HOBBIES IN THE HOOD

by Karla Janse van Vuuren

by Renate Engelbrecht Images: Karla Janse van Vuuren

Karla Janse van Vuuren has been baking with books as her inspiration since 2020 and here, she tells the story of how her hobbies of reading and baking collided, evidently also evoloving into a small business:

I can’t remember a time before I could read. It’s something that just came naturally to me. Something else that comes naturally is baking. I love combining simple things like flour, sugar and eggs and creating something mouthwatering.

In 2020 I decided to combine my two loves and I created The Bookworm Bakes, a blog where I do food and book pairings. This is like food and wine pairing – only better! It works like this: I read a book (I prefer novels by authors like Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley, Ken Follett, Lee Child and many others) and then I let the story inspire me to bake something that will pair perfectly with it.

Karla recently read The Language of Food – a beautiful novel by Annabel Abbs. The book tells the true story of one of the world’s first food writers, Eliza Acton. In spite of not being a domestic goddess, she was commissioned in 1835 to write a cookery book. A young woman named Ann Kirby helped Acton create the first true cookbook called Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845).

The Language of Food is about food, but also about friendship and surviving life’s challenges. Acton spent some time in France, which evidently added flavour to her recipes. Karla paired the book with a fabulous French apple tart, made with fresh apple slices and homemade frangipane.

Movie Madness

by Renate Engelbrecht Images: Supplied