Pete Hammersmith actually stumbled into the life of a baker by accident. If he had not met Marianne during the fancy fair in a nearby town, he would never had met her father and so never have known the pleasure of being surrounded by the sweet smell of fresh bread very early in the morning. He loves throwing open the windows of his bakery, while everybody is still asleep, to let his dough rise in the fresh morning air while the heat of the oven scorches his back. When Marianne has sent their five children on their way to the St. Joseph Primary School of Miss July Lewisham and has embraced her husband in the warmth of the bakery, she goes into the shop and Pete to bed.

Then it is her turn to not only sell the bread made of course or fine corn, but to satisfy all the wishes of the connoisseurs of Bridbury: Pete makes real English muffins especially for Ann Biggin, the wife of the fire officer. When the ladies Jeanet Evans of the hat shop, Maggie Redbridge of the toyshop and Elisabeth Waynes, the dentist’s wife, meet in the afternoon to drink tea they always have Hammersmith's muffins with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

Pete en Marianne are particularly famed for their pastries, spongy cake with fruit or heavy iced cake. But the children of Bridbury press their noses up against the window of the bakery to stare longingly at the imaginative chocolate figures with coloured stripes of sugar. And….at the Hammersmith biscuits. These biscuits are addictive, even father Jessy Anthony Green of the local church is aware of this, he devours them by the boxful and has trouble resisting the temptation to have one more biscuit before the service....