You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

When Joni sang ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’ she probably wasn’t thinking about baking. 

The problem I have is that with our kitchen refurb underway, baking is gone, at least for the time being, and now it is all I’m thinking about. From Bake Off German week, with some fascinating challenges, the hugely disappointing shop-bought scone I ate at lunchtime, to the cookbooks beckoning on my shelves, everything is making me want to be in the kitchen, baking.

One of the social media responses I had to my last post about our kitchen, from someone I used to work with, suggested if I had nothing else to do I could always go and bake for them in their kitchen. I’m not sure how serious he was, but it did make me think perhaps I should become a baker for hire. 

I’ve often had people on Twitter asking if I could send them some of the baked goods I’ve posted online. Admittedly the requests have tended to be predominately from the US so I’m not sure how viable an option it is. But if people in my home town are suggesting it, now might be the time.

The latest on the kitchen is that we should at least have the oven back by the weekend. The empty shell of Tuesday has been filled with the new base units and doesn’t look so scary now. Tomorrow should see the completion of the electrical work and this will enable us to limp through the weekend. They’re back on Monday to apply the finishing touches and then hopefully it’s all systems go.

My first thought when I heard we would have an oven by the weekend, was maybe I will be able to join in with German week after all. This was quickly followed by a second thought telling me not to be so ridiculous. In a new kitchen, with a new oven, it will have to be some very basic baking until I fully understand how everything works.

If I could have joined in, I would have loved to have a go at this week’s technical challenge and made a Prinzregententorte. If you click the link you’ll see this is a gloriously ornate, multi-layered, chocolate-covered cake. One of those bakes that’s a full-blown project. Something I look forward to devoting an entire Sunday afternoon to making. I’ll just have to have my German week a bit later than everyone else.

The thought of eighteen steps to a recipe and a seemingly never-ending ingredients list has got me pining all over again. 

My name is David and I’m a baker.