Baker aiming to turn bored kids into budding bakers with free gingerbread

Published On Wednesday 27 Jan 2021 by Sticky Beak
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The owner of a family run bakery is aiming to cheer up its home schooling customers during the latest lockdown, with free tubs of gingerbread dough.

As the nation commits to stringent new Covid restrictions, David Stacey, MD of Derbyshire-based Stacey’s Bakery, is aiming to cheer up the locals by giving away free tubs of gingerbread dough with any online or click and collect purchase.

He said: “'We know a lot of our customers are once again ordering their baked goods from us via our website for either local delivery or to collect from any of our shops, so it makes sense to cheer people up with a spot of home baking of their own."“It alleviates the boredom, it brings the family together and it makes the house smell great. They’re brilliant fun to shape and decorate and they’re absolutely lovely to eat, so hopefully it’ll make a small difference.”

Stacey's Bakery, which has branches in Ilkeston’s South Street and Bath Street, as well as Eastwood and Heanor, bakes everything by hand to recipes that have been in the family since the early 1900s – and, having remained flexible for its customers during the first phase of restrictions, it is no stranger to helping out when the pandemic makes life difficult.

During the first lockdown in March 2020, it increased bread production threefold to take up the slack for empty supermarket shelves.

It then organised a home delivery service to get baked goods to elderly and vulnerable customers who were unable to visit the shops in person.

And it even set up an initiative to find and celebrate local Covid Community Heroes by awarding them with a month’s worth of free cake.

David has previously seen his famous gingerbread described by local MP, Maggie Throup, who called them “the best gingerbread men in the whole country” - so while he is happy to give away the dough, he’ll be keeping the recipe to himself.

He added: “We’ve been making these gingerbread men to a closely guarded recipe for more than a century now, so it’s more than my life’s worth to share the secrets behind it.

“But if giving away pots of our gingerbread dough helps alleviate the boredom, spread some smiles and perhaps even turn a few bored kids into budding bakers, it will all have been well worth the effort.”

For more information, visit www.staceys-bakery.co.uk