Bara’s dreaming about baking
Years, years ago, back in Prague, in mum’s kitchen, my first pancake was made. Since than, no one else at our home had the right to prepare pancakes, it was mine.
Time was passing by, I was studying, finishing high school, choosing a university and thinking about my future. Who do I want to be? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want to live?
I didn’t know. I just wanted to bake.
But, you know, it wasn’t that easy… One has to study, one has to get the diploma and one has to get some proper job.
And so I did. I started studying pedagogy at the Technical University in Liberec and honestly, I enjoyed it! I just couldn’t imagine that till the end of my life, I will be a teacher… I wanted to bake!
As I started my last year at the uni, I couldn’t stop thinking about what will come afterwards. Because being a teacher was not (any more) my dream. I wanted so badly to be good in baking, in pastry, have my own shop and serve my customers with delicious coffee and small sweet treats – that I’ve just taken out of the oven!
Therefore I started searching if there is any possibility how, at my age, get a proper pastry education. I say at my age – because in France, the common age when one starts to learn pastry, is 14. And I was already over 20…
Finally, I found exactly what I was looking for! ENSP, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie, school of French Pastry Arts where also I, as a foreigner, could learn bakery and pastry techniques at a great level, during only 7 months of an intensive course!
To make the decision to quit my studies after the state exams and to not continue for the master degree, that was not an easy decision. I was not sure at all if it is right to follow my dream, instead of going for a “safe option” – get the master degree, become a teacher and..we’ll see.
For many, to continue to study was exactly what I was supposed to do, because baking, come on, everyone can do that! But, luckily, at that time, my parents were very supportive and they encouraged me to make this decision and begin to study pastry in France.
Time in France was passing very quickly and after 5 months of an intensive study program, all of us, students, left for our 8-weeks internships.
For my internship, I had to chose a French pastry shop, but that shop could be basically anywhere. And since I had never been interested in living in France, but I really wanted to stay little longer abroad, I came up with the idea to follow another dream of mine – to live in Norway.
So, after studying in France, I came to Norway -it was ment just for two months…
But instead of coming back home, I got a job and started working as a pastry cook. Though I had some very tough time both at work and in my private life, I managed to establish my little life up here, in the North.
Over time, from a pastry cook, I became Chef Chocolatier, but I also decided that the company which I was working for was not really the place where I wanted to be. Therefore I left – and started working for a sweet little family bakery in Drammen, where I had already moved to from Oslo almost a year earlier- to live with my (!!!awesomely awesome!!!) boyfriend.
At my blog, you won’t (usually) find fancy French cakes with huge amounts of sugar and white flour. Over the time that I have been working in pastry, chocolate and bakery, I became very aware of the unbalanced diet of many of us – it became quite difficult for me to see our “regular customers” or kids begging their parents for another macaron…
I love to bake. I love to make
But I would love to share with you recipes for food that is delicious and healthy at the same time!
Because that we love to eat shouldn’t mean risking our health, right?
Recipes that you can find on my blog generally include less or no (added) sugar – and when sugar, than in the least amount that is necessary. Instead, I aim for reaching great flavor through using various spices, traditional ingredients like buckwheat or rye flour, oils, seeds and also natural sugar substitutes – mostly Sukrin, Stevia, coconut sugar or agave syrup.