About Mark Oppenneer

I bake bread.

I don’t have a culinary degree, a background in food science, or a published cookbook. I am simply a person who had the great fortune of being my mother’s son. She’s the one with the foodie bona fides. Betsy Oppenneer was a world-renowned author and baking instructor whose honey-sweet Southern charm and deep knowledge of the kitchen led Julia Child to call her The Pied Piper of Bread Bakers.

I am just a guy who came home from school every day to a house filled with wondrous baking smells, and a mom saying, “I need your help in the kitchen, honey.” I clocked thousands of hours in the kitchen helping her shape dough, testing recipes, licking spatulas. And then, when she started writing cookbooks, I became her editor, helping to shape her words. I assisted in her baking classes, ran the shipping portion of her baker’s catalog, created her marketing materials and helped book her flights. I have always been there in the background as she spread her love of bread baking.

And it stuck. I am a bread baker by tradition. A few years after my mom passed away, I started the Blue Bowl Breads food blog to honor her and the tradition of bread baking she passed on to me. Seven years on now, and I am still sharing her vision and passion for bread baking – except that it has rightly become my own. Through publishing recipes on the Blue Bowl Breads website, teaching zoom and in-person baking classes, and sharing fresh homemade bread with everyone I meet, I proudly carry the torch my mom handed me.

This blog is my testament to her passion.

More about Mark…

My original recipes…