A WEST SUSSEX BUSINESS
“The great thing about living in this area is that there are good links to London so I can visit the city for new clients and inspiration. But it’s rural as well, so I’ve got the best of both worlds.
“I think the countryside can be a very creative environment – there are lots of local artisan producers. I enjoy working in the garden – it keeps my mind fresh. I’m a country girl at heart and love being based on a farm.”
For many, chocolate is an ingredient to enthuse about, but for patissier and chocolatier Lucie Bennett her appreciation wasn’t instant. “It was a love that crept up on me over time – the more I worked with it, the more I liked it,” she says, swirling filling onto a freshly baked beetroot cake, the making of which has stained her fingers pink. Working out of her family home in the West Sussex countryside, Lucie makes use of local, seasonal produce – often from as nearby as her own garden, where she keeps a brood of hens and grows her own vegetables, fruit, berries and edible blooms – to create an array of delicacies as part of her award-winning business. With its Aga, well-worn table and high-beamed ceiling, the only hint that her workspace isn’t a typical farmhouse kitchen is the metallic catering oven whirring gently on the countertop and the cool marble slab, which provides the perfect surface for tempering chocolate. Though Lucie puts much of her success down to luck, you don’t have to spend much time in her company to realise that hard work has also played a major role. “I’m an early riser, so usually get up at half past five, then walk the mile from my flat in Henfield to my parents’ farm where I work,” she says. “I’ll sit down and read my emails and then go out to feed the chickens. If I’m baking for a wedding, I’m sometimes up until the early hours of the morning to make sure what I make is as fresh as possible before I deliver it.”
Lucie is meticulous about the wedding cakes she creates and, alongside her Young British Foodie Award, her proudest achievement is an elaborate ‘mountain’ cake she made for a bride and groom passionate about skiing: “The bride was a designer and wanted something original.” Inspired by snow-capped slopes, the cake combined salted caramel, dark chocolate, blueberry and lemon, raspberry and white chocolate tiers, supported by dowel rods and lashings of ganache. “Working with someone like that encourages you to be innovative, too,” she explains.
When she was growing up, her parents encouraged Lucie and her siblings to be passionate and curious about food. “My family has always been enthusiastic about cooking and where ingredients come from. I remember baking birthday cakes with my mum as a child,” she recalls. “My sister Alice is a chef now, so we bounce ideas off each other all the time, which is great because it often makes me think more creatively.”
Although introduced to baking at an early age, this wasn’t the career Lucie chose initially. It was only after two years spent at art college questioning whether she wanted to pursue a career in this area that she changed tack and enrolled in a patissier and chocolatier scholarship at Westminster Kingsway College: “My aunt told me about a course in London and just seeing the delicate pastries on the leaflet got me hooked.” While she was working towards the qualification, Lucie was encouraged to get industry experience in order to, in her words, “let you know what you’re letting yourself in for”.
After working for William Curley, one of the UK’S top patissiers and chocolatiers, Lucie returned home to West Sussex, giving herself Christmas off before starting her business aged 28: “I think when
you’re younger, people don’t take you as seriously as they should because they think you haven’t done very much. When I explain my back story and qualifications, they tend to look at me differently.” After uploading photos of homemade Easter eggs onto Facebook, Lucie’s early orders were mostly from family and friends. However, within a few months, a local shop got in touch and soon she was making florentines, chocolate cakes and biscuits for them every week: “I was lucky that I didn’t have to take out a loan, as I reinvested the money I earned.” As Lucie’s popularity gained momentum, she began to supply cakes to cafés, delis and farmers’ markets in nearby Shoreham and Hove: “Now my baking days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I’ll usually do decorations all day Tuesday. Sometimes I make up to 20 cakes a week.”
Whether it’s eggs from her Bluebell and Maran hens, berries from ‘Blueberry Bob’ down the road or vegetables grown in the garden, where pink-veined beetroot leaves are currently flourishing next to rows of flowering courgettes, provenance is a central part of Lucie’s business. “You can’t beat fresh ingredients – they’re key. I try to reduce my carbon footprint by using seasonal produce, so that means no strawberries in December,” she says, finishing off a cake with a sprinkling of crystalised orange strands. “I believe in supporting your local area and other small businesses. That’s what gives people confidence in your brand and what you’re doing.”