Meet Catherine

My pastry chef journey started at Gateshead College where I did my first formal training as a chef. I knew I wanted to specialise in patisserie; and so after college I was very lucky to be offered a job as a pastry chef at The Ritz Hotel in London. Alongside a large team of superb pastry chefs I assisted in producing 400 afternoon teas a day! I also worked in the restaurant creating and plating beautiful desserts. This experience helped open up my eyes to the wonderful world of interesting ingredients and amazing suppliers. And now this is what I use as the basis for creating my own recipes.

 

 

After four years in London I decided to head back to more Northern parts and was offered a job at Bettys Cookery School in Harrogate. I had grown up with many trips to Bettys in York, so to work at their cookery school was such a delight. I assisted in teaching cookery and baking classes and learnt a great deal myself too. I also ate a lot of Fat Rascals...

 

 

Missing the buzz of a restaurant kitchen I then moved to The Alice Hawthorn hotel nestled in the incredibly pretty village of Nun Monkton just outside York. Working with a fabulous team, using the finest Yorkshire produce, I headed up the pastry section creating their desserts, petit fours and room amenities.

 

As we all know, the pandemic was a very uncertain time for hospitality. I was put on furlough which gave me a lot of thinking time!

 

I decided to move back to the North East and set up a home based baking business which allowed me to sell my cakes online and deliver during lockdown. Once out of lockdown I took my cakes to food markets and also hosted afternoon tea pop up events and cake decorating classes.

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In 2023 an opportunity arose to work for the Doxford Group in Northumberland as the pastry chef at their brand new hotel - The Tempus. I decided to take this position up and now I create their restaurant desserts and The Tempus afternoon tea.

 

 

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