On Baking

        I never really baked when I was younger-my mom can be a bit of a control freak, and never deviates from recipes.  I didn't get a chance to truly start cooking and baking until I had my own apartment junior year.  By then, I realized that I wasn't half bad at food preparation, and that I actually enjoyed it.  I used to read recipes every night before I went to bed, and I would think how I could tweak the recipe and make it even better.  My roommates and I made bread almost every week, sometimes more, and I started making a wide array of desserts-cakes, cookies, brownies.  Some things came about better than others, but it was always highly edible and usually pretty tasty.  

       When I became vegan in '07, my philosophy began to shift-I stopped using eggs and butter, and began to think more about what was in the food I was making.  I was baking quite a bit less by then, but I was still cranking out a big cheesecake every now and then, even if I wasn't eating it myself.  I still had roommates, and even better, roommates' boyfriends, who would eat anything and everything I made.  But then I moved into an apartment by myself, and I pretty much stopped baking.  There was no one to feed!  

         I've never really enjoyed baking for myself-I enjoy baking to make others happy, one of my strange altruistic hobbies in life.  I occasionally get a craving for a home baked vegan cookie, but that's a pretty rare occasion.  All the while, I started thinking about baking less, but baking with quality.  I eat mostly organic foods these days, and I try not to eat much, if any refined sugars or nasty flour (bleached and bromated. yuck!)  It's given me a new baking and cooking philosophy-to only make foods that I would actually want to eat.  That means not using weird ass shit to decorate cakes (like that strange Wilton dyed gel) or corn syrup or shortening or whatnot.  I've been following those rules pretty well these past years, and I'm excited to more seriously commit to that practice.  Thus, my baking resolution for the coming year is to make (mostly) organic cakes.  I fortunately discovered a fabulous cookbook "Organic and Chic" (from Sarah Magid, a custom cake maker in NYC) which, despite it's cutesy title, is a nice tome addressing cake decorating and desserts, without gross things.  Baked goods can have some weird ass stuff in them, and I don't think it's necessary.  This cookbook reminds me that cakes can be simple, delicious, and healthful (at least for junk food.) and I'm excited to try making some good cakes.  I've always avoided making cakes, since they're a bit finicky, but I've always admired the cake decorating process, especially with fancy shows like Ace of Cakes and other Food Network shows.  I don't necessarily need to make a 3-d bulldog cake or a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but it would be nice to make a lovely lavender cake with rose frosting.  So that's what I'll be doing this year.  Baking and frosting cakes.

There will always be cooks who can bake standard things better than me-traditional cookies, Woman's day styled cakes (graham cracker bears in a gel and gummy swimming pool), etc, but I'd like to commit my niche to using real food, and leave it at that.  

listening to: the new LCD soundsystem album.  (Seeing them in the end of October! Party it up with Sleigh Bells!)