Breadsong
How Baking Changed Our Lives
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
'A book to warm heart and soul - and satisfy the stomach' Delicious Magazine
'Kitty Tait tells a brave and beautiful story of what it is to be human' Mel Giedroyc
'Uplifting, inspiring, heartfelt and with wonderful recipes to boot' Georgina Hayden
'If you had told me at 14 when I couldn't even get out of bed with depression and anxiety that three years later I would have written a book I would never have believed you. But here it is - the story of the Orange Bakery. How I went from bed to bread and how my Dad went from being a teacher to a baker. You reading it means everything to me' Kitty Tait
Breadsong tells the story of Kitty Tait who was a chatty, bouncy and full-of-life 14 year old until she was overwhelmed by an ever-thickening cloud of depression and anxiety and she withdrew from the world. Her desperate family tried everything to help her but she slipped further away from them.
One day her dad Alex, a teacher, baked a loaf of bread with her and that small moment changed everything. One loaf quickly escalated into an obsession and Kitty started to find her way out of the terrible place she was in. Baking bread was the one thing that made any sense to her and before long she was making loaves for half her village. After a few whirlwind months, she and her dad opened the Orange Bakery, where queues now regularly snake down the street.
Breadsong is also a cookbook full of Kitty's favourite recipes, including:
- the Comfort loaf made with Marmite, and with a crust that tastes like Twiglets
- bitesize queue nibbles, doughnuts with an ever-changing filling to keep the bakery queue happy
- sticky fika buns with mix-and-match fillings such as cardamom and orange
- Happy Bread covered with salted caramel
- cheese straws made with easy homemade ruff puff pastry
- the ultimate brown butter and choc chip cookies with the perfect combination of gooey centre and crispy edges.
This is a cookbook to curl up with first, bake from second.
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*WINNER* - FORTNUM & MASON DEBUT FOOD BOOK AWARD 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ANDRÉ SIMON BEST COOKBOOK AWARD 2023
THE TIMES - BEST FOOD BOOKS of 2022
THE WEEK – BEST FOOD BOOKS OF 2022
DELICIOUS MAGAZINE – BEST COOK BOOKS OF 2022
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this uplifting work, the British dad-and-daughter duo behind Oxfordshire's Orange Bakery fold innovative recipes into a moving testament to the healing power of baking. In alternating perspectives, they chronicle how, after a year of struggling with anxiety and despair, 14-year-old Kitty found refuge in "the magic" of baking bread with her father. "Something so dull had transformed into something so brilliant," Kitty recalls. "And so I did it again and again." Eventually, the Marmite-laced "comfort" loaves that Kitty began churning out turned into a subscription service and, later, a successful social media–driven business. Her unique road to mental wellness serves as the emotional through line to numerous recipes, including a no-knead overnight loaf with a "crunchy crust and pillowy crumb," and a soda bread composed of malted grains soaked in Guinness. An informative chapter on sourdough takes bakers from starter to finish with recipes for Kitty's "ultimate" sourdough bead, an excellent focaccia, and "Ulla's Rye Bread" (named after the "Danish granny" who mentored Kitty), while a section on sweets feature fluffy buns made from all-purpose dough and topped with cinnamon or cardamom-orange glaze. Whether dabbing CBD caramel over a Happy Bread doughnut loaf, or slathering brownies with miso fudge, Kitty's passionate creativity is as irresistible as her creations. Bakers will have no trouble devouring every bit.
