Baked with Love is out today…
I based it loosely on the Great British Bake Off show. Years ago, the programme’s hosts were Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, who were notorious for their dreadful baking puns and sly innuendo.
To give you a flavour of the book, here are some of the ones I came up with for my book. Don’t groan too much…
Sue, fluffy pink jumper clashing with her bright orange hair, stepped forward, beaming at us. “Welcome, contestants, to this year’s Best Baker UK! Why was the ninja so good at baking pastries?
“Because he had a black belt in martial tarts, of course.”
Kimberly and Sue cosied up to Rob as he chopped up a large handful of pistachios, tiny flecks of green flying off the chopping board. “Ooh,” Kimberly said. “I do love a chunky nut or two, don’t you, Sue?”
Sue, straight-faced, shook her head. “Nuts ground to a paste are my preference.”
Playing along
Kimberly and Sue rocked up at my bench. Sue picked up a sausage, letting it dangle from her fingers. “Ooh, I love a sausage early in the morning!”
Sue’s joke might be the most obvious one in the entire world, but I played along. “Absolutely, Sue. The bigger the better too, eh?”
“No, no, no,” Kimberly chimed in. No-one but me could see the tightness in Sue’s jaw as she waited for the reply. “The size of the sausage isn’t important. It’s what you do with it that counts.”
She tipped her head in Rob’s direction. To the left, a camera zoomed in on him.
Bread, bread, bread
As I kneaded the dough, punching into it, Kimberly glided up. “Woo, Lissie!” she exclaimed, helping herself to the sultanas piled up in a bowl. “Are you imagining a certain someone when you hit that bread?”
She added an exaggerated wink, directing her head to Rob’s bench.
Deciding that I might as well give Graham what he wanted, I thumped the dough harder for effect. “Not at all, Kimberly. Though it feels therapeutic. Do you want to try?”
“Oh, yes!” she said, digging her knuckles into the dough I handed over. “It’s the yeast I can do.”
“Amazon keeps sending me Rich Tea biscuits even though I don’t like them,” Kimberly said, picking up the tin of condensed milk on my bench.
Spending so much time with them in person meant you could anticipate the jokes.
“But everything’s okay now,” I replied, retrieving a tin opener from the utensil drawer under my bench. “As you’ve updated your cookies preference, right?”
She high-fived me; the move caught on camera. “Ha! Lissie, you should replace Sue. You’re much better at this than she is.”
Sorry about that! If you’d like to buy the book, you can do so by clicking on the button below.
I’m OBSESSED with this brand. Their dresses are out of this world beautiful, all styled along the same lines—slender bodices, a defined waist, high necklines and those voluminous sleeves. One day, one day I will own one and I will wear it do the housework in.
As a fan of the big bag—all the better to carry around all your medical equipment, reading material, make-up and a couple of bottles of diet coke, I love the idea of matching your bag so precisely to your dress. This 
I’ve also a sneaky fondness for Victoria Beckham’s clothing line because of its simplicity and the exquisite tailoring. I’d give Katya this contrast sleeve biker jacket, and probably the trousers and polo-neck too. A word of caution though… VB’s clothes only go up to a size 16, which pisses me off. Honestly, any eejit can design for tall, skinny models. A few less small sizes, the 6s and 8s, and a few more bigger ones, the 18s and 20s would vastly improve the range.
Ah, the shoes! It’s a women’s fiction cliché that shoes at the end of skinny, long bare legs often turn up on the cover of chick lit books. As someone who spends 90 percent of her life in flats, I do own some fabulous heels. But as Katya is fictional and doesn’t need to worry about walking too far in anything or how much that strap is going to rub the front of her foot, she’s like those women in Suits marching about the smart NY Pearson Spencer Litt office in their male fantasy cliché pencil skirts and sky-high heels. And we might as well go all out femme with this pair of Jimmy Choo heels that look wearable for precisely five seconds.
Emma Baird - author 