thrown out by the machine!

Unfortunately, one of our members, eager to be the first to reach Steven, stepped on a weighing machine, so the employees are probably wondering where the odd few stone of bread loaves have disappeared to!

Together we are a powerful group, the mere question of what happens if the slices stick together before packaging caused the whole production line to stop as several slices landed at our feet. We swiftly moved on, I suspect they were glad to see us leave struggling along with our free samples of loaves!

Back at the meeting room, we were given a fresh set of jackets and hair nets – no cross contamination here – before setting off once more with an enchanting lady named Shirley to view the delights of 'The Little Treats' production line.

As we traversed yet another set of stairs, an employee appeared with a huge, protruding stomach. This was not a good sign we thought, how much of the produce actually reaches the shops? Any of our doubts were quelled as Shirley explained that the lady's baby was due next week!

Now cakes and buns are a WI's area of expertise. Just think of the beautifully positioned buns and cakes used on our calendars, however Little Treats was all about biscuits, which definitely wouldn't cover very much at all unless you looked like Twiggy in her modelling days.

From the delightfully delicious Gingerbread men to dependable, hunger stopping Giant Bourbons and Custard Creams to delicately decorated characterful iced biscuits, Shirley was passionate about the creation of sweet little biscuits in every shape and form.

You may need to skip the next bit as it will lead to disillusionment, we were also informed that many stores who have in store bakeries, do not actually bake their products as Little Treats send them en masse and the bakery merely packages them into individual logo bags.

Although I have been known to pass off a Waitrose cake as homemade, I felt a sense of utter betrayal at this knowledge and had to sit down close to a box of frog shaped biscuits to recover.

Now the icing on the cake, quite literally, was a machine that adds eyes, hair, clothes etc to each novelty biscuit, once a time-consuming process done by hand. We also watched agog as cornflakes and chocolate were mixed together, processed and finally out came chocolate clusters galore, which were immediately packed into see through plastic boxes.

The speed of counting and packing 20 cornflake clusters by hand was amazing. They must do it in their sleep!

Finally, we returned to the meeting room, stripped off all of our clothes – a sight worth seeing – and settled down to hear a potted history of Roberts Bakery and how it has developed and grown.

As we left the bakery, we were each given a doggy bag of goodies after an informative and enlightening afternoon and we set of merrily homeward, ready to devour our toasted tea cakes, bourbon biscuits and custard creams – giant sized of course!

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