Why We Hate Baking

The Chronicle editors have the following complaints with baking:

Have you ever wanted to bake a cake, pastries, or bread? The baking shows make it look so easy. Until: You discover you did not have a certain ingredient, or enough of an ingredient, midway through the process. The closest grocery store does not carry the brand of cream-of-eau-de-violet-peppermint-mini-pods-concentrate-extract which the recipe calls for. How serious is cocoa powder about expiration dates? Forgot to let the butter soften – again!

If the recipe calls to add warm water, does that mean tap water or hot stove boiled water? Are the instructions to add eggs one at a time just a suggestion? What happens if you don’t ‘sift together’ your ingredients? Please state in the recipe how long it should take to beat until soft peaks form so we know when to throw it in the trash and start over. (After we run back to the store, of course).

Who owns a thermometer anyway? And we don’t know anyone who owns a candy thermometer, a jellyroll pan, dowels, pre-cut parchment paper, or the right flavor of spray on non-stick. We do, however, own about 3 dozen pans of various shapes and sizes, none of which match the directions for this particular recipe. (Back to the store).

Now we know why the professionals crack eggs and measure everything out over a spare bowl instead of the mixing bowl the other ingredients are in. Is it possible to scoop out extra salt from batter if it is just sitting on top? Why don’t the cake layers come out even, and speaking of which, what is up with measuring ingredients by weight ~ who does that? Back to the store for a scale.

Apparently if you bake, you must also be bilingual. Bain marie is a water bath, for future reference. If you want to make cream puffs, don’t try googling patti shoe as we did ~ turns out it is pate a choux. This is especially confusing because we thought pate was chopped liver. Do you know the difference between American, Italian, French, and Swiss buttercream, and can you just whip up a batch without thought? Hint, several of them require a thermometer.

Time is another deceptive and frustrating factor. “Let chill” turns out that pastry is going to take 6 hours, so don’t try making it when you get off a 12 hour shift at work. Heaven forbid it’s a flaky dough: grate butter, fold, chill, repeat four times. Making yeasted dough? Wait til you have to proof it three times, once overnight. As a matter of fact, one cannot even make a simple cake without letting it cool before frosting it. No, you cannot make a decorated 4 layer cake from scratch in 1.5 hours, no matter what you see on TV (unless you own a blast freezer).

All done. You made the buns, croissants, cupcakes, or eclairs. It took hours if not days. Now, you have to clean up the mess. Not just a little mess either, but a colossal mess. Flour and powdered sugar in every crack and crevasse. Batter on the floor that has been tracked around the house by the dog. Frosting on the fridge, faucet and oven handles. Most equipment needs to be hand-washed, for the nth time this outing, since you had to use the mixer for 5 different steps and you only own one offset spatula (you do own one, right?).

TA DA! Beautiful. The piece of art sitting on the newly cleaned counters, looking not at all like the picture. It’s the taste that really matters. Is the texture a little off? Too dense? Too dry? Too much salt? Not enough essence of jackfruit? It sure does not taste like the one you had at the restaurant last week.

Back to the store.