The Baking Podcast You ‘Knead’ to Know About

Want to stay in the loop about the hottest buzz in baking?

Bigger Bolder Baking, one of the online baking shows and brands, recently released a first-of-its-kind baking podcast called Knead to Know, which cracked the top food podcast charts in less than 24 hours. Hosted by professional chef Gemma Stafford and entertainment expert Mia Brabham, they bring listeners the freshest news, entertainment gossip, and online baking trends.

Joined by some of the biggest professionals, personalities, and celebrities in the baking industry, Knead to Know is the recipe everyone needs for baking entertainment. Because this is not your regular vanilla podcast, people around the world are devouring it.

Stafford and Brabham took some time to chat more about the podcast and their love for baking with OFM.

Hi, Gemma & Mia! Thank you both for taking some time to chat with me about your podcast, Knead to Know. Can you tell us more about it and what listeners can expect?
Gemma Stafford: Knead to Know is a baking podcast unlike any other where you get baking entertainment, old school baking, and interviews with celebrities in the baking world and in the food space. It is a place where you can catch up for an hour what’s going on in the world of baking on a weekly basis. We have our finger on the pulse of everything baking and entertainment.

How long have you two known each other?
Mia Brabham: Since the show started [laughs]. Actually, no. A little bit before that. I was a writer for some of the stuff on Bigger Bolder Baking. I would help with some of that content, and then met the team and just really loved working with everyone.

GS: Yeah, Mia joined us a few months ago as a writer, and my husband Kevin, for people who know Bigger Bolder Baking, is a huge part of Bigger Bolder Baking. Mia has such great potential, and I just love her energy and attitude. I just knew that she was an absolute star. Every star needs a platform, so that is what we did. We gave her a platform, and so far, I think she has been awesome.

How did the idea for Knead to Know come about, and why did you want to start this podcast?
GS: Podcasts are becoming increasingly more popular, and we wanted to diversify and get into another realm. Predominantly, we are known for video, primarily on YouTube, but now we have BiggerBolderBaking.com and we have 8 million fans across social media that come to watch our videos and go to our website, and the podcast was just another avenue where we could talk baking. It was just to branch out to diversify and to represent as many diverse baking voices as we could. We feel like a podcast is a good platform to do that.

Have either of you hosted a podcast before?
GS: I haven’t.

MB: I have done two. I did one in college, which was my foray into podcasting, and then I host one now called Two in the Morning. Knead to Know is completely different. This is such a fun side that I get to explore with baking because I love it, personally. I am not the best at it, but I love learning from people, especially Gemma, and I get to talk to all these people who are just so good at it. One thing I personally love about the show is that I feel like our interviews, we really try to get to the core of who these speakers are. People, interviewees, and subjects get the same questions over and over. As bakers, of course they love baking, but they get the same baking questions. So, I think an important part of this show and about baking is that we really learn who these guests are as people and how that contributes to their baking skills.

GS: That is a good point. We like to go deeper and talk about information you are not going to find if you Google the person we are interviewing. Something that is a bit more personal, something about their story, or something that contributed to how they came to be.

What are some of the biggest challenges of doing a podcast?
GS: A lot of it is very time consuming. We are coming from a world of video where a three-minute video can take hours to shoot, and days to edit. The thing about Knead to Know, we are also doing video at the same time, so it is that more labor intensive. We do it because we see an uptick in podcasts doing video, and it is another way to connect with our audience. For our audience to feel like they are in the room with us. Our whole team here at Bigger Bolder Baking is involved with the podcast, and the video part does take a lot of work.

MB: The whole idea of the show and why we are so excited is because there is not a weekly baking podcast out there like us. Every, single day, we are committed to scouring the news and figuring out what’s happening in baking so everyone can listen in on Sunday. Every, single day, I am thinking about it, but it is fun to always kind of be in that mindset.

In addition to hosting, I also research for the show, I write the script for the show, and working with everyone else, it truly is a team effort. I like to come to work as a consumer. I want to talk about what I find exciting because I think my friends of the Bigger Bolder Baking audience will find it exciting as well. We are all excited about baking. This is a global podcast, and Gemma’s audience is amazing. Everybody is from everywhere.

GS: We also put a lot of research and thought into our guests. We don’t just scroll on Instagram and see who has the biggest accounts.

Who have been some of your guests?
GS: We have had Brian Hart Hoffman, who is the editor-in-chief of Bake from Scratch Magazine and run The Bake Feed. We have had Andrew Smyth, who is famous from The Great British Bake Off in England. Zoë François, who is an OG when it comes to baking and the brains behind the five-minute loaf of bread. So, we really try as much as we can to research our questions, and a lot of thought goes into the people that we speak to.

Knead to Know cracked the top food podcast charts in 24 hours. Were you surprised to see that it was received so well?
GS: You know, that is what we strive for here. The whole team gets behind us. Everything that we focus our attention on at Bigger Bolder Baking, we want to be the best and we want to do our best. Just being one of the top food podcasts, it’s awesome, but I am thinking, yes, that is where I want to be. That is what I strive for. If we are not there, we are going to get there.

How did Bigger Bolder Baking originally start?
GS: My husband and I quit our full-time jobs. I am a professionally trained chef, but I was working in catering. My husband was working in the entertainment gaming world, and we just quit our jobs, packed it all in, moved to L.A., and started a YouTube channel. People used to say to us, and they still say to us, ‘What would you have done if it did not work out? ‘That was seven years ago now, and my answer was, ‘It was going to work out. We were going to make it a success.’ People say to me, ‘What was your plan B?’ There was no plan B. This was going to work. So, when we focused our energy on doing a podcast, we went all in, we put all our power behind us, and we said, if we are going to do this, hopefully, we are going to be one of the top podcasts. You can never be 100 percent sure, but that is what we strive for.

What do you hope audiences take away from the podcast?
GS: To learn something that they did not know about bakers they follow on Instagram or that celebrity chef they see on TV. Getting a little bit deeper, more personal, and more familiar with that person. We also try very hard to stay conversational, which invites the listeners in, rather than sitting at a desk with a list of questions to ask the person. We try to be relaxed and make it more informal. We have done our research, we know them, we know a lot about them already, and it is just a conversation between friends. People we have had on the podcast already say they can talk to Mia for hours.

MB: If only it wasn’t just an hour-long podcast! I want the audience to leave the podcast feeling inspired, because that is what Bigger Bolder Baking does. Gemma gives people the confidence to bake. It does not matter what stage of baking you are at, and even in my early stage, Gemma helped me with her microwave recipes. We have had amazing, amazing guests, and when you hear their stories, where they started, and how far they have come, that is so inspiring.

Like, to bring up Brian Hart Hoffman again, he was like, ‘I messed up so much. I literally made soda bread with Coca Cola.’ Look at him now. Stuff like that has happened with all the guests we have had on. You have to start somewhere. I hope these interviews, I don’t even think of them as interviews, I think of them as conversations, leave people feeling inspired. You do not want to feel drained coming away from a conversation. You want to feel light and happy, especially during times like these.

Have you both always had a passion for baking?
GS: I have. Ever since I was a young girl. The only thing I wanted to do when I grew up was to either be a chef or teacher. Those were the two things. I remember filling out my college application form when my mom said to me, ‘Gemma, don’t be a chef because you will make no money and you will work every hour God sends.’ She was absolutely right. I worked very long days and got paid very little money, and that was true for the majority of my career.

The last job I had in a kitchen, I was in a Michelin Star kitchen, I would come in at 5 a.m., leave at 2 p.m., and make a couple $100 a week. I was living in San Francisco, and I would barely afford to live. It was those moments, even though they were very difficult at the time, they made me determined. I knew there was something out there for me. I always knew that I was not going to spend my days working in a kitchen until 12:00 at night being the last pastry chef to leave. That is where our passion and determination for Bigger Bolder Baking came from.

I always knew that baking would be my career in some way, shape, or form, but I never knew that all these years later, I would be teaching and still baking. Honestly, I have become a much better baker since Bigger Bolder Baking, and I love us even more than ever. Which is kind of crazy because when I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was bake. Now, it is even better because I get to share it with more people and collaborate with people like Mia and my team.

MB: So, as you can see, I am a non-resident baker. That is definitely all Gemma. I am a resident entertainment expert, but clearly, I am on the show because I love baking. As far as my story, growing up, my family and I did not divert. We were creatures of habit when it came to baking. My nana made the same friendship bread recipe every year. She would make her German chocolate cake and my mom would make her vanilla cake, so I had like the same three things and the same desserts. When I went to college, I was a first-gen college student, I started trying new things like macaroons and different kinds of cookies. At first, it was very much about falling in love with the flavors, the taste, and the different types of treats you can have because I grew up with the same variety.

Once I was able to venture out on my own, and I am a very curious person by nature, which I think made me interested in wanting to be a host because you get to hear people’s stories, but I started to think, there are so many things out there. What more is there? Let me try something from this culture, let me try this kind of baked good. How do you make that baked good? Let me give it a try. My nana, mom, and dad made the same cakes and cookies, but it is people like Gemma who wants to give people the confidence to bake. I think people forget how much you need that as a new baker. It does not come easily for everyone, and I was scared for a while of baking even though I was very interested in it.

When I graduated from school and had my own kitchen, because I am a Virgo moon, I like my things in order, I had a space where I could start baking. I knew what ingredients I was picking up at the grocery store and I could go get XYZ and make recipes in my own space. I think that is really when my full love for baking came. Since then, it has taken off, and I am still learning every day. It is a great and fun journey.

What are some of the hottest trends in baking right now?
MB: It is interesting because there is something new every week. Our worst fear is, ‘Oh my gosh, is there not going to be anything new this week? Is it going to be a dark week?’ But then with platforms like TikTok, you see something new all the time. It is funny because trends will take the platform by storm, but then the next week, it will be something different. Baked feta was being cooked more, it was not really baking, but then baked oats took off. There is a certain way to cut potatoes now and you learn how to do that. There is a pancake battered banana, so instead of making pancakes with bananas on top, you can coat the banana with pancake batter.

There are ways to take certain ingredients and make them into something new, and I think TikTok is a huge place for that. It has the ability to go viral. I mean, there is Instagram and Twitter, but I don’t think there is any viral like TikTok viral. So, I think that has been a cool platform to see baking take off on.

GS: I think also because of lockdown and everybody has been in quarantine, especially early on in the lockdown, we saw a huge surge in baking. What came from that was a lot of celebrities who you never thought were big bakers. They got into the kitchen and started making their own banana bread, their own sourdough. Jenna Fischer from The Office is a pro now at baking sourdough. Angela Kinsey, I am a big fan of The Office, she and her husband have a YouTube channel called Baking with Josh & Ange. The great thing about baking is that it does not have to be your universe, but it is quite common amongst so many people. A lot of celebs have been getting into the kitchen and producing some amazing things.

What are some of your favorite dishes to bake?
GS: I go back to what I grew up on. I go back to the kind of recipes that really strike a chord with me and have fond memories of. For instance, something so simple like apple crumble. My mom used to make pavlova, which is not as popular here in the U.S., but a big billowy white pavlova with fruit and cream on top, that is hands down one of my favorite desserts.

Also, something so simple like rice pudding. My mom used to make amazing rice pudding when we were kids. Coming home from school, and it will already be dark at 4:30 during the winter, I remember being in the kitchen and the rice pudding would be in the oven. I remember the texture, taste, everything. Those kinds of things are what I love personally to bake because I just have such fond memories. There is something so lovely about food memories. It is one thing we all have in common as well.

MB: I am a huge fan of baking bread, particularly chocolate chip banana bread. I am not going to lie, I love easy. Anything that is enough to really take my mind off whatever is going on in life, but I do not want it to be an all-day process. Once in a while, I take a decisive baking day, but something where I can really just escape with the least amount of ingredients for a little bit of time, but tastes really, really good. Gemma calls it maximizing.

I love banana bread, and I too go back to childhood recipes. My nana sent me her friendship bread recipe, and I also grew up loving upside-down cake. So, I like making that, and peach cobbler is a huge one for me.

Before we wrap up, are there any other projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?
GS: I think that is it. We are just here creating new recipes multiple days a week, we have the podcast going, and we are looking to add more chefs, more voices, and more people from different walks of life and ethnicities to the Bigger Bolder Baking network. Hopefully, everybody will soon see themselves being represented.

MB: Yes, that is huge. I feel very passionate about that as well. We do not want to get 20 episodes in and have someone look at it and be like, I have not seen myself yet. I think that is very important, and it is something that we are actively working towards.

Follow both Stafford and Brabham on Instagram to stay up-to-date, and Knead to Know is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes launch every Sunday. Click here for more information Bigger Bolder Baking.

Photos Courtesy of Bigger Bolder Baking