Bake to business

Food blogger Jane Dunn tells ELLA WALKER how the pandemic brought her thousands of followers and led to her debut recipe book on all things sweet

CHOCOLATE cheesecake crêpes. Piña colada cupcakes. White chocolate biscotti. Chocolate cherry babka. Bakewell blondies...

This is the pattern of food writer Jane Dunn’s debut cookbook, named after her blog, Jane’s Patisserie. Sweet treat after sweet treat; each one seemingly promising comfort, deliciousness and nostalgia.

The 28-year-old has been blogging her bakes for around six-anda-half years, creating recipes designed to suit all skill levels – hence why she wouldn’t dream of judging you for buying readymade caramel and gladly recommends decorating her no-bake millionaire’s cheesecake with shop-bought millionaire shortbread bites.

Jane’s Patisserie, the cookbook, presents her easy-breezy chocolate-adoring ethos in paper form and “you can get it messy!” says Jane, which means no more coating your phone in flour as you scroll to the next recipe step.

Eliminating fear around baking is something that underpins Jane’s bakes.

“I tried to cover all bases so people can just have fun with it, and not be scared,” explains Jane. “With cooking, you can sort of wing it mostly but, with baking, it is science. So you have to get it right mostly.”

She’s hoping her nifty comments and reassuring advice will ease any oven-related concerns. Her honesty around her own cake mishaps help too (“I’ve dropped entire cheesecakes and it’s been quite heart-breaking”).

Jane grew up in Hampshire, loving baking, a fascination passed onto her by her late grandmother. “My mum always tells me I’m so like her,” she says, emphasising the fun that can come from turning flour, butter, eggs and sugar into something spectacular.

“I like seeing people’s faces – nothing is better than when you arrive at a friend’s house and you’ve brought cookies. If somebody’s having a bad day, a good day, or whatever, they’re gonna go, ‘Ohh!’ Then suddenly, everyone’s just in a different mood.”

Realising her initial plans to study graphic design or architecture at university weren’t to be, Jane leapt into an “intense” sixmonth cookery course in Devon, with a view to work on patisserie in restaurants.

But the industry is a tough one and, while her peers went into the kitchens of super yachts, Rosette and Michelin-starred restaurants, she found she “wasn’t a massive fan” of the lifestyle and began blogging instead.

By April 2020, she’d hit around 200,000 followers, but as the first lockdown drove many of us towards banana bread and comfort baking, more and more people began to discover her blog.

“I don’t think I ever could have imagined it. It was surreal,” she says now, with three-quarters of a million Instagram followers to her name. “Everyone was baking so much stuff every day. It was amazing to see it. I’d get comments from teachers saying, ‘We made this in class over Zoom!’ It was the cutest thing,” she recalls.

Jane – who is inspired by legends Mary Berry, Nadia Hussain, Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith – hopes our renewed appreciation for baking doesn’t wane. “I’d love to see it grow and people to fall more in love with [it].”

Funnily enough, Jane admits she (shock horror) actually prefers savoury food... “Maybe, probably because I have so much sugar in my life every day, I actually adore savoury food,” she says with a laugh. “I love saltiness. But baking is best to share. Baking is better to bring to a party.”

The occasion factor, the way bakes are used to celebrate and adorn an event, is what her recipes revolve around.

What she does find problematic is when sugar is demonised, and when people make comments that connect food with guilt and judgement. “I’ve suffered with an eating disorder in the past,” she notes, “so I find it quite difficult when people make those associations.”

Comments like, ‘that’s diabetes on a plate’ she says are unhelpful, potentially harmful and “can be insulting to people who do have diabetes.” “It’s also unnecessary when “everything is about balance, at the end of the day. My recipes are designed to be for an occasion, not something you eat every second of the day.

She adds: “[Sugar] exists, people enjoy it,” she continues. “And that’s what you should do with food, whether it’s low calorie, high calorie, savoury or sweet.”

So what’s next for Jane? “I want to roll with it and see where my baking takes me,” she says. “I’m a normal person, just chilling, baking cake. But the rate it’s grown, I’m like, how far can this go? It’s just cake! But it’s so much fun.”

■ Jane’s Patisserie by Jane Dunn is out now, published by Ebury Press priced £20. Photography by Ellis

Parrinder.

With cooking you can wing it mostly, but with baking it’s science