Hello I’m Mel, aka The Legendary Brownie.
I have always enjoyed food both eating and making it! My first memory of baking was when my Dad and I took up cookery lessons after school. We had such a laugh. Once we used the wrong flour in a cross plait loaf. It rose so much in the oven we could hardly get it out, but it tasted great! I was fascinated by the idea of adding a few ingredients together to create something wonderfully tasty.

Being a working mum, I don’t like to spend hours cooking. I prefer simple quick recipes, keeping a relaxed and fun atmosphere in the kitchen.

I have spent many years designing for magazines including Marks & Spencer’s, where I used to art direct photo shoots for food and interiors, later moving to Livingetc when my son Bailey was very young. It was here the idea for my blog The Legendary Brownie started to form. At Livingetc I used to bring in my bakes for the team, which was a great way to share my food. So much so, that my leaving card featured my head superimposed onto Nigella Lawson’s body. It was then that I realised maybe I had fed them one or two brownies along the way. I progressed onto interiors magazines in my career but maintain a real love of food.

I created this blog firstly to dedicate to my son, who also seems to love food, with the hope that in the future he will be able to look back at these recipes with fond memories and carry on cooking them himself, possibly with his own children. Secondly, I have also found it useful to have my recipes in one place, rather than trying to locate one recipe from the plethora of cook books I own (literally its like an addiction and getting out of control), or find that treasured print out of a recipe, once stuck to the fridge and now who knows where. Also I’m a very visual person too, so I have tried to add as many visuals as possible. It makes it easier for me to quickly skim the recipes whilst cooking, and hopefully you find it helpful too.

When I think of special memories or occasions with family and friends, a lot of them revolve around food or eating out.  Everyone has a ‘passed down from Mum’ recipe, or their own take on a dish. So please do feel free to share your favourite all-time classics with me. Bailey and I would love to try them, and you never know, they might end up being posted here too.