Where the baking starts: at the family's kitchen

UK
I’m Melanie Constantinou, and I’m the person behind Baked By Mel! I run a bakery business out of my family’s home in the Vale of Glamorgan.
I come from a family that cooked from scratch all the time. Some of the dishes prepared took time and effort from start to finish, so there was always ingredients in various states of completion to ‘mealtimes’…

The kitchen was a happy place to be so I learned from watching/helping and finally doing it myself.

When I first set up the business I was a single parent with issues around childcare… it was a logistical nightmare! I decided I had to work from home to be as flexible as I could.

Sharing the kitchen with my family does dictate what I bake as the kitchen has to be a space that functions for the entire family…what can I say, they are patient and understanding (they gotta be!).
Things can get hectic at times but as a rule it’s very manageable. I do tend to get a bit…er… territorial when I’m baking (i.e. come into the kitchen at your own peril!)

The thing I bake most is bara brith, a traditional welsh tea bread, and also my best selling product.
I launched my very own take on it in 2014 at the Abergavenny Food Festival, and I was really excited as it had just been given 2 gold stars at the Great Taste Awards. I am so proud of it!
It’s a brilliant gift to send as it has a shelf life of 14 days, and the travel time lets the fruity flavours and spices settle.
I can write any message you like (my favourite bit) and I love thinking of my cake as a carrier of good wishes! It’s easy to order online at and people send them for all sorts of reasons.
Amongst all the baking I do in our house it’s still the top favourite… and rightly so.
Get in touch!
http://www.barabrith.co/
http://www.barabrith.co/product/classic-bara-brith/