A crafty solution

IS there anything more welcoming than the smell of freshly baked scones? This is the aroma that greets me at Me & Mrs Fisher, a quirky café-cum-crafts store on Lord Mayor’s Walk.

The business has been running for a year – but proved to be a leap of faith for two York friends and busy mums, Liz Fisher and Hannah George-Roberts.

Neither had run a business before, let alone a café, but were persuaded to give it a go after a twist of fate.

Hannah takes up the story. “It seemed like a ridiculous idea, with six children between us and husbands who worked long hours and were often away. But I had a dream that we set up a café called Me & Mrs Fisher.”

The women spent 18 months researching their business and looking for the right premises before making the leap.

And what a leap. They landed the lease on the ‘Bile Beans shop’, the retail unit that sides on to the iconic Bile Beans sign at the junction of Lord Mayor’s Walk and Monkgate.

“The sign is listed, but the building isn’t,” says Liz, who adds that it works as a great signpost for potential customers.

On the ground floor is the café, selling home-made bakes as well as soup, paté and sarnies at lunchtime. It also stocks a colourful array of gifts by local crafts people.

Upstairs is a small haberdashery, Sunday Nest, run by another local, mum-of-three Jane Leach. She sells upmarket fabrics such as Vintage Liberty and Kokko, from Japan, as well as trims and finishing items. Jane also runs popular courses in the upstairs crafts room, including a sewing class for children on Saturday mornings.

Crafts and cakes live happily together in Me & Mrs Fisher. As well as being accomplished bakers (following the recipes of Mary Berry), they are skilled artisans too: Liz is a quilter while Hannah, who went to art college, loves hand sewing, embroidery and crochet.

On the ground-floor blackboard, the menu of the day is chalked up on the left, with upcoming crafts courses on the right. These include crochet and knitting classes for beginners and intermediates as well as a sewing workshop labeled “Can’t Even Sew A Button On”.

Encouragingly, the women all agree there is a home crafter in all of us. “You just have to find the thing you are good at,” says Liz.

Jane thinks the recession is the reason for a revival of interest in craft making. Liz says Kirstie Allsopp’s TV show has helped too, while Hannah points to celebrities knitting.

“For a long time, knitting, crocheting and sewing was seen as naff, but now it’s very fashionable,” says Jane.

The women report growing interest from young teens.

Hannah says: “We’ve had girls as young as 13 come in. They see a Jack Wills skirt for about £80 and realise they can buy some fabric and make one for about a tenner. I think it’s really savvy.”

In a typical day, Hannah and Liz will bake a batch of scones, 24 cupcakes, a layer cake and make a giant round of cheese scone to serve with soup at lunchtime. They also make tea-loaves, tiffins and flapjacks too, although their best seller is the sticky lemon slice, which they describe as “like a squished piece of lemon meringue pie”. I try a slab and agree with their description; it’s absolutely delicious too.

The café has a vintage feel, with a miss-match of chairs and tables – one kindly donated by local interior designer Peter Plaskitt. The colourful cupcakes are artfully presented in a wooden and glass haberdashery counter the women picked up on eBay for a song. The coffee machine was another great find, bought at auction for £35.

Coffee and tea is served in vintage china – even to children. Perhaps not surprisingly, Me & Mrs Fisher is family-friendly, with a story-reading session after school on Fridays (where Liz reads to the kids upstairs while mums have a coffee and cake in the café) and is a popular choice for children’s parties.

The women hosted their first engagement party recently and have been booked to organize an afternoon tea wedding reception.

They are excited too about an upcoming workshop by celebrated cross-stitch designer Emily Peacock, whose visit in July will be her first one to York.

“We will only have 20 tickets for that and it will be very popular,” says Hannah.

Recipe from Me & Mrs Fisher

Carrot cake

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 8ins cake tins.

Ingredients

10oz self raising flour
12oz caster sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3oz chopped walnuts
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
300ml vegetable oil
10oz grated carrots
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Method

Measure all the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Add the oil, grated carrots, eggs and vanilla extract and mix well. Pour into the prepared tins in equal amounts.

Bake for around 50-60 minutes or until the cake is well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes before turning out.

Leave to cool completely before icing.

Icing

Ingredients

6oz full fat soft cheese
2oz butter
6oz icing sugar
A few drops of lemon oil.

Method

Mix and soften the butter and soft cheese with the lemon oil. Gradually add the icing sugar until the texture is smooth.

If you using a food processor all the ingredients can be put in together and blitzed until smooth.

Remove paper from the cooled cakes and smooth the icing over, sandwiching the two together. Top with remaining icing and sprinkle with more chopped walnuts.

• Me & Mrs Fisher is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm. For more details about crafts courses visit: meandmrsfisher.co.uk

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