Callum Reyes

Callum Reyes's first sourdough loaf came out of the oven looking like a brick and tasting like one too. He had followed the recipe exactly. What he had not done was check his oven temperature, weigh his flour, or notice that his kitchen was ten degrees colder than the one the recipe was written in. The problem was not the recipe. It was the variables the recipe assumed he already knew.

That experience shaped how he writes. Over ten years of baking breads, cakes, cookies, and pastry, and teaching community baking classes for adults who described themselves as "hopeless at baking," Callum has learned that most baking failures are not about talent or expensive equipment. They are about measurement, temperature, and understanding why a step exists. With a certified culinary instructor background and a habit of testing every recipe at least three times, he writes guides that explain cause and effect rather than just listing instructions.

His work covers bread and sourdough, cakes and cookies, pastry and pies, and the troubleshooting that comes after a bake goes wrong. He is particularly interested in the gap between a recipe written in a professional kitchen and what happens in a home oven on a humid afternoon.

When he is not writing or testing a recipe, Callum can usually be found weighing flour to the gram, checking his oven with a thermometer, or quietly admitting that the loaf he just baked is still a little dense and he knows why.