Home is where the stomach is

One sunny, autumnal day on campus, I was walking home and realised something extremely urgent. Alarm bells were sounding off in my head as I found myself drawing ever closer to a particular shop…The University Boulevard Co-Op.

You see, I’d realised something was missing, something I couldn’t quite live without doing. I needed to bake! As I picked up some Kinder chocolate (enough for the Co-Op staff to question in their minds why on earth I needed 6 big Kinder bars for one person) and made my way back to my house, I began reminiscing on my first real memories of food.

Most children’s safe haven is their bedrooms - they play with their toys, have sleepovers with their friends, are immune to being told off by their parents because it’s where they can truly be free - and whilst I did all of those things too, my special place was my grandma’s kitchen.Her kitchen was where I first learned about how to bake. She’d take a chair from her dining room, position it next to the kitchen counter and show me the ways of a baker. From cakes to cupcakes, biscuits to scones, there was always some sort of magical concoction made of butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Over time, I grew taller, no longer needing a chair to reach the counter - but I never outgrew baking. Baking and creating food felt like a special science - after all, I haven’t studied science for over five years! But there’s something so relaxing and comforting about weighing out ingredients, folding flour into a cake mixture and sprinkling icing sugar over a Victoria sponge that I can’t seem to stop.

The Great British Bake Off tapped into my love for baking too, inspiring me to continue my journey to discover more. I delved into chocolate chip cookies - the thick kind which are slightly crunchy, but oh-so-gooey and ooze chocolate in the middle. And like a cookie spreading in an oven, I expanded into the realm of brownies and traybakes too, infusing chocolatey goodness with orange and mint extracts (not at the same time though, that would be quite difficult to eat). Although my mum wasn’t too impressed at the sheer amount of space my ingredients took up in our kitchen cupboards, she definitely enjoyed the outcome! Take for example Bakewell Blondies - a ‘blonde’ form of a brownie with white chocolate, swirled with raspberry jam and topped with almond flakes.

Even though I’ve been at university for two years now, and most of the time is spent reading history articles, I always have time for baking in my life. Every single thing I bake in my uni kitchen - including those Kinder Bueno cookies on that autumn day - reminds me of not only home, but where I came from and who I am now. What a lovely trip down memory lane… now, are there any leftover cookies to eat?

By Holly Philpott