With a career spanning Michelin-starred kitchens, to her own artisan bakery, beloved Sydney baker and Flour and Stone founder Nadine Ingram joins Byron Writers Festival to share the stories behind her cult-favourite creations from her heartfelt cookbooks Flour and Stone and Love Crumbs.
In Love Crumbs, many of your recipes are rooted in sensory experiences like perfume, spice, and texture – how do you translate these abstract inspirations into something as precise and structured as a cake recipe?
There are so many layers to a cake recipe. The first question I always asked when writing those for Love Crumbs was – what do I want to say here? Everything I do is with feeling or meaning so I wanted the cakes to be expressions of the intentions I believe we have for one another.
The Mango Extravaganza cake, for instance, tells the story of how ‘the cake’ has become a threshold between us, and that your coveted wishes fall over the crumbs. The spirit of a mango has the ability to grant wishes and so this in some way becomes my intention for you.
The inspiration starts more often with the botanicals. They have to be good marriages, and their provenance and seasonality also have to work together.
The actual structure of the recipe merely weaves the technique and intentions together through a repertoire of notes that I call my recipe songs.
If someone were baking from Love Crumbs for the very first time, which recipe would you suggest they start with and why?
It would depend on the occasion.
For something celebratory I would suggest either Athena or Luna because they are stunning cakes using quite simple skills.
For an afternoon tea I would suggest the Cake For The Angels or Mariu because they have pops of fruit in them and can be mixed together very quickly.
What do you hope to bring to the conversation as a baker and author at Byron Writers Festival, and what are you most looking forward to sharing, or learning, during the festival?
I’m looking forward to sharing my experience of life as I have lived it through the medium of cake. Being a baker has given me a purposeful place in the world where I am able to tell stories through cake and connect with people through my heart. Documenting the story along the way through imagery and words has been an integral part of saying “this happened, and I was a part of it!”
This is going to sound strange but writers’ festivals and the bookish world is very new to me. Writers move with a different energy than bakers and this has been the most interesting observation for me. A writers’ festival feels so calming and thoughtful. They aren’t the frenetic energy of a kitchen. We all arrive in these towns from all over and being able to immerse into people’s stories without distractions is a real treat for me.
The theme for Byron Writers Festival is ‘Passion and Purpose’. How do you personally define passion and purpose, and how do these definitions shape you as a writer and baker?
I think to accomplish purpose you need passion, but more than that, you need perseverance. Things don’t always go to plan with both writing and baking but if you have the integrity and belief that what you are trying to say is authentic that creates the ‘stamina’ to persevere. Purpose for me is centred around my service to people and both baking and writing have been the avenues I’ve chosen to express that passion.
It’s been a very rich life.
Nadine Ingram appears at Byron Writers Festival on Saturday, August 9 (Food and Passion) and Sunday, August 10 (Food and Belonging).
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