Welcome to Baking, Bits & Bobs. My name is Susan and I love baking and all things British! I was born in England, moved to Canada as a child, and now live in the United States after marrying an American. This explains the three flags in the bunting of my logo!
I’m a classical musician by training, but in 2020 my career went on hold as all performance spaces were shut down due to the pandemic. I needed something to occupy my time and keep me sane so I turned to baking, as many people did.
Baking has always been a passion of mine and I decided to tackle a project that had been on my to-do list for a long time – compile my favourite recipes from childhood through the present day! I was having so much fun that the project morphed into a cookbook! I spent months baking and tweaking recipes and sampling the results … my husband loved this part! The end result was my first cookbook Aria Ready for Dessert? A Musician Takes Center Stage in the Kitchen. Full credit to my sister for the title! Many of the recipes in the cookbook are British classics as that’s my heritage and yes, I am a HUGE fan of The Great British Bake Off!
After the book was done, and my career as a musician was starting back up, I realized two things – I didn’t want to leave the baking world behind and my trip down memory lane had made me super nostalgic for all things British so I started Baking, Bits & Bobs! For those who aren’t familiar, “bits and bobs” is a British term similar to the American phrase “bits and pieces.” It’s a blog about baking and then some … hence the title. My intention is to continue creating and posting recipes and writing about things that catch my attention and who knows, maybe they will catch yours too!
I hope you enjoy the time you spend at Baking, Bits & Bobs. Please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page with any questions, concerns, or compliments!
My Support Team
Whilst I continue to put an endless amount of time into this blog, I couldn’t do it without my amazing support team. In leading roles…my husband, when not playing second horn with Lyric Opera Chicago, is a contributor, from photography and editing to the all-important role of recipe tasting. My sister is a writing contributor and editor when not working at her day job with an amazing volunteer organization and last but not least, my mum! With a background as a librarian, she is an amazing researcher and all I have to do is mention a blog topic that I am contemplating and she is off finding out all the fun facts. My mum was the one who got me interested in baking so many years ago, and she is an inspiration to me every single day. Special thanks to the continued love and support from my Dad, Jenni, Jacki, Shelly, Janna, and Philip.
“Top” Recipes
No, I am not saying that my recipes are top recipes, though I do hope you like them! I don’t like having to scroll through a ton of writing and photos to get to a recipe, so I have chosen to put the recipe at the top of the post! If people do crave extra information or more photos, I have created two sections below each recipe called “Tips & Bits” and “Behind the Scenes.”
My Music
For those of you who might be curious about my life as a musician, head on over to my other website, susanplatts.com, where you can see what I have been doing in my music career or watch a YouTube video of a performance!
My Bakes
Below are some photos of my bakes from over the years. Be it cakes or cookies or something in between, I just love baking. I would love it when a friend or family member had a big birthday coming up and I would have to opportunity to make a cake for the occasion.
For those of you who know me or my music career, a bust of Gustav Mahler’s head, made out of rice crispies and marshmallows might come as no surprise…
