MAXINE GORDON visits York's community café, where everyone Loves To Eat – and also to sing and sew…

IT’S mid-morning and the café is bustling with workmen ordering mugs of tea and fresh sarnies. One fella has downed tools and is browsing on his iPad.

In the kitchen, Elaine Bickle is decorating cupcakes; out front, Louise Brogan-Hewitt places trays of home-made quiche, frittata and pies in the glass fridge, ready for the lunch rush. The soup of the day is cauliflower and cheese. Coffees are made using the Love To Eat blend, especially roasted for the café by the York Coffee Emporium.

Welcome to Love To Eat, Louise’s café tucked away in a residential corner of York.

When the café opened in Moor Lane, Dringhouses, two years ago, Louise hoped it would become a focal point for the local community.

Louise said: “I wanted the café to be out of the city centre. I wanted local trade rather than tourist trade and I wanted to get to know my customers’ names and put on events to support the community.”

Her hopes have been more than realised. Today, the café not only has its regular trade, but offers a community space for local groups such as a weekly sewing group (Sew Chatty, every Thursday from 10am-11.30am). There’s also a monthly cake club and a community choir was established at Christmas. A carol concert at the café just before Christmas raised more than £200 for the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The charity was chosen by Louise; she lost her dad, Roy, to heart disease last May.

This year, she’d like to put together a charity calendar for the BHF featuring some of the amazing cakes presented at Cake Club every month.

Around 15 people regularly attend Cake Club, who all bake to a pre-set theme each session.

“We’ve done retro, chocolate, and Jubilee themes,” explained Louise. “People come and display their cakes on the tables, then we share them out and pick a winner.” Admission is a fiver, which includes tea, coffee, and – of course – lots of cake!

Coming soon is the bookable Sunday brunch. It starts on February 17 and, for £9.99, diners can choose a selection of brunch options and enjoy a glass of Bucks Fizz and tea or coffee as well as pre-order their favourite newspaper.

The tables will be dressed in a romantic vintage style with candles and flowers, says Louise. She adds: “I’m hoping to run it once a month and hold two sittings.”

Louise, 31, set up Love To Eat originally as an outside catering business five years ago, soon after moving to York, with the help of a grant from The Prince’s Trust.

Originally from Lancashire, Louise studied hospitality and business management at university. She has previously worked front of house at Meltons in York and at the Red Lion at Knapton.

Louise now has two staff; Elaine and a second part-timer, Emma Watson. The team also provides an outside catering service as well as making food and cakes to order.

In the café, a massive blackboard, headlined Love To Plan, has been erected to chalk up events for 2013. So far, a gift-making workshop has been pencilled in for early February ahead of St Valentine’s Day.

Louise also showcases local artists in the café and sells a selection of retro china, kids’ toys, posters and second-hand cookery books. There are some kitsch tea cosies and aprons for sale too, again made in York.

Oh, and all the furniture, a mix and match of second-hand wooden tables, chairs and dressers, is for sale too.

Louise believed she opened the café at just the right time, catching a rising wave of interest in all things home-made.

“People are going back to their roots; home-made cakes, up-cycled furniture; learning to sew and picking up old-fashioned skills,” said Louise. “They can learn them here, then take them home with them.”

• Love To Eat, 52 Moor Lane, York. Phone: 01904 778880. Open Tuesday to Friday, 9am-5pm; Saturdays, 9am-4pm.
Follow on Facebook at facebook.com/lovetoeat and twitter @welovetoeat

 

Love To Eat cupcakes recipe

For 8 cupcakes you will need:

120g softened butter
120g caster sugar
2 medium-sized eggs
120g self-raising flour
1 tsp of good-quality vanilla extract
8 cupcake/muffin cases

For butter cream:

250g softened butter
300g icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract

What you need to do: Cupcakes Beat it: Butter and sugar in a bowl Whisk it: Vanilla extract and eggs into a jug Sieve it: Flour into a separate bowl Mix it: 2 tbsp of flour and 1/3 of egg mix into the sugar and butter mix. Repeat until all egg mix has gone. Then fold in the rest of the flour, until it's just mixed in, don't over mix.

Measure it: 1 heaped tbsp of cake mix into each cup-cake case, in a muffin tin.

Bake it: In the oven (160 degrees centigrade) and cook for 15 min, until lightly golden and firm to touch. Remove from oven, keep in muffin tin for ten minutes to stand, then take out and cool completely on wire rack.

Butter cream Beat it: Butter until soft

Sieve it: Icing sugar into the butter, beating well as you go, until all icing sugar has been added.

Add it: ½ tsp of vanilla to mix

Pipe it: Add butter cream to piping bag with big nozzle and swirl on top of cupcakes

Decorate it: Get creative, use sprinkles, chocolate and glitter to your swirls.

Finally: Love To Eat it!