Where to start?

As the blog title gives away, I’m Trace - wife, mother, PA, friend, introvert....baker.

I’ve always enjoyed baking to some degree; my late mum was a baker by profession until she married and started her family. Mum taught me a lot of what I know and my love of baking for a family and to make people happy is down to her. She worked in a family-run bakery (Nicholson’s) in my hometown in north-east England. She was never afraid to get stuck in and have literally hours on end in the kitchen when occasion demanded...birthdays, Christmases, family gatherings etc and you knew she’d be baking. Mam’s baking days are the stuff of family legend! I’m still massively proud that she made my wedding cake. Pretty much the only thing she never made was bread and flaky pastry; when I asked her why, she said she knew from her bakery shop days how time and labour intensive they are, so she was happy to buy those - fair enough.

Me, my brother and sister all moved away from the north east,  but whenever we went back for a few days, we knew two things: 

1. Before you’d even taken off your coat she’d ask when you were going back (no malice intended - she just wanted to know how long she had you for!)

2. She’d have spent all the previous day baking and there’d be cakes and pies to last a week. 

My dad was particularly fond of her egg and bacon pie and her huge turkey and leek pie on Boxing Day was unmissable....I’ve never mastered her beautiful shortcrust pastry though. I wish I’d asked what her secrets were.

When she passed on - and me, my brother and older sister were organising her funeral - we said we’d sort ‘the tea’ for afterwards, ourselves. We agreed we wouldn’t be doing it properly unless there was enough to feed an average family for a week! I still remember we made a trifle...then we thought how mam would never have had just one, so we made another. She had the most beautiful cut crystal bowl - weighed a ton - that I’m guessing was never intended for trifles but that’s what she used it for. After dad passed on, four years after mam, and we cleared their house for sale, that was one thing I really wanted to have.

So I think my love of baking was inherited, and I’m pretty sure my mam would be proud. 

A year or so back I used my annual bonus from work to go towards a ‘proper’ stand mixer to make the work a bit easier. I’d had a cheapo one from a well known discount grocery shop but it had sat in its box, unused, for a year before I got it out to use. On use 3 or 4 it lasted literally only a few goes before one of the knobs snapped off and became unusable; but because it had been a limited time promotion that was no longer running, the retailer in question was making it difficult to get any money back. I gave it up as a lost cause (it really wasn’t a lot of money) but I was back into my baking and enthusiastic enough to know I wanted ‘the real McCoy’ - a machine that would last and do a lot.

So I researched brands and machines, asked friends who baked for their opinions - and the ones who expressed an opinion were unanimous: KitchenAid. Shortly afterwards it was ‘Black Friday’ and I took advantage of an offer in John Lewis to pick up the ‘Queen of Hearts’ model, celebrating the brand’s centenary, with about 40% discount. Since then I’ve upgraded the standard aluminium bowl to a ceramic red one, bought the ‘plug-in’ pasta maker and, just recently, bought the co-ordinating food processor.

I have an Instagram account but found I was baking so often - and showing off the results - that I decided to move pics of my kitchen efforts to a separate Instagram account - www.Instagram.com/trace_bakes_

So rather than waffle on interminably there about how I tweaked a particular recipe or who/what inspired another, I’m going to keep it brief on Instagram and use this blog for my waffling and recipe links. I will NEVER make it on to Great British Bake Off, let alone be a disappointment to the judges in the Showstopper round. But I still love making things and the thrill (and occasional disappointment) of seeing what comes out of the oven.

Enjoy!