Fall 2015 Bake From Scratch magazine

I have been a magazine junkie for as long as I can remember. I started with Tiger Beat and Teen (Teen published my first letter to the editor when I was still in junior high) and worked my way up to Seventeen, Glamour, and then Newsweek and Time when I decided to become a journalist. Years later, when I became editor of a local magazine, I bought even more magazines because I wanted to see what "the big guys" were doing, and I have always been eager to check out new magazines I hear about. I hadn't heard a thing about Bake From Scratch magazine, but I saw it on the newsstand  recently and decided to flip through it. I have this rule: if I open to three pages and don't see anything I care about, I'm done. Through. You've got three chances to get my attention, and that's it. Lately, I've noticed how very similar magazines have become. Christmas magazines? I've seen those pretty wreaths and candy-cane-covered trees a million times before. Fall cooking magazines? Oh, who doesn't need one more article on how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving turkey. The anything-with-Vintage-in-the-title magazines? If I see one more article on chalk paint, someone is going to get hurt. (My, that sounds snarky for a Monday morning, doesn't it? Sorry!) But I've said all that to say this: I reached for Bake From Scratch magazine and loved everything I saw. That Apple Spice Cake on the cover? What a great and yet somehow moody photo.

Inside the magazine, I found a Vanilla Buying Guide, and I needed that. You know how the Barefoot Contessa always tells everyone to use "the good vanilla"? I've always assumed she means expensive, only-available-in-the-Hamptons vanilla, so it was lovely to read about the history of vanilla as well as the difference between the various pure vanillas and extracts.

As I flipped through the magazine, I already knew I was going to buy it, and then I saw this feature on scones. And aren't they beautiful scones?

And here are some more beautiful scones, and guess what? The magazine has 12 whole pages of beautifully photographed scones and recipes! Sweet Potato Sage Scones? Pear Chai Spiced Scones? Vanilla Bean and Cardamom Scones? I think I'm in love. The magazine costs $12.99, and I wonder if that's a sustainable price level for such a publication, but it turns out the publisher is Hoffman Media, which has a long history of making successful business decisions and so far has done just fine without my input. Hoffman is also publisher of our beloved Tea Time, and as I flipped past the page from the editor (some guy named Brian), I flipped back and realized the editor is one of Phyllis Hoffman's sons, Brian Hoffman. So if you're a passionate baker, scone maker, and/or magazine junkie, be sure to check out this magazine. My husband and I call it the Garden & Gun of baking, and I'm so impressed with this first issue and wish them all the best.