大象传媒

When Franz MacFarlane takes five of his cakes on a train up for Waitrose's central buyer to try he won't be a million miles away from the children's听home where he first learned to bake.

But the journey from the children's home in Guildford to the supermarket's headquarters in Bracknell听 - via London and Plymouth - has been an interesting one which has always had baking at its heart.

Franz is making the trip from his Plymouth bakery to Bracknell听with a box of his eponymous Franzipans - pastries filled with almond and jam - in the hope that the supermarket will decide to stock them.

Franz hopes Waitrose will stock his pastries

They already have quite a reputation in Plymouth with one caf茅 in the city ordering five a day for one particularly ardent fan.

He telephoned Waitrose's central buyer who told him to send some up in box for her to try at the end of March 2009.

"But I said no - if they come I come - and she said: "Why?".

"And I said because a box can't talk; when it comes I come."

But he can't hang around in Surrey for too long because he has a private party in Plymouth to sort out that night in his other incarnation as a DJ - playing mainly soul music.

"I've got a private party and other shenanigans to sort so I've got to be back!"

The seemingly incompatible late nights of the DJ combined with the notoriously early starts of the baker seem to suit Franz - who doesn't look anything close to his 53 years.

Having grown up in east London he looks back with gratitude on the decision to take him into care at the age of 10.

"It was the best thing that could have happened to me," he says. "It saved me and it's where I learned to bake."

When he left the home at 16 he was sorted out with a job in听a London restaurant and then followed a series of jobs in the trade -听 always creating patisserie and puddings.

He had been to Plymouth once听and remembered staying at the Holiday Inn and looking out over the sea.

"So when I hit a few problems I thought "Plymouth - why not"?

That was in 1996 and about five years ago he set up his business - La Patisserie Franzaise - first on Mutley Plain and now at Chantry Court at Plympton.

He is now supplying cakes, paninis and pies to cafes and restaurants and hotels across the city as well as attractions across Devon and also cooks a mean pasty.

Franz's base is now at Plympton

"With the pasties, you'd have to say: an Afro-Carribean man from Vauxhall making pasties; however does that work?

"But the long and short of it is that it seems to work."

"Apparently I'm the most unlikely looking baker there is.

"People say I thought you were a mechanic or I thought you were a bouncer!"

And he has high hopes for his meeting at Waitrose.

"Will they like it? I hope they will. Will they like the price? Let's hope they do.

"Why not give it a try - there's nothing to lose and everything to gain."

And even though he doesn't eat cakes himself -"when you've been cooking them this long you know how they should taste" -听 he sums up why his cooking gives him such a buzz.

"When there's people parting with hard cash for stuff that you've made that's pretty damn good."

And when asked about the future he hopes the business will expand, and looking even further ahead he would be thrilled if his retirement could include a beach.

"Who knows hopefully if I can make enough Franzipans then I could end up on a beach somewhere nice and warm.

"And when I look out at the ocean I can think to myself it wasn't all bad, it didn't start off too well but the end was pretty good."