Southend already has its own artisan ice cream producers thanks to Rossi, now the town is set to welcome a new artisan bakery.

Muffin Break will open its doors in Southend High Street on Thursday, December 17, bringing with it an ethos on serving up mouth-watering snacks and treats, which are baked from scratch in-store each day.

The new artisan bakery will have a rustic, yet modern interior and will seat around 75 people. Delicious muffins, cakes, slices, cookies and scones will be on the menu, alongside quiches, sandwiches, soups, wraps and paninis.

Abdul Majid, owner of the venue, said: “I am really excited to be opening a Muffin Break store in the lead-up to Christmas and look forward to inviting all the busy shoppers to come into our store to refuel themselves.

What really makes Muffin Break different from other cafes is that we employ skilled bakers on the premises who make delicious products fresh from scratch each morning.

“We cannot wait to share our tempting menu with everyone.

The team and I are confident the quality of our food and coffee will entice customers to visit us time and time again.”

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on freshness and baking on site – is this the mantra of Muffin Break? With the success of shows like the Bake Off, are customers demanding home-baked these days over mass-produced products?

“Definitely, fresh baking is at the heart of what we do here at Muffin Break and baking is very on trend at the moment, especially during this time of year,” added Abdul.

“Baking from scratch is what makes us different from the other coffee shops and it makes us stand out on the high street.

It’s also nice for our customers to know the extra work and creativity that goes into our products.

“We employ fully-trained bakers and baristas at the Southend store. Our bakers receive weeks of intensive training in-house so they are fully trained to prepare top-quality dishes, using fresh ingredients, each and every morning.”

To kick things off the bakery, which has created 13 local jobs, will be launching with its fun festive menu which includes speciality treats for the season including the “three wise muffins” – cranberry white chocolate muffin, double chocolate and orange muffin and Christmas spice muffin for £2 each – all twashed down with a variety of drinks, including salted caramel latte and frosted mint hot chocolate.

Abdul added: “We expect our limited edition Christmas drinks range and our turkey, stuffing and cranberry panini will also be big sellers.”