About Me

About me:

My name is Charlie and I will be doing the baking in this project. I have been a keen baker since I was a little girl and my love of food is an important aspect of my day to day life. Really, food is what occupies my mind 90% of the time. As such I spend a lot of time reading food (and other blogs).

When I am not busy reading blogs I am just your typical twenty-something year old Londoner; I like to spend time with my friends, drink tea (biscuit included), read books and go to the theatre. I like pigs just as much as I like cake and am a firm believer in edible glitter. I am generally always on the move to do something which is why this blog came into being – read the full story in “The idea.”

This blog is mainly to document the journey that this ‘project’ will hopefully take me on. God knows what the outcome is going to be, fingers crossed it is something good. 2014 for me will be all about challenging myself, growing not only as a baker and cook but also as a person and this will serve as my digital diary. I already write “From Charlie with Love” but I wanted something that was all about baking and food, something to really get my teeth stuck into. So this is it, Baking Natter will be something to keep me busy for the next year, hopefully.

The idea:

I have been a massive fan of GBBO (Great British Bake Off for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about) since I moved to the UK almost 7 years ago. The show is great for so many reasons but it has always made me realize that while I am a decent baker for cakes and quite good at cupcakes, I am not a very well rounded baker. I have never made bread from scratch in my life and so far my macaroons have always turned out to be failures.

So, while I have been meaning to apply and have been actively encouraged to do so by most of my friends while they are munching on my cupcakes, I have never felt that I was a good or experienced enough baker to actually take part.

This is how I came up with the idea of Baking Natter, as a way of “training” for GBBO. The idea is simple: Challenge myself to a new recipe every week, write about it and thus keep a journal of my progress. Something to look back at when I don’t get chosen, because lets be honest – why would you want to see this face on national television?!

Method & goal setting:

When the idea of writing Baking Natter started to sprout in my silly little head I, of course, had to think about the best possible way of achieving my overall goal – being prepared for GBBO and finally bringing up the courage to fill out an application form.

Again, the method I am choosing is meant to be simple but effective: Pick a recipe or technical challenge from one of the previous seasons and complete. Hopefully, successfully so. Otherwise repeat.

Because I am clumsy and bad at reading recipes all the way through before I start, I am also planning to attend a couple of classes over the next year; a macaroon making class being at the top of my list.

The name:

Coming up with a name for this blog wasn’t easy. The obvious choices such as “Charlie bakes” and “Charlie’s kitchen” were not only already taken but I wanted something a bit more unusual than that. My lovely colleague Y. and I have lengthy conversations about this project and I spend a good couple of hours annoying him with name ideas. Nothing quite worked or seemed right.

Those who know me know that I talk, a lot. Sometimes I talk about important things such as eating disorders or cupcakes. But most of the time I just natter away about nothing in particular such as Tinder and, more importantly, cake in general. And that is how Baking Natter was born – a blog where I get to natter about my adventures in baking.

The social stuff:

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram of course! As I am not very good with coding it might take me a few days to add this to the sidebar but for now just follow these links:

Twitter: @Baking Natter

Instagram: CharlieNatter

A Facebook page seems a bit too much at the moment, god knows if anyone is actually going to read this outside of my friends!

If you are interested what else I am interested in/write about please go and check out my other blog “From Charlie with Love” which already includes a couple of my cupcake recipes such as the Cookie Monster Cupcakes I made for Joe or the Flaming Lips Cupcakes I made for the Head of Marketing of Twitter UK.

The cheering bit:

Writing this blog is going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I am not very good at being consistent with personal projects such as this – and as is evident with “From Charlie with Love”. So please feel free to follow, comment, cheer or send me confetti to make sure I keep going or simply if you like this blog. It will be much appreciated, trust me!

The icing on the cake:

For now this is it, my first entry. Hopefully this blog will evolve a bit in terms of looks with the help of some of my creative and IT savy friends (you know who you are) to make it a bit easier on the eyes.

I am going to try hard and improve my photography skills along the way to make sure that you have nice pictures to look at. Again, easier on the eyes.

Until then, please bear with and watch watch out Great British Bake Off 2015, I am coming for you!