I remember the moment I first dreamed about creating Bake from Scratch.
Like many inspired ideas, it began with a question: Why isn’t there a magazine just for bakers? A magazine that caters to people who don’t bake just for the holidays or special events, but the people who love stories behind ingredients, people who want to constantly up their baking game? I knew there had to be more people like me out there, craving this content. I was driving to New Orleans, Louisiana, with Brooke Bell, Hoffman Media’s Vice President of Culinary & Custom Content and my great collaborator and friend, when we really took a deep dive into a conversation about what a baking magazine could look like. It was a bit of an aha moment for both of us. We were electrified by the idea of creating a magazine that we both yearned for. Before we completed the five-hour drive from Birmingham, Alabama, I’d sketched a lineup of the first issue on a legal pad and secured @thebakefeed on Instagram. I’ll admit: that day, we didn’t quite know how we were going to produce and get that first issue to press, but we did know we were going to do it. It was full speed ahead, and we never looked back.
In the fall of 2015, the inaugural issue of Bake from Scratch landed on newsstands. Later that year, we won Media Industry News’ Hottest Magazine Launch, and with increasing demand, we knew we had something special. Not because our idea was so revolutionary, but because we were tapping into the most incredible niche community of artisan bakers, who supported us from day one. Since that fantastic debut, Bake from Scratch has become so much more than a magazine. As a multimedia brand, it represents a cookbook collection, a podcast (The Crumb), a program for baking retreats, an enormous social media platform, and a global community of passionate bakers. Each of these branches of Bake from Scratch are about one thing: connectivity.
As we were releasing the first issue, we simultaneously built up one of the cornerstones of our brand: our Instagram account, @thebakefeed. I wanted the account to unite a global community of bakers, connecting everyone from home enthusiasts and industry professionals to baking bloggers and award-winning cookbook authors. Above all, @thebakefeed was our way of offering a warm, welcoming platform for bakers to share and celebrate their creative endeavors in the kitchen. So many magazine stories and recipe features come about through @thebakefeed, finding out about new bakeries, products, and flavors from our own baker base. There is euphoric emotion each and every time we are tagged in photos from our baking community—either things made from the magazine or bakers showing us what is happening in their kitchens.
I’ve had several “pinch me, I must be dreaming moments” since starting this brand: contributing to a TODAY Show holiday cookie segment, getting to judge a pie competition at Gramercy Tavern with Miro Uskokovic, and publishing our cookbooks, which have been #1 new releases on Amazon. Our cookbooks were created to give our audience a way to enjoy an entire year’s worth of recipes inside one beautiful book and another way to bridge the gap between bakers who collect cookbooks, not magazines, and Bake from Scratch.
Then came our first international issue, the instantly loved French issue, in the spring of 2016. Born from my career as a flight attendant, my love of travel has been the basis of Bake from Scratch’s commitment to exploring the global baking scene. From a British issue in 2018 to a Tropical issue in 2019 to our recent Authentic Ireland Issue, we’ve explored many facets of the diverse baking culture, and we are just getting started. Leaping from the page to an real-life adventure, these travel-focused issues inspired our baking retreats, for which we’ve been to San Francisco Cooking School for classes on holiday breads and the pâtisserie-lined streets of Paris for international instruction in pastry. Beyond getting the opportunity to bake bread at the foot of Alaskan mountains or share cocktails with Dorie Greenspan in Paris, these retreats have given me the opportunity to bake, learn, and travel alongside some of the amazing people in our community—and lifelong friendships have been formed along the way!
Speaking of wonderful bakers, I’ve made some cherished connections—and friendships—through Bake from Scratch. The dynamic duo of Jessie Tyler Ferguson and Julie Tanous were two of our first fabulous collaborators, both sporting #teamdough T-shirts while they invited us to make holiday magic in their home kitchens. Dominique Ansel was our first baker profile, and Thomas Keller was our inaugural Expert Q&A on all things chocolate chip cookies. With hometown pride, I had the chance to sit down with Dolester Miles, James Beard Award-winning pastry chef at Birmingham’s Highland’s Bar & Grill, for a look at her elevated Southern baking. And then there were the bakers who made collaborations even more fun. All it took was one photo shoot with Rebecca Firth of Displaced Housewife to become fast friends, and her first cookbook, The Cookie Book, remains one of our favorite recipe collections. Shortly after we featured Umber Ahmad’s Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery, she went on to become a semifinalist for a James Beard Award, and this year, she expanded her bakery to Washington, DC. Then with each Holiday Cookies special issue, we’ve met more and more talented bakers and bloggers, adding to our roster of contributors Zoë François, Erin Clarkson, Sarah Kieffer, Mike Johnson, and Edd Kimber.
Collaborations like this led to our next huge move working with wonderful industry partners like Nordic Ware, Red Star, Heilala Vanilla, Williams Sonoma, and, most recently, Bob’s Red Mill for the Better Baking Academy. Forging connections with each of these brands has led to an expansion in our horizons and an opportunity to bring their products into our test kitchen and to our audience. From web campaigns like the Bundt of the Month Club with Nordic Ware to Red Star sponsoring our podcast, The Crumb, these efforts have brought us new ways to engage with our audience and showcase brands that are already stocked in our pantries.
One of the sweetest ways we’ve come full circle? In our first issue, we highlighted the Bake Sale for No Kid Hungry, a program devoted to raising money to help provide children in need with healthy meals. In 2019, Bake from Scratch hosted our own Bake Sale for No Kid Hungry at Birmingham’s Market at Pepper Place, selling scones, pound cakes, loaves, and cookies, with all of the proceeds going to a cause we so heartily believe in. It was a chance to put our baking passion to good, philanthropic use. Watching my team bake their hearts out made writing that check to No Kid Hungry all the sweeter. I carried the bake sale spirit into 2020, providing baked goods for Birmingham Bake Sale, which raised money for the Birmingham-based Jones Valley Teaching Farm, followed by another bake sale for Bakers Against Racism. It’s a tradition we plan to continue, each and every year.
With COVID-19, Bake from Scratch suddenly found its beloved community in socially distant and sheltering in place—not languishing, but dedicating themselves with new energy to the love of baking. We decided to meet their passion with a new IGTV series, where I’ve been baking our recipes with helpful step-by-step instructions. When I first started this brand, I had a simple goal in mind: equip home bakers with everything they need for a successful baking experience. When they bake a recipe from our magazine, I want them to feel confident, inspired, and, ultimately, proud of what they have accomplished. With the ushering in of a new IGTV era, I can now walk our followers through a recipe from start to finish. It’s one more layer of interconnectivity to a brand that can’t thrive, or even survive, without you.
So, cheers. Cheers to the creative power of baking, cheers to the past five years, and cheers to the delicious future. Most of all, cheers to you, the amazing community of bakers who have breathed life and love into this incredible brand.
Brian Hart Hoffman, Editor-in-Chief
