Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my SmartCookieSam blog. Recently I’ve been so sporadic in uploading posts and when I do, I struggle to fit in blogging as well as everything else going on in these crazy times. Part of me has even thought about packing in this blog. I don’t have much time for baking at the moment. Every time I bake something it seems to go wrong. I just sit looking at other people’s perfect creations on social media and feel so fed up/ I guess I’ve lost my baking mojo. This is sad as I always used to love baking as a form of relaxation and therapy. But now it makes me feel anxious as I can’t get it right. I don’t want to give up baking but at the same time I am really struggling with my weight since going through the menopause. I even thought about changing my blog to healthy recipes but I still think baking is a huge part of who I am. I guess I just need something to motivate me and to be given a bit of encouragement.

I love the idea of baking through a book and thought of this as an idea to base my blog on going forward. I have lots of books I would love to do this with but it has to have recipes that I actually have time to bake. It also had to contain recipes that I can share with family and friends and not containing obscure ingredients which would be offputting.

So which book would I go for to start my challenge? I know that the Mary Berry Baking Bible has been done by a few people! I would have loved to have done this myself but I didn’t want to be seen as copying! I thought about the lady who fanned my obsession with baking back in the early noughties, the one and only Nigella herself with her Domestic Goddess book. But after lots of thought, I was thinking about all the Great British Bake Off books I had, including ones from former contestants and winners and decided on the latest one to come from last year’s series. “The Big Book Of Amazing Cakes” which came out at the beginning of last October.

Although I bought the book when it came out, I’m shocked I haven’t tried any of the recipes in the book. They range from a mixture of classic and modern, from easy to more challenging and contain recipes from previous series as well as offerings from the last series’ contestants. I feel this might help me get my teeth back into something after all the upheaval we have had over the previous months.

I’m not sure how long it will take me to bake the seventy plus recipes in “The Big Book Of Amazing Cakes” but I reckon I can manage a couple a week if time allows. I can fit some in around various times of the year, such as Parkin at Hallowe’en or on Bonfire Night or to be attached to various occasions such as a birthday. Lets see how I get on! Whether I get the blog updated as well is another job entirely!

Watch this space!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx