Song Of A Baker #3: Grow It! Show It!
Look at me: I can bake loaves of bread, thereby proving that I’m a baker.
This is a deceptive photo – it looks, perhaps, as if I’ve made a ridiculously wide, long slab of bread, but that’s nowhere near the case; instead, I’ve made my almond flour bread, which really just barely rises for some reason; it’s the length and width of your average loaf, but not very tall in the slightest (We end up slicing it sideways, to make the most out of it; cutting slabs and then slicing them in half, lengthwise).
Nonetheless, it tastes wonderful, and the texture is odd – spongelike, perhaps? – but really enjoyably dense, especially toasted. When the whole writing gig gets a little too much and I fantasize about giving it all up to become a baker (Forgetting, of course, that real bakers have to be able to do more than bake the occasional thing very slowly, and checking the recipe every two seconds, nervously), this is the kind of thing I can imagine myself making: Something enjoyable, relatively healthy and weird enough to have an appeal for a specific clientele who’d keep coming back for more.
Of course, if I became a real baker, I’d have to be able to make this kind of thing without eating it all myself because it looks so good and it’s right there.
Baking2011alypse: What Happens When I Promise To Blog More
by Graeme
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Song of A Baker #2: So What Happened, Anyway?
Don’t get me wrong, I may have stopped blogging, but I didn’t stop baking – well, for a few months, anyway. I ended up getting biscotti, cookies and banana bread down to a fine zen science, and making a pretty good swing at the world of regular bread, as well, before Kate decided to cut regular flours from her diet, which meant that all of a sudden, I had 50% less of a baking audience than before. Faced with the possibility of not baking at all anymore after I had discovered the surreally calming benefits of the whole thing, I veered off into the other direction, and started exploring baking with almond flour, which is… easier, weirdly enough. And potentially tastier, judging by the few attempts I’ve made to date (Rosemary hazelnut cookies, a miniscule loaf that I should probably have at least doubled the recipe for in order for it to be of any use as anything other than a conversation piece, and some chocolate chip things that I would happily have any and all times of the say). It’s all on hold right now, thanks to the twice-yearly cleanse that we’re doing, but give me until July and then I’ll start it all up again.
The baking, I mean. I’ve stopped making promises about the blogging.
Song Of A Baker #1: I’m Depending On My Labor For Texture And The Flavor
So, I’ve started baking this year. I’m not entirely sure why, to be honest; it suddenly seemed like a great idea one evening, and once I’d proven to myself that I could make chocolate chip cookies, it had turned in my head into “This is my thing for 2011: I shall bake!” Since then, it’s been variations on the cookies, as well as some banana bread, almond biscotti and a loaf of bread. Oh, and some macaroons. I’ve discovered that I find baking weirdly calming, like some kind of productive meditation. Admittedly, a meditation I normally find myself doing while listening to, singing-along to and dancing to, music, but you know what I mean: It relaxes me, and restores some idea of order in the universe to me.
The plan for the rest of the year is to learn to bake more things – I’ve got cookbooks and recipes to help me, and neighbors suggesting that I bake things for them, all of which will help. But I’m also – he says, realizing that it’s been almost three months since updating anything here – going to try and blog the whole experience, as well. Yes, that’s right: Food blogging. It got that Julie Powell a book deal, after all…