With baking influencers and competition shows a dime-a-dozen these days, it’s hard to sift through what bakers are truly important to baking history. That said, several bakers have undeniably shaped the way we bake today. Today, we will fill you up with brief biographies of eight brilliant bakers.
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Julia Child
Potentially the best-known chef and baker on this list is Julia Child. She singlehandedly revolutionized the cooking and baking entertainment industry with her new way of recording the otherwise slow baking process. Child didn’t necessarily learn how to cook growing up because their family employed a cook, but after she married her husband, Paul Child, and moved to Paris, she developed a taste for eating and preparing fine dining.
She attended the cooking school, the Cordon Bleu, and determined to make previously inaccessibly difficult French baking available to the average American baker. From breads to tarts to patisserie, Child devoted her life to teaching baking tricks and techniques to anyone who wanted to learn using her iconic upbeat and optimistic style.
Candace Nelson
Candace Nelson is known as the inventor of the gourmet cupcake. Of course, cupcakes have been around for hundreds of years (the name was finally coined in 1828), but it wasn’t until 2003 that Candace Nelson’s shop, Sprinkle’s Cupcakes, started the cupcake craze. Sprinkle’s Cupcakes is arguably the world’s first cupcake bakery, and they’ve even branched out into providing some cupcake ATMs (yes, you read that right) and DIY cupcake kits you can assemble at home.
Before Nelson, cupcakes were just a thing you served at children’s birthday parties and baby showers, but her innovated filling, frosting, and flavors turned the cupcake world upside down. Now Nelson is a celebrity judge on many baking competitions such as Cupcake Wars and Sugar Rush.
Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood
Both of these bakers are famous in their own right, but together they made an unstoppable force in the world of baking. Hollywood started baking when he was just a teenager for his father’s bakery, but then he left college to begin working as a baker himself. He became the head baker for several hotels before becoming a judge on The Great British Bake Off with Mary Berry.
Mary Berry became interested in baking and cooking when she was in a domestic sciences class in school. She also attended the Cordon Bleu and has many other baking accolades under her apron (including publishing 75 books!). She has also taught classes, been an editor for a magazine, and offered masterclasses filled with many of her best baking tips.
Berry was a cohost with Hollywood until 2016. Between Hollywood’s coveted handshake and Mary’s grandmotherly encouragement (“That’s just scrummy!”), their partnership shaped baking competitions not only in Britain but across the world.
Ron Ben-Israel
Believe it or not, Ron Ben-Israel started his career as an international dancer, but he was forced to cut that dream short partly because he developed arthritis. He then switched his dream to baking and was mentored by Martha Stewart. Ben-Israel’s amazing cakes have been highlighted in several huge publications like Martha Stewart, the New York Times, Modern Bride, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He has also appeared as a celebrity judge for several baking shows, and his skill at using sugar paste is probably his biggest claim to fame.
Christina Tosi
Christina Tosi is famous for Milk Bar, the bakery she opened in 2008. Her claim to fame is her delicious and unconventional childhood-inspired desserts like “Cereal Milk” and “Crack Pie” (renamed Milk Bar Pie). She has since been the judge for cooking competitions like MasterChef and MasterChef Junior and even has a feature in Netflix’s show Chef’s Table. Her style has inspired many aspiring bakers to think outside the box and put new twists on old favorites.
Fannie Merritt Farmer
Fannie Merritt Farmer literally wrote the book when it came to cooking and baking. She was born in 1857 and attended the Boston Cooking School as an adult. She eventually became the school’s principal and wrote the cookbook The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1896. The most groundbreaking aspect of her cookbook was the fact that it standardized measuring tools such as measuring cups and spoons. Before her, people typically used whatever cup they had handy in their recipes. Her book is still in print, and it has sold three million copies worldwide so far.
Henry Jones
Henry Jones is credited for inventing self-rising flour in 1945. While self-rising flour isn’t necessarily a standard ingredient in most home baker’s pantries, it was revolutionary at the time. It contains baking powder and salt, and there are additional nutrients in the self-rising flour that all-purpose flour doesn’t have. The baking powder was a crucial additive because it made it so sailors and other travelers could make bread during their journey as they needed it instead of relying on hardtack as a food source.
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