It seems like Christmas is just around the corner, especially since everyone seemed to have their decorations up by the 1st December and had their gifts bought months in advance. But don’t worry if you’re not quite there with all the presents and food planning yet (we’re not!), as you’re not too late for Christmas with Thomas the Baker just yet! Are you planning a last minute Christmas party for your friends and family but don’t want the hassle of catering it all by yourself? We can help! Our fantastic range of Party Platters will see you through every Christmas and New Year celebration, plus we’ve got a handy discount code which will get you 5% off ALL of our platters! We kept this a secret in our newsletter for a few weeks, but if you’ve missed out on that, tap in the code XmasPlatter5 during the checkout process for 5% OFF your total order. The discount is available to…

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Last year saw the Tour De France passing through Yorkshire and cycling fever ran riot. We’re nothing if not proud of our home county of North Yorkshire, so we’re very excited that the cycle race is returning again this year as the Tour de Yorkshire, even more so that a number of our shops and even our bakery will see the Tour passing by their front doors. Check out the route that the cyclists will be taking on the Biking Yorkshire site created by Blue Chip Holidays, and make sure you click onto Stage 3 and Helmsley to spot us making a little feature in the fact box! If anyone can name all the towns and villages that the tour will head through that are home to one of our Thomas the Baker stores, we’ll be very impressed! Have a look at our store list here for a few hints. In celebration of the event, we’ve put our best icers…

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  Phew, we just keep getting busier and busier over here at Thomas the Baker! Well, it’s to be expected in the run up to Halloween and Christmas – did you know that by the time you’re just starting to think about Christmas around now, we’ve already got your Christmas puddings and cakes in production? Anyway, spot that lovely lady in above? That’s my sister Beth, according to the press release that’s gone out to the news this week, the “smart cookie” who is the brains behind the business (no one told me!). She’s been hard at work in the Confectionary department of the bakery recently helping to develop a few new products especially for her favourite time of year, Halloween, including these four handcrafted designs on shortbread biscuits that we’re calling “Spcookies”! The four ghoulish designs are a mummified monster, spooky skull, petrifying pumpkin and a Munster. But they’re not all we’re throwing into the ring for Halloween…after we…

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We’ve been so busy over at Thomas the Baker, creating new products while still keeping the old favourites just as good as ever, that we haven’t had much time to keep up with this blog! Nevertheless, we’ve got a new product hot on the shelves at the moment that we just had to share you with you while it’s still brand new: the Helmsley Plum Loaf. I was lucky enough to be able to sample this while it was still in production a couple of months ago and was definitely taken aback by it. While in the past I’ve never been a big fan of sweet loaves, apparently I am now, particularly with this plum bread! I’ve found it’s perfect to have as a snack any of time of the day, but my favourite ways to have it are as a tasty breakfast instead of a piece of buttered toast, or after a meal when you’re wanting something sweet but…

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We always have an especially busy run in the weeks before Christmas here at Thomas the Baker, and this year has been no different to usual. Alongside our old favourite Christmas products that fly off the shelves like the Mince Pies, Tipsy Imps and Truffles, this year we’ve added a few new hampers packed full with yummy Thomas the Baker festive goodies to our range. The Hampers range from the smallest which is priced at a very reasonable £16.50 up to a large one stuffed with every Christmas taste you can imagine at £75, with a few sizes in between. They are available to buy in our online store where you can get them delivered to your home for only £7 (no matter how many you order to that address, the delivery cost will always be £7!); you can pop into one of our stores and order one directly from there; or you can visit our own Helmsley Delicatessen and Butchers,…

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We’ve recently been working on a couple of new recipes at Thomas the Baker that I’m especially excited about and have just released into the shops: a Triple Chocolate Cake and a Sticky Toffee Pudding. The Triple Chocolate Cake, as seen in the above picture, is a rich chocolate sponge cake containing dark Belgian chocolate chunks and topped with Belgian milk chocolate chips (these are my personal favourite ingredient in the bakery!); a generous slice of this is perfect with a cup of tea in the afternoon. It is available for only £2 in our shops. The Sticky Toffee Pudding is a super indulgent dessert; a luscious toffee pudding made with butter, dates and golden syrup, topped with lashings of our homemade sticky toffee sauce. This can be heated up in the microwave or in the oven following the instructions on the label for a taste of luxury in the evenings with a scoop of proper vanilla ice cream or…

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We chose the lucky winner to our competition over the weekend, so congratulations! But don’t worry if you weren’t lucky enough last time, because you’ve still got 5 more chances to win that box of 6 Artisan Bread Loaves, including 2 San Francisco Sour Doughs, 2 Brown Seeded Loaves and 2 Pain de Campagnes. Unfortunately last time there were some entries we had to disqualify for not playing by the rules: in order to enter, you must be subscribed to the blog via email (it’s easy to sign up by typing your email address into the box in the sidebar), otherwise none of your entries will count. So simply follow the instructions below, and good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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We’re back again featuring our Artisan bread range, and this time it’s with something more exciting than just a description of it – this time, you can get the opportunity to win a box of 6 loaves all for yourself, all at the click of a button! We wanted to be pretty generous and make sure that as many people as possible get a taste of our breads and spread the word about them, so we are offering 6 lucky winners the chance to win a box of 6 loaves each week for 6 weeks! That means that there are 36 loaves up for grabs to 6 people. As a reminder, the Artisan Bread Box that you’ll be up with a chance of winning is available to buy on our website here and includes 6 spectacular loaves: 2 San Francisco Sour Doughs, 2 Pain de Campagnes, and 2 Brown Seeded Loaves. For the next 6 weeks, we’ll be posting one competition each week here on…

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The other day I went through the new Artisan Bread range that we’d been hard at work developing recently. This range includes a chewy crusted San Francisco sour dough, a rustic French Pain de Campagne, and a yummy Brown Seeded Loaf. Each has its own unique charms and fantastic taste. And now you can try them no matter where you’re based in the UK, thanks to them being available in our Bake At Home range in our online store. In your Artisan Bread Box you’ll receive six loaves: two San Francisco sour doughs, two Pain de Campagnes and two Brown Seeded Loaves, all ready to be popped into your oven to be finished off freshly at home for an amazing price of £8.50. The breads can be frozen upon receipt to save for later or baked immediately. They are delivered with express next day delivery so that they are as fresh as can be. If you want to buy some…

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I hinted to you about the possibility of Thomas the Baker starting to offer Soup Pots in the near future in my post to do with Porridge Pots, and fortunately they’ve passed the all important taste test, so starting tomorrow, there will be freshly made tomato soup available in these handy little pots in our shops. The soup is homemade (check with my mum to find out the mess my dad has been making in her kitchen while coming up with the recipe!) with fresh garden vegetables including onion, carrot, celery, tomatoes and zingy basil. The soup can be bought in these pots chilled in the shop  for £1.25 to eat at home or heat up in your office for your lunch later, or you can ask for it to be heated up in most of our shops with a white or brown softy roll to be eaten on the go for £1.65. I know sometimes on my lunch break…

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