Let’s get this bread: ASU student forms friendships through baking

Margot Plunkett is a bubbly freshman studying English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

A participant of the Early Start program, Plunkett seized the opportunity to form friendships before classes began and campus filled with thousands of students. And her friendships and connections keep growing, thanks to her new hobby: baking loaves of bread for her peers.

It all started at the end of the summer when her best friend’s mom taught the two to bake bread.

“At our last sleepover before she went away to school, we learned how to make bread and I was like, ‘Wait, this is so easy!’ So I’ve been doing it ever since,” she said.

Utilizing the community kitchen space at Palo Verde West, Plunkett began baking loaves of bread every day, delivering them to people in her residence hall, classmates and even professors.

Encouraged by her friends, Plunkett started documenting her breadmaking and sharing on Instagram under the handle @365loavesofbread. She intended to make a new loaf every day but has since found she often makes more than one at a time. She estimates she’s made and gifted at least 50 since the start of the academic year.

The bread is a conversation starter and her peers have shared memories of baking bread with their own families.

“I just feel like it’s really nice to give everyone a taste of home,” she said.

Plunkett doesn’t sell the bread, instead enjoying the gift of sharing.

“(Breadmaking) has taught me more to share things with people. They get so excited; it’s just the little things that make people happy and I think that’s really sweet, that’s my favorite part."