Biscuits for the Bishop
Artisan baked biscuits to celebrate Bishop Stephen's Installation
Mitre shaped biscuits for Bishop Stephen's Installation
Over 2000 specially made biscuits were baked by artisan baker Andrew Auld to celebrate the Installation of Bishop Stephen Conway on Saturday 5th March.
Bishop Stephen had been the Deacon of the church that Andrew and Bridget Nichols, the Bishop’s Chaplain, had attended as students in Durham. So Bridget approached Andrew to ask if his small artisan bakery in Derbyshire would take on the challenge of baking over 2000 biscuits for the Bishop's Installation Day.
Andrew took on the challenge and starting researching ideas for the biscuits. Some of the biscuits were for the children and their accompanying adults following the Children’s Event in St Mary’s Ely where the children helped to prepare and dress Bishop Stephen for his Installation Service. For these biscuits Andrew chose to use St Nicholas as a design as he is often depicted as a Bishop and St Nicholas biscuits are a tradition of the low countries and some central European countries.
Andrew’s online search put him in touch with Carol Myers of the The Saint Nicholas Centre in Holland. Carol's help was invaluable and led him to Oldrich Kvapil in the Czech Republic, one of the few remaining reverse relief mould carvers in the world. Having sent them an image he was delighted to receive the completed mould just 10 days later, saying “It is perfect and quite beautiful. Such a privilege to be making use of wonderfully skilful hand trades like this wood carving”. It was quite an undertaking as each of the 280 biscuits were hand-cut.
Carol Myers also sent Andrew a mould in the shape of a Bishop’s mitre and even provided a recipe.
He used the mitre mould to bake the 2000 biscuits served in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral after the Installation Service. He then stayed up all night to bake his bread so that he could deliver the Bishop's Biscuits to the Cathedral on the Saturday morning.
See Andrew's blog about the biscuits.
