As you might know, the voice behind this blog is Simon Thomas’ daughter, Sian – while I don’t currently work in the family business (I spent my school holidays doing that and wanting to eat everything!), I do help out with the blog and social media. But my day to day job is at a Digital Marketing Agency in Ripon, Bronco. Today is Christmas Jumper Day with Save the Children UK (#ChristmasJumperDay) so we decided that we would team up to our bit to support the charity. Everyone at Bronco turned up to work today in various styles of Christmas jumpers (take a look here for some close ups and to read more about it!) and Thomas the Baker donated a few of our favourite Christmas treats in order to help raise some money for the charity – Mince Pies, Tipsy Imps and Christmas Truffles. Many people in the office donated a few pounds to get some tasty treats, and Hannah…

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We always have an especially busy run in the weeks before Christmas here at Thomas the Baker, and this year has been no different to usual. Alongside our old favourite Christmas products that fly off the shelves like the Mince Pies, Tipsy Imps and Truffles, this year we’ve added a few new hampers packed full with yummy Thomas the Baker festive goodies to our range. The Hampers range from the smallest which is priced at a very reasonable £16.50 up to a large one stuffed with every Christmas taste you can imagine at £75, with a few sizes in between. They are available to buy in our online store where you can get them delivered to your home for only £7 (no matter how many you order to that address, the delivery cost will always be £7!); you can pop into one of our stores and order one directly from there; or you can visit our own Helmsley Delicatessen and Butchers,…

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Are you a student or young person who regularly shops at Thomas the Baker? Whether you’re just grabbing your lunch during the day at college, stocking up on loaves for the week, or simply treating yourself to something sweet, our 5% discount is available to all children from 5 and upwards as well as students on production of a valid NUS or student card. The discount is available in all Thomas the Baker stores (find your nearest one here now) starting next week. It will not be applied to your purchases automatically, so you need to remember to ask for the discount on your shopping each time. There’s no catch, you don’t need to sign up for anything or jump through any hoops, simply ask for the discount in store. The student & young person discount is on trial until Christmas, and if it’s working successfully and enough people are using it, we’ll continue it from then on, so show your…

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We’ve got an exciting competition going on in our stores at the moment, giving our customers a chance to win one of hundreds of gingerbread persons that we’re giving away every single day as well as the grand prize, the brand new Kindle Fire HD 6! Unfortunately the giveaway isn’t open to our online customers, but all you need to do is visit any Thomas the Baker store (find your nearest one here) and purchase a pack of Halloween Novelty Biscuits, both the Spooky Bats and the Ghosts. Make sure you check the card inside the packaging as it will tell you whether you’re a lucky winner of a free Gingerbread Person, or even the finder of a Golden Ticket, meaning you’ve won the grand prize of a Kindle Fire HD 6. The gingerbread person can be redeemed there and then in the shop for you to enjoy! We’re also now on Twitter, so make sure to follow along with us on…

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We’ve recently been working on a couple of new recipes at Thomas the Baker that I’m especially excited about and have just released into the shops: a Triple Chocolate Cake and a Sticky Toffee Pudding. The Triple Chocolate Cake, as seen in the above picture, is a rich chocolate sponge cake containing dark Belgian chocolate chunks and topped with Belgian milk chocolate chips (these are my personal favourite ingredient in the bakery!); a generous slice of this is perfect with a cup of tea in the afternoon. It is available for only £2 in our shops. The Sticky Toffee Pudding is a super indulgent dessert; a luscious toffee pudding made with butter, dates and golden syrup, topped with lashings of our homemade sticky toffee sauce. This can be heated up in the microwave or in the oven following the instructions on the label for a taste of luxury in the evenings with a scoop of proper vanilla ice cream or…

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About a month ago, we mentioned that our Market Street shop in York would be having an Open Day to allow customers to get to know the team at the shop a bit more, to take part in a few competitions, to sample a few goodies, see our new product ranges and meet Gingy the Gingerbread Man. The Open Day took place on the 30th May and we had a fantastic time. Andy Bartlett and Steve Cockayne came down to York for the day, and they as well as the team at the Market Street shop met plenty of our customers and got to chat to them. As you can see above, Andy was handing out several samples including biscuits to those that came out for the day and balloons for our younger customers. He introduced a few of our most popular products, including the old favourites, as well as the latest range of ready meals, jams and preserves, puddings and frozen…

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We’ve been away for a little while on holiday, but we’re back and raring to go with an exciting event at our main York branch of Thomas the Baker, our Market Street store: a fantastic Open Day with the opportunity to get involved in various activities and try out a few samples of our favourite foods. As you can see above, we’ve recently installed a couple of new “Bakers” in our window which have been drawing plenty of attention. A competition to name the new Bakers and their mouse in the window which will be 50p per entry with all proceeds going to the Help for Heroes charity. The prizes for the chosen names at the end of the day will be a £50 Thomas the Baker hamper for each baker, and a £25 hamper for naming the mouse. Free samples will be available throughout the day. There will be free balloons and biscuits for children. “Gingy”, our lifesize Gingerbread…

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We chose the lucky winner to our competition over the weekend, so congratulations! But don’t worry if you weren’t lucky enough last time, because you’ve still got 5 more chances to win that box of 6 Artisan Bread Loaves, including 2 San Francisco Sour Doughs, 2 Brown Seeded Loaves and 2 Pain de Campagnes. Unfortunately last time there were some entries we had to disqualify for not playing by the rules: in order to enter, you must be subscribed to the blog via email (it’s easy to sign up by typing your email address into the box in the sidebar), otherwise none of your entries will count. So simply follow the instructions below, and good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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We’re back again featuring our Artisan bread range, and this time it’s with something more exciting than just a description of it – this time, you can get the opportunity to win a box of 6 loaves all for yourself, all at the click of a button! We wanted to be pretty generous and make sure that as many people as possible get a taste of our breads and spread the word about them, so we are offering 6 lucky winners the chance to win a box of 6 loaves each week for 6 weeks! That means that there are 36 loaves up for grabs to 6 people. As a reminder, the Artisan Bread Box that you’ll be up with a chance of winning is available to buy on our website here and includes 6 spectacular loaves: 2 San Francisco Sour Doughs, 2 Pain de Campagnes, and 2 Brown Seeded Loaves. For the next 6 weeks, we’ll be posting one competition each week here on…

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The other day I went through the new Artisan Bread range that we’d been hard at work developing recently. This range includes a chewy crusted San Francisco sour dough, a rustic French Pain de Campagne, and a yummy Brown Seeded Loaf. Each has its own unique charms and fantastic taste. And now you can try them no matter where you’re based in the UK, thanks to them being available in our Bake At Home range in our online store. In your Artisan Bread Box you’ll receive six loaves: two San Francisco sour doughs, two Pain de Campagnes and two Brown Seeded Loaves, all ready to be popped into your oven to be finished off freshly at home for an amazing price of £8.50. The breads can be frozen upon receipt to save for later or baked immediately. They are delivered with express next day delivery so that they are as fresh as can be. If you want to buy some…

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