Baking tips from Annie by Pauline Seawards

I was a plain cook
in service and at home.
I was mashed spuds, slab cake, Birds custard
cabbage cut roughly and cooked properly.

I was skin a rabbit
pluck feathers from a hung bird
singe and draw.

Some women are too dainty for their own good
fall at seventeen
shop bought fancies all their married life

All men are boys at heart
seek comfort in sugar sandwiches

Sponge was my true love
baked when the oven was hot for roast.
Used cracked eggs (they have to break anyway),
mixed all in one with flour and fat,
flavoured half plain, half chocolate,
or coffee, to ring the changes
used the Stork wrapper
to prevent sticking.

In her ninetieth year, arthritic, her fingers were like dahlia tubers,
clutching a wooden spoon she could barely stir the mixture
The cakes still tasted the same
as if the blackened tins remembered the rise and flavour

Pauline Sewards currently lives near the Westbury White Horse in Wiltshire and is working on a series of poems about her grandmothers who were all fantastic bakers and unrecognised poets.

Soap Opera Cake by Claire Trévien

Kimberley’s plumbed the depths of the human brain,
her unusual layers are two powerhouses of flavour.
      Charlotte Royale’s a girl I went to school with
      tight curls tamed tighter with butterfly clips.
Planet Frances is an eggwashed choux,
that rarely sticks to the rule book.
       Charlotte used to put her brain in the fridge
       overnight, she always woke up furious.
Beccaroon needs to smack the judges 
with flavour instead of drowning in ale.
       Charlotte’s not been done justice,
       head covered in Ghostbuster’s gloop.
Apron caked with slaughtered ganache,
Ruby’s opera is an undefined tragedy.

Claire Trévien is the anglo-breton author of The Shipwrecked House (Penned in the Margins) which is longlisted in this year's Guardian First Book Award. She edits Sabotage Reviews (http://sabotagereviews.com), co-edits Verse Kraken (http://versekraken.com), and co-organizes Penning Perfumes (http://penningperfumes.tumblr.com).

Poem In Celebration Of A Thousand Sugary Kisses by Michelle McGrane

Behind, the bell chimes, the door closes on rue Royale and the frosty city.

The pâtisserie smells of almonds, caramel, vanilla, warm air trapped in choux and

shortcrust layers; memories of Pierre Éclair's childhood Rouen, his mother's flaky

croissants aux beurre, her pans of scallop-shaped Madeleines.

Charles Aznavour's 'Les Plaisirs Démodés' crackles through the vintage radio. Above

the till, the blackboard displays prices in smudged pink and white chalk next to

photographs of his wife and daughters.

Here, you can exhale, remove your gloves and scarf, take all the time you need

to choose your sticky cakes and viennoiseries: pain au chocolat, brioche à tête,

chausson aux pommes, tarte citron.

Linger over the macaroon tiers, the shelves of gleaming honey, quince and damson

jams, the stacks of mendicants and marron glacés.

M. Éclair knows all ills are eased by crème fraiche and ganache. If he could,

he would wrap the world in sweetness, dust the streets with icing sugar, marzipan

the steeples.

Michelle McGrane lives in Johannesburg and is a member of SA PEN. She blogs at http://peonymoon.wordpress.com/

Argot of Rye by Fran Lock

That time I lost it among meringues
listing like toppled mosques, cupcakes
piled up, knickknacks in a granny flat;
meticulously dainty chocs, in a posh
box like dolls’ house furniture. I said
I couldn’t stand it, that peevishly sweet
pretence, every morsel over-acting,
where whipped cream was a powdered
wig; Candy Land rococo with added
chintz. And you kicked me in my bad
ankle, under the table, and hissed: what
more did I want? And I started to tell
you, picking at sequined itoas of seed
from my uneaten roll, but you slapped
my hand and I cried instead, so I’ll
say it now: lover, I want what sent
Salem raving, that succotash sopping
rye, black as a bible, ripened like dark
fruit; the dense, soaked hump of it,
steaming. I want a mauled weight
of bread I can heft in my hands, stuff
to clutch; the taste of sweat and loam
and wet sand. Lover, I want a deep
dough swampy with figs; want garlic
barbs or olives big and black as rubber
bullets. Lover, I want borscht, dripping,
thick as bulls’ blood, slopped in bowls
with baby’s head pampushky. Lover,
I want stab vest slabs of honey cake.
But I see from your face that something
is lost in translation. Leave me then,
to the sour pong of my kitchen;
my splinters of pickle, my heavy-breathing
yeast. Leave me to dabble my cornstarch
like I’m dusting for prints. This is
the archaeology of the stomach and the heart.

Fran’s debut collection, ‘Flatrock’ (Little Episodes), was launched in May 2011. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Ambit, The Alarmist, Poetry London, The Stinging Fly, and in ‘Best British Poetry 2012’. Her second collection, ‘The Mystic and the Pig Thief’ (Salt), is due out in April 2014. She owns a basenji and several moth-eaten cardigans. She is still searching for the perfect cup of coffee.

Two Poems by Roberta James

The solace of java

He winks, exudes a ‘look look’ look you see shimmer
from a distance as you focus on the blackboard’s chalk offer,
a brand new blend of coffee that will take you to far places, 
a hand-made cake of spelt crusted with a coat of sugared cranberries
that promises a whole mouthfulness of taste from alpha to omega.  
You view the woman by him bask in his hot gaze, her mouth a volcano, 
until a gloss of sweat begins to round her face to moonshine.
His untwinkling eye catches your quickly - too-slow - hidden wish 

to explore.  He’s seen it all before.  He dims himself. That switch 
brings you down to earth with a hurt tangs copper in your mouth. 
So you break a hunk of crumble crust that dapples your buds, 
then dip into coffee depths until under its waterfall rush 
you loop up the foam to smooth it on your gums as balm, 
heal tender hidden skin, thin coverings sinewing the bones.

Sibling songs

She loads her spoon with scooped-out last remaining licks
and twirls away her haul.  He stamps his feet to her resounding beat 
while carrying the whisk that’s coated with caul-thin mix 
that’s left from the bowl.  For one and two and round the room, 
then three and four to close the door, she lifts her spoon baton so high 
then whirls and swoops in loops to one and two now sit on the floor 
for three then four eat up some more.  The rough side of her tongue 
absorbs the mixture thick and sugar-grit, raw, for one then two I want to sing 
so three then four don’t join in.  
                                                   He claps his hands to an arc cymbal-banging big, 
rolls away.  Lays on his back for a while to stare at the ceiling that is the colour of
old egg yolk, wonders what sound cake makes when it cooks if you are quiet enough
to catch it macaroon crisp marzipan sticks render and miss sticky bits miss,
gooey bits fizz swish boing and burst until the smell of hot sponge stops him.
She turns to stare at the oven window as he stands up, her face hollowing. 
She has seen the rising, the split down the middle.

Roberta James earns a crust working freelance in London in the creative industries, and thinks she may live where she does because it is within walking distance of a great bakers.

Hollywood by JT Welsch

Our Hollywood baker returns to England,

a fall like his weaker contestants’ bread.

Every day, another headline to share

with comment: team him or team

poor wife whose pain we share

since her – our – betrayal.

No one sees his lonesomeness

in the return to mere couplehood—

to no longer sweep the room, hands on hips,

and know: but I am more than this!

—the errant heart still leaping

if she touches your phone.

It’s the thing no contestant

dares admit: love is risk.

May the game reveal my recipe to me

in every heightened peccadillo: So, you say,

muting the replay. That’s how I look not

bullshitting. You take notes.

JT Welsch is the author of three chapbooks, the most recent of which is 'Waterloo' (Like This Press, 2012). He is also a lecturer at York St John University.

The Easy Cakes of Ottolenghi by Jacqueline Saphra

In his salad days of skins and caves, man

gave chase. He slaughtered buck, swallowed

the heart. He knew adrenaline, hauled woman

after woman by the hair. That’s all gone.

Now there’s money and a new ache every day,

sags in unexpected places, a loss of collagen

and desire. Hunger’s always knocking

at the edges, just the tongue that’s jaded.

The waitress who’s an actress resting

crouches by the table: Sorrel sir, or salsify?

The soft salt melt of sea-bream, halibut,

a thrill of salsa, quince and pomegranate.

Then dessert: the easy cakes of Ottolenghi

drip their syrups, glisten in the night, secrete

fresh tones of apple, grenadilla, rose.

Jacqueline Saphra’s first full collection, The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye) was developed with the support of Arts Council England and nominated for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.

On Typing Paper Stolen From Her Employers She Proceeds To Evolve A Campaign by Amy Key

A feeling that I should be writing a diary,

but every thought feels like an abomination. Like: drunk desire,

or cling-film bed sheets. My old diaries

bring on a feeling like feeling uncertain in someone’s embrace.

How I lacked ingenious neuroses!

Meanwhile, I am in love with blondes

in the newest way passion can exert itself. But,

it was blondes who I first edged my knee towards,

some hours before intolerable kisses.

Lips I’ve kissed crumble like meringue.

Hopes should recede with age, but this isn’t

a right-seeming present!

Mainly, I sat with the expectant feeling

of a passenger, for minutes and streets away

other things were possible. Sleep, a means of lace-edging days.

I could mock all my past’s authentic woes

and the character I sketched out for a novel

that might be me: “23 years old, no imagination”.

Surely I should be listening to other songs by now.

My imagined future is a collapsed soufflé.

Amy Key co-edits the online journal Poems in Which. Her debut collection Luxe is forthcoming from Salt. Hers is a salted caramel macaron.

Too Sweet by Sarah James

i) expectations                                                

My mother is rolling out icing: her fondant
pressed evenly against a wooden board.

For years, her fingers have been flecked
with white as she cuts and shapes petal
after petal, then wet-sticks these small
thumb-curved ovals together with a tight
pinch at the bottom until this flower,
her work of art, fills the kitchen, spills
out the doorway, through the hall, lounge,

stairs… She places this heavy gift in my hands.                    

ii) ingredients

Dear Mum, let memory repeat it:

eggs, flour, sugar, butter…

After the mixing, the baking.

After the baking, the white icing.

Alternatives in almond essence,

peppermint or vanilla. Add brandy,

sultanas, cherries, peel, any dried fruit.         

Easy on the grated zest and spice.

Always before the icing, the making.

Before the making, eggs breaking.

Before the breaking, raw weighing.

Be sure to first calibrate your scales.                         

iii) in time

Years later now, birthday barbie

is still in her ballgown of roses.

Shelved in my Mum’s cabinet,

alongside a set of silver spoons,

Nan’s best porcelain and memories
unwrapped from crumpled newspaper.

Her pudding-bowled dress has kept

its shape, blossoms from trim waist.

But her plastic arms, dried brittle,

have cracked at the wrists, white

petals break from her skirt.

Powdered sugar layers as dust.

Sarah is a poor baker but an enthusiastic cake and bread taster! Although the chances of her successfully mastering icing are probably lower than her ice-skating a figure-of-eight, she still lives in faint hope. Her first poetry collection Into the Yell (Circaidy Gregory Press, 2010) won third prize in the International Rubery Book Awards 2011 and her most recent collection Be[yond] is published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press. Sarah's website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk

Caramel by John McCullough

Weigh, measure, dissolve. Learn the dialects
of sugar. Make sweets hard, harder,
hardest. Wring colours—red from cochineal,
green from scalded beet leaves. Inhabit six degrees
of boiling: thread, pearled, blown, feathered,
cracked, caramel. Elevate yourself
to the baron’s house―a carved orange at the apex
of a pyramid of salvers. Loathe the cost
of ingredients. Mr Platt the footman cannot
be trusted. Ginger is delivered to a secret door,
to Miss Crosby’s hands. Use your tongue
to gauge success. Craft a Battenberg house
just for servants, for two. Find small, firm tears
naturally in cane. Keep finding them
for years. Detect a bad taste instead.
Live there but not for long, not for too long clearly.
Plan a wedding centrepiece. Glass fountains,
tulips cut with the point of a knife. Hover
at the work surface, ready and not ready,
staggering, clutching your chest. Remember it.
Remember everything these hands have done
and not done while you stand there
and gasp. Weigh, measure, dissolve.



John McCullough’s first collection of poems The Frost Fairs (Salt) won the Polari First Book Prize for 2012. It was a Book of the Year for both The Independent and The Poetry School, and a summer read for The Observer. He lives in Hove, and teaches creative writing for the Open University and New Writing South.

John says this poem was inspired by the September 18 episode on puddings last year, which saw Sue Perkins finding out about cabinet puddings and the showstopper cakes made by confectioners who actually lived in nobles’ houses.

Get ready...

Rum babas at the ready everyone. The Great British Bake Off is back on our screens on 20 Aug, and the Great British Bard Off pop-up poetry shop will soon be opening for business once more. We've got deliciousness, rhythm and some surprises in store... and to take part in the fun, send your poems to greatbritishbardoff@gmail.com!

Anything inspired by baking or by the marvellous TV series itself is welcome. And, at the end of the series, we'll be crowning our very own Star Baker, a high honour awarded to the person whose poem we like the best (and we'll also be awarding prizes for the best Showstopper, Signature Bake and Technical Challenge). There is no prize but glory, and the ability to claim yourself as an expert in both baking and poetry. Last year's winner was Lavinia Singer.

As a reminder, we are in no way affiliated with the BBC, Love Productions or the Great British Bake Off. We are just fans of the show, of baking and of poetry. Ready? GET BAKING!