Shortlisted for the Jane Grigson Trust Award 2021

A cookbook with bags of heart about the redemptive power of baking

Breadsong tells the story of Kitty Tait who was a chatty, bouncy and full-of-life 14 year old until she was overwhelmed by an ever-thickening cloud of depression and anxiety. Her life changed overnight and she withdrew from the world. Her desperate family tried everything to help her but she slipped further away from them.

One day her dad Alex, a teacher, baked a loaf of bread with her and that small moment changed everything. One loaf quickly escalated into an obsession and Kitty started to find her way out of the terrible place she was in. Baking bread was the one thing that made any sense to her and before long she was making loaves for half her village.

And she didn't stop at bread. Learning from other bakers, reading cookbooks and trusting an innate sense of what made the ordinary extraordinary, she began to take her baking in a whole new direction. Demand for Kitty's loaves, buns, cookies and brownies grew and, after a few whirlwind months, she and her dad opened The Orange Bakery, where queues now regularly snake down the street.

Breadsong is a cookbook with more than 80 of Kitty's favourite recipes including Happy Bread filled with salted caramel and Comfort Bread made with Marmite, sticky buns galore with flavours such as Cardamom and Orange, and Fig and Honey, and the ultimate Tahini and Milk Chocolate Cookies. It's also a story about mental health, finding joy in unexpected places and being brave enough to change your life.