Baking: On the rise

It’s what the ladies of the WI have known for years. Now it seems everyone wants the buzz of having their cake and eating it . Here, Alice Wyllie rolls up her sleeves and gets stuck in to some serious home baking

‘NOW it’s time for the really fun part,” says Fi MacInnes, the owner of Edinburgh café Porto & Fi. Outside it’s a wet, dark, early morning, but in her basement kitchen it’s cosy and filled with the aroma of baking. We’re making scones, and I’ve got my sleeves rolled up in readiness for getting my fingers in about the sticky mixture.

“That’s it,” she says encouragingly. “Get stuck right in.” For MacInnes, baking is art, therapy, science and creativity rolled into one. “It’s very therapeutic,” she explains as she carefully cuts each scone out of the dough.

“It allows me to switch off, to drift into my own little world. It really is like playing and it takes you back to your own childhood, to baking things with your mum.”

MacInnes isn’t the only one who finds baking soothing. Home-baking is having something of a moment and it seems that thanks to the economic gloom, the nation is feeling the need to knead. Last year, John Lewis reported a rise of 40 per cent in sales of mixing bowls, while Lakeland reported that sales of baking products had risen by a third. According to recent research by Mintel, 36 per cent of us have abandoned buying cakes and biscuits from the supermarket entirely in favour of making them ourselves.

Baking – a pastime which was once seen as the preserve of yummy mummies and members of the WI – is enjoying something of a renaissance, thanks to programmes such as BBC2’s Lorraine Pascale’s Baking Made Easy and The Great British Bake Off, which attracted five million viewers for the final in October. Then on Channel 4 there was Eric Lanlard’s Baking Mad and Kirstie’s Handmade Britain, wherein Kirstie Allsopp entered into a local baking competition a colourful array of cakes and eclairs.

And it turns out baking is proving particularly popular with young people. While 77 per cent of us are now regular bakers, people aged 16-24 are six times more likely than any other age group to bake something from scratch every day.

So why are we rekindling our relationship with all things cakey? “Baking on television has a lot to do with it,” says MacInnes. “In these programmes you’ll often see people baking with their families and I think that has quite a lot of influence.

“Baking is a wonderful thing to to with children. It’s very interactive and it’s easy for children to get their hands stuck in. It gets them playing and, of course, they get to eat the end result. I baked with my niece recently and we were side by side with a rolling pin each which was very exciting for her.”

Lea Harris, who was a contestant on the first series of The Great British Bake Off, is a member of cake club the Edinburgh Cake Ladies and bakes at least once a week. Set up last year, the free club invites baking fans to make cakes, then come together every couple of months to sample them. At the last event there were 27 cakes to try.

“I’ve baked for almost half a century since my father taught me when I was four,” she says. “I like baking for the solitude. When you’re cooking, you can have people chatting around you but baking is a very personal thing.

You have to weigh things out meticulously because if you’re just a quarter of a teaspoon out on something like baking powder then the whole recipe is ruined.

“There’s just the pure joy of the solitude of it, but there’s also the joy of giving, of making something for others. You just can’t beat it. It gives me a natural high.”

Harris predicts that cake clubs will be big news this year and, indeed, the Edinburgh Cake Ladies have officially declared 2012 the ‘year of the cake’.

Clubs are springing up all over the UK and, in addition to the Edinburgh Cake Ladies, there is talk of cake clubs being set up in Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Furthermore, websites such as Daring Bakers – wherein thousands of members bake the same recipe once a month and discuss it – are growing in popularity.

Back in the Porto & Fi kitchen and my scones are coming out of the oven. Perfectly risen fists of tastiness, they look like a tray of delicious shrunken heads.

I couldn’t be prouder, and I’m beginning to see the appeal. Less than 30 minutes transformed a handful of store cupboard staples into yummy bruisers that could easily take on anything Mr Kipling has to offer. Exceedingly Good.

Of course, knowing exactly what has gone into the food you’re putting into your mouth, and indeed the mouths of your children, is an additional benefit of baking at home.

The recession has undoubtedly encouraged us all to seek a back-to-basics approach when it comes to domesticity, and that trend is coupled with an increasing collective awareness that, when it comes to nutrition, long lists of ingredients riddled with E numbers aren’t a good thing.

“People are more aware of what’s going into the products they buy, all the extra ingredients,” says Harris. “A cake should just have natural ingredients in it, no preservatives or flavour enhancers. Making something from scratch means you have control over it.”

Thirty-four-year-old Angela Dolan from Edinburgh has been hooked on baking since she helped out in the kitchen of her granny’s Dalry café. She recently set up Queen of Tarts, at which she serves up a ten-course high tea from her flat in Leith. Tickets are sold online and she hosts two events every two months.

“I felt an instant love for baking,” she says. “I think that my mum bought me Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and I was hooked. I bought all the equipment and I was hooked on the science of it.”

What does she feel is the root of baking’s renaissance? “I think it’s because we’re experiencing quite a dark time at the moment,” she says.

“We’re all skint and it’s a bit of a dark period. When you think about baking, it brings up all sorts of childhood memories; soft, warm, happy feelings and, of course, it’s a really creative thing to do.”

Whatever the reason, the baking boom can only be a good thing. Whether you’re reaching for the mixing bowl, sampling the spoils or just licking the spoon, 2012 will be all about flour power. Not the best thing for our waistlines, perhaps, but after sampling one of my scones with a dod of cream and a smear of jam I certainly hope it’s here to stay.

• For more information about Porto & Fi visit portofi.com

• For more information about the Edinburgh Cake Ladies visit edinburghcakeladies.wordpress.com • Find “Queen of Tarts, Edinburgh” on Facebook and Twitter (@Queen_of_Tarts) for details of future events.