More and more, I’m realizing that I’m a loser baker. Cooking is an art I enjoy. Baking is mostly a science. Baking requires too much exactness to suit me. I don’t have the patience required to excel at it. I don’t like to “cut-in cold butter” when I can nuke it for five seconds. I don’t like to measure “level” cups and teaspoons. I don’t like to sift things. It takes too long. And I’ve found that chocolate tastes pretty much the same if you melt it in the microwave vs. melting it in a double boiler.
Last night after bible study I started making a couple of tarts. I almost forgot that I’d volunteered to make desserts for a group of local pastors meeting at our church this weekend. The tarts had to be dropped off late this morning.
With the first crust, I took too many shortcuts and it didn’t turn out (it was too soggy to press into the pan). With the second crust, I accidentally turned it upside down into the hot oven after it had finished baking. That was at 11 o’clock at night. I spent the next thirty minutes cleaning out the oven and, in the process, burned my wrist fairly badly.
At that point, I felt like the pastors were going to be lucky to get store-bought cookies.
But I decided, in the end, to start making a third crust, which thankfully turned out okay. (And fortunately I happened to have the ingredients on hand to do this.)
Baking tries me. It really does. But since I like sugar so much, it’s a necessity for me to bake. So I guess I’ll just have to keep on keeping on.
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2 comments:
Yes!! I am not alone. When I tell people I don't bake, but I love to cook, they look at me like I'm from another planet. But you are right.... I can alter nearly anything in a cooking recipe and I usually do. When I do it in baking, something always goes wrong. And I don't have the patience for sifting or cutting in butter or anything like that.... I love bakeries. rlr
I'm now reliving countless episodes of ruined pie crusts, inch high yeast breads, gooey sweet breads even flopped cookies and it's not pretty.
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