I am late; I said I’d make this formal announcement last week. Well, last week was swallowed by post-book missing brain, small child, and angsting about a job interview. However, that’s all over now. On to the fun stuff!

It has come to my attention that there are a bunch of people around who like to bake. Breads, bread products, quick breads, yeast breads, sourdough, cakes, sweet loaves, more cakes, pies, tarts… you name it, someone bakes it. And every time we talk about it on-line, everyone else gets the baking bug.

So! On the heels of this realisation I have cobbled together a new holiday celebrating both the arrival of spring and the glory of baking! Ladies and gentlemen, I declare this coming May Day the first annual Beltane Bake Day!

Now technically speaking May Day, AKA Beltane (Beltaine, Bealtinne, Latha Bealltainn, Walpurgis Night, etc.) is the first of May, traditionally beginning at sundown on April 30 and carrying forward to sundown on May 1. This year it happens to fall on a Thursday, and so I am declaring the Beltane Bake Day a THREE-DAY HOLIDAY! Yes, it will begin on May 1 (however you want to determine when it begins) and end at midnight on May 3. This gives everyone a chance to bake with a relaxed schedule whether they work full-time outside the home or otherwise.

The rules:

1. Bake something.

2. Your baked item must be from scratch. No mixes, unless they are an ingredient in a multi-ingredient recipe. (Using a pudding mix in a cake recipe, for example.)

3. Brag about it in your on-line journal. This is your opportunity to wax poetic about your love of baking, and/or the specific product you have baked, and/or the process and your experience baking it. If it falls flat, share your woes with the rest of us and we will console you.

4. Brownie points to those who post a picture! (Seriously, what other kind of points belong in a baking holiday?) If you don’t have a camera, describe it as best you can. Or borrow one from a friend, bribing them with a taste of your baked item!

5. Because bragging inevitably engenders envy, people will likely ask for your recipe, so you can post it as well. Unless it’s a closely guarded secret, in which case you can gleefully withhold it and taunt us all.

That’s all there is to it! This event is simply to give us all a reason to bake something and talk about it, sharing it in the only way we can with people scattered all over the continents. Your baked item can be as simple or as fancy as you like.

I propose that we use this post as a home base, so to speak: when you’ve participated and posted about it in your journal, leave a note here with a link to your post so others can find it. Feel free to repost this link in your own journals to share the event with as many people as you like.

You have three days in which to plot, plan, and prepare. Have fun!