A Half Baked Idea

Who’s the author? Award-winning food writer and chef, Olivia Potts knows how to spin a yarn and bake an epicly good cake. Le Cordon Bleu-trained, Olivia is also the cookery columnist for The Spectator and writes for various major publications.

What’s it about? A heart-warming memoir about one woman’s journey from criminal barrister to professional patissiere, A Half Baked Idea is a food book that is as much about love, loss and life as it is about baking a really good cake.

At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake. She was baking a cake to impress the man who would later become her husband. In the grief-stricken months that followed, Olivia would come home from her job as a barrister and bake away her evenings in an effort to find solace and comfort. Upon deciding to quit her job and retrain at Le Cordon Bleu, Olivia begins her journey to the job of her dreams. A Half Baked Idea is heart-breaking and hilarious all at once, brilliantly written and with exceptional cake recipes dotted throughout.

Perfect for: anyone who enjoys reading about food as much as they love cooking it, any fans of Dolly Alderton, Nora Ephron’s Heartburn or Julie and Julia.