‘Baking was sort of a daily thing’
IMOGEN MCGUCKIN meets the globe-trotting artist owner of Arty Bakes and Nutty Ideas cafe
BAth gained a splash of colour this summer, when an exciting new cafe opened its doors in Bloomfield Park. Arty Bakes and Nutty Ideas was the brainchild of Emma trenchard - a Vespa-riding, cake-baking artist, who travelled all over the world before settling in Bath.
She had “never baked a thing” before lockdown, but now her gluten-free and vegan treats are reeling in punters from Bear Flat and beyond.
The 30-year-old said: “I just discovered baking during lockdown. When I was doing art, I was working to a deadline months in the future and I’ve always been quite a last-minute person.
“Baking was a sort of daily thing I could do and now I wake up at 3am and start making things.
“I tend to look at recipes and then swap almost everything. I’m quite experimental.
“I hadn’t realised I was making gluten-free things, but I think things just taste better with ground-up nuts instead of flour.”
Now, nearly all of Emma’s “arty bakes” are sugar-free and vegan, as well as containing no gluten.
She also makes sculpture cakes, an activity which sprang naturally from her love of art.
“Because I’m an artist, I’ve always made sculptures so it was really fun trying to work out how to make them edible.
“I make them out of chocolate and marzipan, and I guess that’s why I called it Arty Bakes.
“Then I started these postal boxes during lockdown and people could post them off with personal messages.
“The online thing was good at the beginning because it was so new, but then I found I was quite missing being around people,” Emma said.
In fact, being in lockdown was a real change for the artist, who spent two years after university travelling across the globe on her Vespa, named Grettle.
She left England and headed east, “passing through all the ‘stans”, until she was offered a job as an English and art teacher in Mongolia.
That was where she met Molly, a little street-dog who had been badly injured and rescued by the Lucky Paws charity.
It was love at first sight, and when Emma finally returned to England just in time for her brother’s wedding, she brought Molly with her, on Grettle’s back seat.
It’s no surprise then that starting a cafe in Bloomfield Park was small fry after Emma’s 30,000km adventure.
She found the cafe for free on Gumtree and - of course painted it herself to bring a pop of colour to the green space.
Now locals, visitors and tourists alike flock to try her arty bakes, washed down by a coffee from her old-school whistling kettle.
I have only ever tried glutenfree baking once before, so when I nibbled a corner off Emma’s speciality brownie, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The result was a rich, moist and delicious mix of almonds, sultanas and walnuts.
Unlike other brownies I’ve tried, this tasty treat didn’t become sickening halfway through and paired well with Emma’s coffee.
As winter draws in, evercheerful artist Emma hopes to turn her hand to making a “soup of the day” and writing a book about her travels.