Thoughts on baking

[manraysky]

I can't think of a time in my life when I wasn't baking, so I'm guessing I started pretty young. Certainly by the time I was a preteen I was baking on my own, with no assistance from my mom. Later I went to culinary school and worked (briefly) in a bakery. Later still I assisted the pastry chef at Skywalker Ranch, making the huge cookies we were

Comments

[econopodder]

Yeah, that's more or less me. I enjoy baking. I do. But I enjoy it largely because when I bake, I follow directions exactly -- it's a low stress activity b/c the way that I bake involves no decisionmaking. I don't have the knowledge or experience to know when I can change proportions without dangerous consequences, or add something that might change the leavening, or increase the liquid, or whatever.

In contrast, while I'm certainly no techy, I've spent a lot of time doing things with PCs. When things go seriously wrong, I have to call in real help. But when things go just a little wrong -- misplaced download files, unrecognized file types, whatever -- I know the tricks of the trade and can mess around with some actual justifiable confidence.

Funny, isn't it?

[tritia]

I like baking over cooking. The thing that gets me every single time is not estimating how long the whole process will take. So I end up finishing at 2AM like I did this last weekend so my kid could play "bake sale" during our stoop sale. By 1AM, fatigue sets in and I just want to give up.

I always admire how you could whip up something so late at night and not be phased. For me, its like a huge production.

[daphnep]

I'm like that with sewing, I just "get" it. I remind myself of that sometimes, like when I have to hire a specialist to do something I just can't do. We all "get" different things, sometimes because it's what we've done for a long time, and sometimes because it's a natural aptitude...but I have to remind myself that it's okay to not have that, in every field.

[chocolatechipkt]

I feel the same way about baking, and some of it is just so automatic that I don't realize I'm doing it. Like adding more or less of an ingredient or baking times etc. I was trying to explain that to my niece yesterday when we were trying to use up some of the millions of strawberries we'd picked.

-Katie

[fredo_joaquin]

All I'm saying is, I've no interest in retiring next to someone that can consistently download media. I've called dibs on the place next to yours in whatever our retirement community will be precisely because K + Time to Bake + I don't have to care about weight = HEAVEN.

Love you, boo.