Treats from 30 cultures showcased in new Good Bitches Baking cookbook

When you think 'Good Bitches Baking', you probably think batches of beautiful baking produced by volunteers for Kiwi in need of kindness.

But in their new cookbook Familiar Foods: Treats of Aotearoa, the charity shares comforting recipes from New Zealand's diverse cultural communities.

Before collecting the recipes, the cookbook's editor Hannah Molloy assumed they would all be "delicious baking from around the world". She very quickly learned the homemade 'treats' which nurture New Zealanders and connect them to their families, cultures and ancestral lands don't all feature flour, butter and sugar.

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Molloy reached out to "all kinds of networks and community groups" in pursuit of recipes.

"I had more conversations than the number of recipes we ended up with, but some people decided it wasn't for them along the way. One reason that came up a few times was that they didn't think they were a good enough cook or that their story wasn't 'important' enough which I felt really sad about," she says.

"The result was that I included all the recipes that came to me - with a project like this, it didn't feel like it would be right for me or GBB to say 'your family or cultural recipe isn't good enough for us' so we didn't. Fortunately it wasn't an issue as all the recipes are amazing."

Volunteers also helped Molloy and the book's creative team check translations.

"It was pretty incredible; I put a call out to our around 3300 volunteers for help with 17 languages, and within a week I had someone for every language. For some, I ended up with a couple of people able to check them for me."

One of Molloy's favourite recipes in Familiar Foods is an “amazing” Fesenjān chicken stew with walnuts and pomegranate molasses by Kiana Jalali of Dunedin.

"You know your grandma loves you too much if she makes it for you outside of these special occasions," Jalali writes in the book.

Another stand out recipe for Molloy is the “scrumptious” Sri Lankan Milk Toffee which Sanjana Hattotuwa (also of Dunedin) used to watch his grandmother bake in an ancient stove in the early '80s.

"I remember never leaving the vicinity of the oven because the smell of hot toffee was so mouth-watering," Hattotuwa writes.

Of the two recipes for fry bread inFamiliar Foods: Treats of Aotearoa, Maria Kewene-Edwards (Ngaati Hikairo, Ngāt Hauā) of Dunedin contributed one that it was so automatic for her to make off by heart that converting into written instructions was “really challenging”, Molloy says.

“Flour and water and mix it,” were the instructions Kewene-Edwards sent through at first, Molloy says.

Later, she came back with some vague measurements and an essential special ingredient - “Light hands, warm heart and thoughts”

“It's like, ‘Yeah, that's true. You do need that'.”

Around New Zealand, 3400+ ‘good bitch’ volunteers bake donations at home and with their own ingredients for 550 organisations that include neonatal intensive care units, night shelters, grief counsellors, cancer wards and hospices, Molloy says.

The recipients are often "quite shocked" to get some beautiful baking just because, she says, and the volunteers love knowing something they've enjoyed making will brighten someone else's day.

"They know that it's going to hopefully make what is sometimes a really dark day just a little tiny bit better. It's not about fixing social issues or changing people's lives... it's not big but it's actually big, as well."

Good Bitches Baking also runs the programmes Prison Bake, in which volunteers teach baking skills in correctional facilities and Sweet as Hapori, which offers community baking lessons.