Yesterday was unacceptable weather for 1st June. I had an early-morning sense-of-humour-failure after getting drenched on my bike.

Fortunately, my day then took a turn for the better. I got to spend it with the woman ‘with the best job in the world’. This comment came from my colleague Anna. And, when you consider Anna’s a jacket designer – which, for my money, is up there among the coolest jobs – that is high praise indeed.

The woman with this ideal job is Claire and she runs a bakery called Violet.

She has had a cake stall on Broadway market for years and has recently opened a delightful café-cum-shop on Wilton Way.

The shop is decked out with loads of great equipment.

I’ve got a fetish for cooking utensils so I admittedly took more photos than is strictly necessary.

There were loads of delicious cakes temptingly knocking around on various table-tops too. The smell was divine.

The huge bags of sugar were a reminder (not to eat too many cakes of course! – but also) that baking is, in fact, labour-intensive.

Baking is not just about sitting around eating tasty concoctions. On which note, Claire also went to the trouble of making us a delicious lunch.

But the day wasn’t only about eating. The main purpose was a photoshoot. This October, Square Peg are launching The Whoopie Pie Book. Whoopie pies are basically the new cupcake. Originally from America, they are baking’s latest trend. As The Times puts it, ‘The cupcake is dead. Long live the whoopie!’ The irresistible recipes in our book include vanilla bean and chocolate, clotted cream and strawberry essence, Valhrona with espresso buttercream. Mmm. And they look like this:

For the shoot, first Claire took the whoopies out of the oven.

Next she assembled them.

Then we selected which props to use

Then Colin, the photographer, got on with the complex job of photographing them to their best adventage.

Finally, when we had all the photos we needed, Claire gave me a box of whoopies to take into work. I hopped back on my bike and promptly got soaked. But this time I stayed chipper, thanks to warming notion of the whoopies in my bag from Claire-with-the-best-job-in-the-world. 

The Whoopie Pie Book will be available from Square Peg in October 2010.