MasterBaker... Everything You Didn't Know You Wanted To Know.

My name is Carla and my main priority in life is my little girl. Let's call her Wee-B.

When I lost my job almost a year ago I developed a nasty case of insomnia and worry-wortitis, dreadful afflictions both of them. On a regular basis my mind exists in a state of constant over-drive. With all this free time on my hands and financial worry on my plate, I had to find a way to silence the "helpful suggestions voices" that my mother, sisters, brothers, friends, family from far and wide had planted that competed for the soap box in my head with my own particularly loud and panicked voice. So I started cooking. And I cooked my little heart out from sun down to sun up and sporadically (I've been watching Clueless :D ) throughout the day. It wasn't until I came up with my addictive dulce buns that I decided to put my revived talent and wasted electricity to good use. The result... My sister the pervert, we call her Evil, dubbed my little company MasterBaker. And the rest, and all of it to come, is one tasty, sinful, food orgy!

I've been in to cooking since I was young. From 15 to 17 I worked in the kitchen of a restaurant my father designed, off and on during school breaks and weekends. I sacrificed liming (see Trini Speak link) with friends, parties and even vacations for sweaty hours enthusiasticall learning the basics from my Chef. The only way my parents were able to force me to make my confirmation was by promising me trips to the gourmet store on the way home from church. My daddy and I spent EVERY Sunday of life, to the day he died, with few Sunday misses, cooking for my family. Food means love in my life dictionary so what better way to love myself after the blow of job loss than to dive back in to the world of food?

Wee-B loves to cook and that makes me so happy! She's saving up for her very own Rachel Ray kid's knife set, complete with safety glove and blade saver! She makes awesome sauces and she's not in the slightest bit squeemish about the fact that the blue hairy crab that has been living in a pail in our bathroom is, this Sunday in fact, destined for a huge pot of kallaloo (again, Trini Speak) and I will be doing the killing (gulp!). She makes perfect, round arepas and sniffs herbs like Ewan McG (I LOVE this man!) sniffed powder in Trainspotting! She's is wonderful and amazing in so many ways and I absolutely adore our time together in the kitchen!

My approach to cooking is somewhat like a loaded and derailed freight train flailing headlong at a wall. I put "crap" in to "things" and don't tell people the secret ingredients until they've finished telling me how awesome said "thing" is. I enjoy making something out of nothing and I truely believe that as long as I have 12 or so eggs in my fridge we will never go hungry. We might get bored but hungry we will never be. Like any self respecting Trini I put pepper, in copius amounts, in EVERYTHING! One of my best sellers is my chocolate black or cayenne pepper pate au choux with a pepper jelly cream filling eclair. I'd put masala in most things given the chance and spice is my life! I prefer cooking sweet things but thats only because my sweet tEEth prefer sampling and adjusting things that tickle their fancy. I make the best flaky pastry now thanks to one courageous recipe from my hero, Pierre Herme and I loose my patience with macarons on a regular basis. When I cook, I curse. When I feed people, I smile. I'd burn almost everything I bake if I could because in my opinion, a good char is heaven.

If you want to contact me about any of my menus please email me at master.baker.barbados@gmail.com. Follow me on facebook. And please don't bark about my prices... If you don't want to pay what my labor is worth please buy a generic cake from your supermarket.

One last thing... I'm sure this is littered with really horrendous typos and grammatical errors but I'm really lazy when it comes to proof reading. You'd never guess I've been published! Gotta love editors!