Food’s got to be
BREAKFAST jars you make before bed.
“If you’re up early for a dance class or a sports competition and you need something speedy, this is the perfect go-to breakfast,” says David.
“You prepare it the night before, in jars so you can eat it on the go the next day. You can experiment with the flavours, but cinnamon and honey is my favourite.”
INGREDIENTS
(MAKES 4 PORTIONS) 100g porridge oats 40g chia seeds
1tsp ground cinnamon 1 Granny Smith apple 250ml milk
1tsp runny honey
METHOD
Mix the oats, chia seeds and cinnamon in a bowl.
Grate the apple into the bowl, then add the milk, honey and grapes and stir.
Divide the mixture equally between four jars, screw the lids back on and put in the fridge overnight.
To serve you can add yoghurt, fruit or any topping you would like.
GREAT British Bake Off 2019 winner David Atherton was “already having a bit of a crazy year” – so throw in the pandemic and “it’s just added to it”.
The Whitby-born health professional was that rare contestant in the feted tent: a calm, collected baker – qualities that have bolstered him during the post-win melee.
“Everything is all new and very exciting, but also you feel very lost and you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing,” he says frankly. “You just want to be able to take the opportunities without burning out, basically.”
It’s a pragmatism that has also served the 37-year-old well during the pandemic. He’s been teaching his partner Nik to make sourdough (“Now I can’t get near the bread!”), crafting (they made a quilt together), cooking and encouraging people to sign up to a symptom tracker. And now, he’s celebrating his debut cookbook – although it might not be what you’d expect from a classic Bake Off winner.
For starters, My First Cook Book is for kids, and second, it’s not a glorification of sugar-spun, candied concoctions. Instead, its bedrock is David’s nutrition background, and his interest in how “people who had an upbringing like myself, where their mum was in the kitchen with them all the time, tend to understand food and diet better”, he explains.
“My mum was very different, it’s funny because she would definitely be called hipster now, but back then she was called ‘hippie’,” he says fondly. “She had five kids and had to feed us all, and cooking from scratch is obviously the cheapest way – and also the healthiest.”
David recalls how they had a small house but a big garden, which was filled with vegetable patches, chickens and an apple orchard: “Food was just one of the things we did. We weren’t allowed to watch TV really,” he continues, “so we had to spend our lives playing with each other and cooking and baking. It was idyllic.”
The most amazing thing, he says, was that his mum whipped up homemade bread for the seven of them. “We never had shop-bought bread – and she saw that as a way of keeping us entertained. She made massive batches twice a week, and as kids we would spend the whole morning playing with bread dough. I’m not sure how much of that got cooked and eaten...”
She didn’t shy away from letting them use knives either. “We were allowed to stir pots on the stove, use a knife to cut things, and crack our own eggs – and yes we would get shell in, but [with that attitude], by the age of three you can crack an egg!”
He says he still meets adults today “who can’t crack eggs properly”, and so the idea of My First Cook Book is to get all ages in the kitchen, learning about food, and spending time together. “It’s really important to capture kids young, and instead of trying to make it seem like a chore, food’s got to be fun,” David enthuses.
The book is charmingly illustrated by Rachel Stubbs, a friend David lodged with when he first moved to London, and funnily enough, the pair of them bagged their cookbook deal even before David appeared on Bake Off.
There’s a mix of sweet and savoury dishes to try, from a ‘magic’ tomato sauce David makes all the time, to octopusshaped pizzas, tacos, sushi and veggie summer rolls. They largely offer an alternative route, one that moves away from capturing kids’ attention purely through sugar.
“In the same way that if a child is brought up with McDonald’s, they probably think a dried fig is disgusting,” muses David.
“I remember physically feeling sick when I’d see people spreading butter on bread before jam. We just put peanut butter or jam straight on, without anything else. It’s just, you’re conditioned. That’s why it’s so important to start with kids, because if you condition people to think that lots of refined sugar is normal, then your tastes will be very, very sweet.”
Fortunately, David’s health slant – in life, and the cookbook – doesn’t come off as sanctimonious. He considers the book “a little more wholesome” but notes the food doesn’t “taste healthy”.
It helps that he’s so zen, amiable and such a believer in the sheer joy of kitchen dancing. “You have to have fun and dance around the kitchen – especially when you’re drying up,” says David impishly. “When I was a kid with my twin brother, we used to actually pretend we were on Blue Peter. We would always be handing over to each other while we [dried-up]. You’ve just got to make it fun.”
My First Cook Book: Make, Bake & Learn To Cook is written by David Atherton and illustrated by Rachel Stubbs, £14.99.