Pepper's Cottage Bakery

13/08/2024

21/05/2024

As they say all good things come to an end…

After next month Pepper’s Cottage Bakery will no longer be attending Wirksworth Farmers’ Market.

Stevie P is celebrating his 66th Birthday this week and is therefore semi retiring! 🎉 We have loved running our stalls and building friendships with customers and stall holders alike and would like to give a huge thank you to all our customers, family and friends for their fantastic support during the time we have stood the markets.

Our finale is the Farmers’ Market on Saturday 1st June 2024 and we look forward to seeing you there if you can make it! Love the Pepper’s Team 🥧

19/05/2024

Here at Pepper’s Cottage Bakery we’re proud to be fourth generation market traders. Albert was trading on Wirksworth Market throughout the 1950’s, his daughter Dorothy assisting him. Dorothy’s son, Steve followed in his footsteps setting up our weekly bakery stall alongside his daughter Laura in 2017 (with Dorothy lending a hand serving too!) later joined by his other daughter Marie at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market.
What an honour it is to have four generations of the same family standing markets in Wirksworth.



- Photo from left to right: Dorothy, Steve, Marie and Laura

- Photo of Albert with his stall on Derby market

30/03/2024

Steve’s School of Baking Episode 2 part 1 - Hot Cross Buns

27/03/2024

Have you tried our Award-Winning Steak & Cheddar Pie? We’ve been baking them for a while now and they seem to be increasing in popularity which is grate!

They’ll be available at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market on Saturday 6th April for £4.50 each

10/03/2024

🏆🥧The British Pie Awards! 🥧 🏆
It’s our fifth year entering and fifth year being invited to the winners lunch! Results for 2024 are as followed:

Highly Commended/Reserve winner: Mushroom, Red Wine & Thyme Pie, Bramley Apple Pie

🥉- Steak & Potato Pie, Steak Pie, Steak & Stilton Pie, Steak & Mushy Pea Pie, Red Cherry Pie, Steak & Kidney Pie

We were unsure whether or not to post this but so many of our customers have asked us what happened, we wanted to let you know! There was a mix up and confusion with the scoring of some of our pies at The British Pie Awards 2023, which took some time to sort out. This has been since resolved and it seemed a shame to not share the outcome!

Therefore, Pepper’s Cottage Bakery are de-pie’ted to announce that we were awarded 13 Awards at The British Pie Awards 2023. Our biggest haul yet! 5 of our Pies were awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in their category putting them in the top 3 in Britain!

The awards are:

Highly Commended: Steak & Kidney, Red Cherry Pie, Steak & Mushy Pea, Steak & Potato, Steak in Red Wine & Redcurrant Gravy

🥈- Mushroom, Red Wine & Thyme Pie, Bramley Apple Pie, Steak & Cheddar Pie

🥉- Mince Pie, Peppered Steak Pie, Steak & Artisan Ale Pie Steak & Stilton Pie, Chicken & Mushroom Pie

We couldn’t do what we do without our fantastic Team of Bakers and our local suppliers for the highest-quality ingredients E W Coates Butchers, D & J Fruits, and Field Farm Eggs Ltd 🍺 🥩🥕

Pictured is Stevie P and The Baker Girls at the British Pie Awards 2023 with some of the certificates, and Stevie P, Baker Girl #1 and Rosie at the British Pie Awards 2024

26/02/2024

I know some of you lovely customers like our compete list of products to write your shopping lists before you come to our stall! So here is our product list for Wirksworth Farmers’ Market on Saturday 2nd March 2024 - our Easter special🐣🥧

25/02/2024

Did you know this year will mark 50 years of Steve baking bread?! 😮 He started baking bread in 1974 at Hayes Bakery before he moved onto Howard’s Bakery then setting up his own - Pepper’s.

Here we have Stevie P manning one of our stalls at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market, Stevie P and The Baker Girls bake our bread fresh the morning of the market. He loves passing on his trade to the girls, our next generation of bakers!

Our loaves are next available on Saturday 2nd March at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market, £1.80 for white, £2 for brown 🍞

25/11/2023

Back with a banger…we’ll have our sought after Pigs in Blanket Sausage Rolls at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market on Saturday 2nd December for £3 each. It’s your last chance to get them before Christmas, pop them in the freezer for the festive season…if they last that long! 🐷

23/11/2023

We’ve had some requests for our list of products that will be available on our Christmas Market stall, so here is the full list! We’ll be at Wirksworth Farmers' Market on Saturday 2nd December with lots of lovely goodies including Mince Pies, Festive Meat Pies and everything else 🥧 🎄🤶🎅

✨We’re not taking pre-orders for the Christmas market this year, however we will have lots available on the day✨

26/07/2023

Well, we all need a break sometimes! We’re giving all our fantastic team a summer holiday ☀️ As such, we will not be having our market stall at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market in AUGUST. Thank you for your support as always, hopefully see you in September!

31/03/2023

We’re getting ready for Easter here at Pepper’s Cottage Bakery! 🐣🪺 We’ll be there this Saturday 1st April at Wirksworth Farmers’ Market with our Traditional Hot Cross Buns in aBUNdance, available for £1 each!

Just to let you know, we’re not attending the Farmers’ Market on Saturday 6th May due to the Coronation so now is the time to stock up your freezer for the month!

Wishing you all a very Hoppy Easter from all the team at Pepper’s 👩‍🍳 👨‍🍳

#

17/03/2023

Exciting times for us at Pepper’s Cottage Bakery as we entered The British Pie Awards 2023! Here is Stevie P and Baker Girl #1 in Melton Mowbray after their journey from the Derbyshire Dales to deliver the entries. This is the moment (as you can tell by Stevie P’s relaxed stance!) that you think nothing more can be done, it’s down to the judges! We’re finding that each year we enter (it’s our fourth year) it gets less daunting, although the anticipation waiting to see if we’ve been invited to the Awards Lunch stays strong!

More updates to follow soon…

20/01/2023

🥧PRE-ORDERS UPDATE🥧

As you know, the Baker Girls officially launched the pre-order system in October 2020 as part of our Covid-19 measures. This has been highly successful, and they have built it up to include an email mailing list, monthly product updates and more. You lovely customers have supported this so faithfully and we are forever grateful for this.

As they say though, all good things must come to an end. As mentioned in our previous post, Baker Girl #2 is no longer working at Pepper's Cottage Bakery aside from her monthly guest appearance at the Farmers' Market. This means we have had to make some changes now our circumstances have altered.

From now on we are unable to provide our pre-order system; it isn't sustainable for Baker Girl #1 to continue single handily without her sidekick, which we are sure you will all understand! Don't fear though, you will still be able to purchase your pies and bakery products monthly at Wirksworth Farmers' Market. We will have lots to choose from but you might want to get there early because once its gone, its gone! 😉 🥧

13/01/2023

Here we have our lovely team at Pepper’s! We are so fortunate to work with such a fab team who put in so much. This is our Christmas meal with Stevie P, Anne, The Baker Girls, Marie, Rosie and George. We couldn’t churn out so many pies and products without the work and support of the whole team, a family bakery with a bakery family ❤️

We have to keep this low key as she doesn’t like the limelight but we couldn’t let the opportunity pass us by to acknowledge how proud we are of Baker Girl #2- Sophie who has started a new graduate role. She has worked so hard studying alongside her work in the bakery and we shall miss her greatly. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear you will still be able to see her monthly at the Farmers' Market. As we will no longer have both Baker Girls working in the Cottage Bakery on a weekly basis we will have to make some changes accordingly which we will update you on in due course, don't fear though, the show will go on! 💃 🥧

03/01/2023

Well, we can't believe it's been over a year since The Baker Girls graduated from University! A lot of our lovely customers frequently ask how the girls are getting on with their studies, so we thought it was time for an update. Over the last 5 years the Baker Girls have studied for an honours degree in Law and are now studying for their masters degrees which they finish this year! 👩‍🎓👩‍🎓

Throughout these years at University, the girls have diligently attended lectures after pie making shifts, responded to customer messages on their days off and established and ran our pre-order system when we reopened after the Lockdown. We know how much hard work the Baker Girls have done in the bakery alongside their studies and still gained their top qualifications. We are very proud and grateful for their commitment to the Cottage Bakery to keep our customers stocked with pies and bakery goods and we would like to say a big thank you to them for all they have done.

Best wishes,
Stevie P and Anne ###

29/12/2022

Well that’s it for another year🥧 Hope all our lovely customers have had a Merry Christmas and we wish you all a Happy New Year. Thank you all for your custom throughout 2022, we never take your ongoing support for granted.

Just a reminder we are NOT attending the January Wirksworth Farmers’ Market to give you all a chance to eat through your freezer stash and to give our team a well deserved break👩‍🍳

If you think you’ll have withdrawal symptoms throughout January then you can purchase our pies as a meal from The Rising Sun Middleton, The Miner’s Arms Brassington, The Bridge Inn, and Parks Inn Buxton🥧

Looking forward to seeing you all back in February if you can make it!