eggbeater

Baking as Craft, a {tortured} love affair.

Baking.    Art, Craft, Alchemy, Arithmetic, Science, Intuition, Passion. 

Baking.
I'm married to it. Can't shake it. Leave it, go back. Forsake it. Take it back. Throw it in the river, say a prayer. Find it on my pillow in the morning.

Dream it, think it, feel it. Baking.
O Baking, who art thou?
Why do you torture me so? Take me deep into the water or leave me adrift.
But please, make up your damn mind.

Baking. I will love you always. You never cease to amaze me. Delight me. Flirt me right back into your body. Even when I know it's a really bad idea.
Even when I know Bad Things Will Happen.

You could say it's frivolous. Pleasure for no reason.  But for sugary flowers; a slap of frosting; quiet hedgerows of hand sculpted leaves; thousands of layers of flour caught mid waft by creamy butter and seared by steam; sugar in every variation from hard sharp hot molecule to midstream water clarity and then shattering razor caramel, pulled like yoga pose toffee or glass sculpture caught mid ballet act.
Sugar, forever muse, never wife.

I love you baking. Will you be mine?

No.

Baking is no one's and everyone's. CRAFT. Study it, work it, learn it, revere it, pray to it, honor it. Craft is never understood completely. Mastered, yes. Owned & understood, no.

You think you know baking. Because you do. For a minute-- Ha! Baking. Forever an elusive love, unrequited. Short term affair. Lasting a lifetime.

Unbound me baking! Never let me go. Love me forever.

Why me? Who am I to you?

Kiss me hard, sharpen the blade, slice me off clean.

Forget you ever heard of me, or tell me why you stay, whether in shadows lurking or calling me day and night and weaving your scent through my head, knotting hair, thick like saltwater.

I build the house, you make a cup of tea, ask me to bed without words.

We garden, you evaporate. Leaving me with a vase empty but for pollen on the rim.

Baking.
You knit me anew, unravel my senses, promise me what you cannot,        and I believe you like a virgin to love. India ink precariously at the edge of a needle. Tattoo me Baking.

Slit thumb,
speak not.
I am yours.

Tell me you'll love me forever,
    tell me you'll never leave

even if,    lies.

I can't unlock you, baking. Ate too many pomegranate seeds. Slid down the rabbit hole. Drank a tiny sip from a giant bottle. Took a pirate's swig from a teardrop glass.

Baking and me. Me and Baking.
We're in the ring for another round.

Place your bets.

wordless.

I'll be back when I can form them. {sorry.}
Or when I can put it into words.
The ground, pulled out, dangled, like ripe fruit at the end of a bowing branch, high summer, in front of me.

Until then,

neals yard 2

borough from monmouth

neals yard

Vegan Baking. Substitutions, Solutions & Advice For Flavourful Alternative Baked Goods.

As you know, I belong to the bestest baking group the world has ever seen, The Bakers Dozen. If you love to bake, whether you make money at it or not, you can join. We have 4 meetings a year, and they're all worth calling in sick for. A wealth of inspiring information buzzes through the meetings, and questions and answers and friendships and better cakes and jobs and cookbooks are just a few of the benefits of being a member.

One of my favourite parts about being part of the Bakers Dozen is the opportunity to be in a room full of my heros and heroines, and becoming the same for others. Eggbeater's Guest Author of today's post, Anastasia Kellow, Bakers Dozen member extraordinaire, is one such person!

I feel forever grateful to be in her field of vision. I have no idea where she came from, but Anastasia has been a support and mentor and idea maker for me for a few years now. Not to mention that she brought her entire family to one of my classes a few years ago.

The Bakers Dozen has a Yahoo Group for sharing ideas, asking & answering questions, finding equipment and professional kitchens to rent, looking for staff and announcing wondrous events within the greater Bay Area baking community. (No I am not being paid to do PR for the BD.) recently someone started a thread based on "alternative baking," and Anastasia's answer/comments were so down-to-earth, funny, practical and knowledgable, I asked her if she would be willing to expound more and give a piece to my blog.

Please brew a cup of tea with almond milk and give a warm welcome to Anastasia Kellow, first time guest blog author to eggbeater ~

Vegan Baking Tips

I am not a vegan. I was born with heavy cream coursing through my veins. My grandmother had a Hobart in the garage, and would buy unsalted butter in huge 20 kg blocks. I had a diet rich in both animal and plant sources. One day my body betrayed me. Unable to distinguish friend from foe, it started panicking and doing crazy things. In order to appease it, I started following a whole food, organic, plant-based diet for nearly a year. I’m no Nazi though– I follow a 97/3 rule: 97% of the time I’m on the straight and narrow and 3% is for when, for instance, I’m at Ubuntu, and I have to have the lemon parfait with citrus granita. I've used gelatin for panna cotta, and sometimes eat butter on popcorn. You can eat whatever you like. I may judge, but I’ll never mention it.

I am not a baker. I was formally trained and have worked in professional kitchens, but I can no longer eat any of the primary building blocks of baking. No butter, sugar, eggs, or wheat. In baking terms, that’s like trying to build a house from sand. It’s risky, and you need to approach it very, very carefully.

Clearly these are Shuna’s top two reasons for asking me to post my vegan baking tips.

Vegan baking can be rough going. Most of the cookbooks are written by vegans in search of baked goods, rather than by bakers in search of vegan alternatives. This can mean the focus is not on flavor and texture; it’s about creating a faux product.

In the real vegan world, Earth Balance butter is a rock star. Substitutions like Earth Balance and Ener-G egg replacement are easy, and are the crux of many recipes. If you use margarine in your every day life, have at it. But if like me you’re of the “food should taste great” camp, these sorts of ingredients fall short.

I don’t eat faux meat, and I’m certainly not eating what I consider to be faux cookies!

Rather than rely on vegan baking books, I have found it much more satisfying to create my own recipes based on excellent conventional recipes I trust. 

Below are some starting points for converting recipes. Many of the ingredients are expensive, making them unsuitable for most production baking. You have to rely on your knowledge of baking science, instinct and some amount of tinkering. In the case of substitutions like tofu for eggs, you may also need to alter your technique.

Basic Points:

Focus on flavor. Use best quality fats, spices, grains, chocolates, extracts, etc.

Have all your ingredients at room temperature.

Don’t try to make crazy stuff like angel food cake or soufflé that totally rely on eggs for their execution.

You are creating a new recipe. Don’t expect the same result when you’re altering ingredients.

Aim for deliciousness by any standard. Vegan food should not have a lesser standard.

Feature fruit. It’s super easy and delicious to roast fruit, or make a vegan pie or crisp. Fruit at its peak of flavor takes some pressure of your other elements. Fruits and veggies add moisture and flavor. Pumpkin, zucchini, apples, bananas, and carrots are all good additions..

My disclaimer is that I have not done vast testing. I only bake once or twice a month (see 97/3 rule). I don’t use all-purpose flour and mostly use agave nectar. Multiple substitutions often mean trouble, so start with one element at a time.

Keep in mind that these are all substitutions that work well for me. Plant-based diets are a very personal thing. They range from super healthy to shockingly unhealthy. Please use what works for you, and leave the rest behind.

My Substitutions

For butter, substitute 75% oil or coconut oil.   (1 cup of butter – ¾ c. oil)

Butter is not just a fat – it is a huge flavor enhancer. Consider how much flavor butter usually brings to the table when making your substitution.

Nut oils lend a great flavor if you can afford them. I use walnut oil over something like grapeseed. I don’t use canola, because I find it coats the tongue. If I use oil, I fall back on the quick bread technique – mix liquids, sift dry ingredients, fold together.

Nut butters, like almond, hazelnut, or peanut, can be substituted for a portion of the fat.

Coconut oil is delicious, and can be creamed like butter. It does have an underlying coconutty flavor. Despite being called oil, this fat is solid below 76 degrees Farenheit. [click here for a farenheit to celcius converter] I believe the melting point for butter is 90-95F, so it’s going to bake differently.

Also, Coconut Oil is a saturated fat. There is much brouhaha these days about the nutritional viability of saturated fats. Harbinger of death or nutritional messiah? I can’t say. My nutritionist says it may be a lesser evil than butter, but even she’s not sure.

Coconut butter is not the same as coconut oil. It includes both oil and coconut meat, making it drier and slightly textured. In baking, coconut butter needs to be supplemented with extra moisture. I have used it successfully in pie crust, but mostly I stick to the coconut oil.

For eggs, 1 egg = 1/4 c. firm silken tofu = 1 T ground flaxseed + 3 T water whisked together. I have only done up to 3 eggs.  

Tofu adds more structure than flaxseed. I like it better for cakes and some muffins. The tofu needs to be blended until completely smooth so you don’t end up with lumps. I usually blend all the liquids together, and then fold them into the dry ingredients. I despise the smell of tofu (and most soy products), but the flavor and aroma mostly bake out (or are at least camouflaged by other elements.) Though, as of yet I have not been able to make a successful vanilla flavored item.

Flaxseed is more of a binder than a leavener. It has an earthy flavor that's not always desirable. It works well in cookies that can take the unique flavor-- oatmeal, nut, spice. You can grind up flaxseeds in a coffee grinder, then whisk in the 3T of water. Whisk until you get the gloopy egg white-like consistency. If a cookie has only 1 egg, you can usually go commando.

For buttermilk, 1 c = 1/2 c almond milk + 1/2 c soy yogurt

For cream, equal part (= direct conversion) coconut milk.  This works well for ganache as well as caramel. I have never attempted whipping it up like cream, but I think it would work if you removed some of the water. David Lebovitz has a great recipe for chocolate-coconut sorbet in The Perfect Scoop.

For milk, equal part alternative milk. I use almond milk because I like the flavor.

Grains: before going off wheat, I was using sprouted spelt flour, sprouted wheat flour, oat flour and barley flour. Alternative flours can have strong flavors, which can be a benefit or detriment depending on your perspective.

I often substitute up to 1/3 nut flour, which helps bring some added flavor to the final product. You can certainly stick to AP. If you switch up flours, expect some adjustments in your liquids. Different flours absorb moisture differently.

Though not technically baking, pancakes are an excellent place to start substitutions. They come together quickly, so you can see and taste your results in minutes. If they fall flat, there is still time for toast.

Here is my go to pancake recipe ~

Sprouted Grain Pancakes

-- makes around 12 4” pancakes

½ c. sprouted spelt flour

½ c. sprouted wheat flour

1 t. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

¼ t. salt

1T agave nectar

¼ c silken tofu

¾ c. plain or vanilla soy yogurt

3/4c. almond milk

2 T coconut butter, melted

½ t vanilla

Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Pour all the liquids (agave nectar through vanilla) into a blender, and mix on high speed until tofu is completely smooth. This might take a couple minutes. Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients, folding gently, taking care not to overmix.

Heat a non-stick griddle over medium low heat until water beads dance on the surface. Pour 1/3 c. (or any size you like) pancakes on the grill and brown on each side.

Serve with genuine maple syrup.

Baking Business

Many of you have asked me where I'm working in London. I'm coy. I say everywhere, but no where you've heard of. I say you've eaten what my company of bakers has had their hands and hearts on and in, but you don't know us.

We: speak dozens of languages, are mostly men but have room for more women, are various shades of white and brown, and we produce hundreds of thousands of units of bread, pastries, candies, laminated doughs and the like. We are big. And yet we're invisible. Almost.

My job title is equally big and varied. I am chef, mentor, teacher, writer, photographer, trainer, document maker, system creator & implementer, organizer, baker, student, pastry chef, restaurant liaison, wholesaler, retailer, boss, employee, co-pastry chef, seductress, translator, arithmatician, developer, lover, Diplomat, exporter, inspirationalist, health & safety official, cleaner, motivator, parent, innovator, and mediator.

In other words, I am everything, and more. I'm sure I'll find out what all else I am when the owners turn over rocks they haven't gotten to yet.

But more than any of these titles, descriptions, adjectives; I am me. I bring all of me to this London table. I wear every hat I've ever been fitted for. And while my uniform has shifted slightly (we wear all white here, plus fancy hairnet), I get to use everything I've ever learned and seen in all uniforms whose long line of buttons I've buttoned.

I am both honoured and awed to be here.

    And yet.

I'm a little confused.

I don't know why I'm here.

Why London? Why now? Why did I leave Northern California? Why this company? Why a bakery and not a restaurant? How long will I be here? Where will I go next? And how will I know when it's time? Time for what? The next change.

I have a lot of questions. But no one's rushing to the answer front. God's holding out. Cards mighty close to that broad chest of sky and ocean.

I know a few things ~
~ This is the biggest job I've ever had. More responsibility than ever before. Expectations are at their highest. A vast amount of product is under my control, raw & finished. The team is big, and so is the equipment.

~ Being and having a co-pastry chef is an experience beyond edit. To manage and create and stay up late with and challenge and be challenged by and have words with and appreciate and get frustrated by and organize and watch and listen and back and come clean to and practice unflinching honesty with and taste alongside and critique and hold accountable and be accountable to someone else, at the exact same level

is extra ordinary. And emotional. And spiritual. And and.       Gorgeous.

~ This might very well be the first time I've worked in the industry for people who are not in the industry. Being one of a handful of chefs in a massive, multi-faceted company is like riding a wild horse with a saddle. Or herding dogs with one sheep. The business of baking is just that to them. A business.

And why shouldn't it be? God knows I've worked for enough people who thought all they needed to know about opening and operating a restaurant, paying employees a living wage on time, and getting famous for wearing a double breasted white jacket, was to love cooking.

Learning the numbers side of baking is necessary, yes, but hidden from most non-owner bakers. If you needed only one word from me to describe the process of learning, hearing about and being accountable for/to the financial side of my amazingly creative industry, I wouldn't hesitate to say

EXCRUCIATING.

I don't mean the pain of having your perfectly baked cheesecake rejected. Or the discomfort of testing product after product only to have the client say it's too this and not enough that and why o why can't you do X, even though X is produced from a myriad of variables they don't know and can't describe.

Seeing the numbers of baking, not the fractions and multiples of recipe building, is profoundly disturbing. Bread numbers are much kinder. As are cocktail and coffee numbers-- those ones are happy even.

The truth hurts:
Making pastry finery: employing finesse, hand frosting cakes, twirling laminated dough into hand cut and formed lovely ribbons, skillet griddling each English muffin, decorating with tiny cranberries and hand piping whimsical words

takes skill and time and a lot of people    no matter if you write and create and deploy and manage systems for efficient production     especially if you're open 365 days a year. And a lot of people      with a lot of skill   

costs a lot of money. And that money has less return when you're selling wholesale. Especially to retail customers. Oof.

~ Passion is not quantifiable. I do what I love. And I love what I do. Even when I do everything. Or one thing. Whether it's baking, creating, learning about baking, eating, testing, teaching baking science and history, bakery hunting, photographing baked goods, reading about sweet things, or writing and thinking about and dreaming up possible baking, I'm in my element. Swimming in the ocean. It's natural. And a lifelong education.

Love is a verb. And I'll fight for love. /For this love. I'll keep on baking even when I'm outnumbered.   Ha!

~ Up and moving to another country is lonely. Transitions are discombobulating. Being brave and strong and up-for-anything isn't as air tight as one might hope or imagine. Quiet is both delicious and difficult. Adventure is sometimes exhausting. Friends as community and family is a real thing. Neither come easily. Leaving people is like hidden papercuts and the promise of squeezing a case of lemons.

~ I'm not supposed to know why I'm here. More will be revealed. Time takes time. Time to let go and have faith. Trust in the process. Look in the nooks and crannies, and butter them with the best I can buy.

~ This feels a lot like the crazy adventure I took when I got a call from The French Laundry and took a job with a pastry chef I'd never met because someone I'd worked for a few years earlier recommended me. I counted down the days from 365 and worked for TK for 3 years. Never "went back" to NYC.

One never knows.

I know only this.

Living in London, working for this massive company kind enough to have me, is a profound learning experience / challenge. Getting plucked from my past 11 year home in Northern California, and country of origin, at the age of 40, is crazy. Living in questionmarkland feels even crazier.

And yet.
    I stay.
        Not to complete a journey,
                                                            but to make one.

And While I know how to bake,        and have been baking for many years,    I've taken a turn. Inwards.                                       A deeper learning; layered, thick and supple like croissant dough, is happening.

Negotiating. Working with. Managing. Unfurling wings and taking flight. The business of baking. My fears about numbers.

All these and more are my daily lessons, my fears to face, my homework to contemplate and do. And do I will.

Perhaps one day I'll get to share it with you. The failures and the delicious.

Valentine's Day in London

They told me London had no Valentine's Day.                     They told me my American holiday meant nothing here.                             They told me I shouldn't make a fuss.

                But London is exploding with Valentine's Day!

Me and my team have been working until the wee hours, night after night this week, with pink Royal Icing and magenta fondant and rose petal shortbread perfuming our deck ovens, and I've chocolate-dipped hundreds of cookies, and many many many a cake has been piped and baked and turned out of silicone molds, and tiny leetle rose buds have adorned dense chocolate bites. phew!

I hate to see a holiday in London they say exists.
{Can you give me a bit of warning? I'll be sure to sleep for a week in preparation.}

Thank you all for (participating in} gifting me with new & improved flirtations! Not all of them could fit on our cookie size of choice, but you produced quite a few nervous giggles, blushes and private moments for my team.

~ if you want to see your comments in action,            

                                        /two little lovebirds told me to tell you      to         check out,     

    clock,       stare,      gander, scope, pick up,

feel up, taste, bite, nibble, pull, snog,            lick,   pinch,
tickle, tease,                   flirt, dance, sway, embrace,       pet, feel, caress, take home, whisper sweet nothings at,               crush out on,       wink,              nudge, pack

       the biscuits at this 500 year old market in South East London...

xx

Sweetheart Sayings.

I've had a lot of fun writing in royal icing lately. Maybe too much fun. Definitely too silly, too pink, but not rated above PG-13.

Hundreds of naked chocolate heart cookies have passed under my hands, only to become announcements for a holiday best suited for those with less tender hearts than mine.



After a few hundred 'i love you's' in a myriad of languages, after looking intently at the six inches below my nose, after trying to get words to fit, legibly, on no more than a small hand's-width of chocolatey canvas, I wasn't so sure I loved love after all.
{Love stinks, yeah yeah.}

But I go back tomorrow to return to pink icing, heart molded chocolate cakes, cranberry polka dots and rose petal shortbread perfume wafting from our slow and low deck oven shelves.



Do you have any inspiring sweet nothings I can whisper loudly in edible handwriting?
Any favourite 'sweethearts' sayings?
Less than 20 characters?

Deadline: you have 6 days.
Cheers, ta.

Valentine's Day Baking.

For Pastry Chefs, Valentine's Day begins months in advance. We test doughs, write down endless ideas, try and get to our suppliers early to buy out-of-season ingredients or sparkly edible baubles.

We order heart shaped cookie/biscuit cutters, buy silicone molds in various depths, and make hundreds of parchment paper coronets for writing romantic sayings on cakes, plates, chocolates, everything.

Valentine's Day in restaurants is the biggest day of the year for ordering dessert. It's when a pastry chef can really shine.

This year I'm making heart shaped cakes & cookies and will cut and wrap hundreds of handmade caramels. The onslaught began last night. We have a week to make and ship hundreds of items and then, whoosh, it will be over.

It's a hard time for restaurants right now. Pastry chefs continue to be a luxury item for payrolls everywhere. Pastry cooks are a luxury for pastry chefs and creativity in kitchens is at an all time low. If no one can afford trained staff and whimsical ingredients, Valentine's Day, a day to celebrate sweet nothings, becomes a factory output of same same same.

If you love baking, desserts, pastry chefs, decorating cookies, and stealing kisses as much as I do, support restaurants and bakeries in your area by verbally and financially appreciating our efforts.

 

   ~ Remember, flattery will get you everywhere...

Why Do Cakes Sink?

Everyone knows a cake should rise. Just how much, or how domed, is up the the cake.

Some cakes melt before they bake, sending batter into all corners, while others need to be smoothed down before baking for an even spread and rise. There are cakes that can be piped and keep their piped shapes, and there are liquid batters which must be contained in pouring vessels before getting comfy in the oven.

Certain cakes rely on chemical leavening to help them rise. Baking Soda and Baking Powder are the two most common ones. Yeast will also make a cake rise. And if you're of the ilk to get naked and do it au naturale, a starter burbling innocently on your counter top, might be relied on to make your cake rise. But you'll need to burn some incense first.

Yogurt or beer or gingerale might also get your cake to rise, but don't count on it unless your recipe calls for such an ingredient.

Cake batters are unfinished constructions that need ovens to make them presentable. Even if you are following a cake recipe to the t, there's no insurance it will come out the same way it did last time.

Unless you know why a cake should do what the recipes says it will do.

Cakes rise because of chemical reactions. They rise because there are egg whites somewhere in the recipe. A cake that rises evenly has an even "crumb," and will feel, as well as taste, good in one's mouth. Cakes rise because the batter was a perfect emulsion and did not "break." Cakes hate to be 'overmixed' and they especially detest cold anything-- ovens, ingredients, feet, and hearts.

Cakes fall in love with ovens and baking vessels. And if you try to introduce them, later on in their lives, to 'open relationships,' they can get a bit testy. Cranky cakes are not ones you love back, unless you're the patient type who fall in like easily with difficult people.

In turn, a cake you make your own will be with you until the end of time. No matter the frosting, no matter the garnish, this is a cake you should count your lucky stars for, because, with very little effort, Your Cake can come out of the oven over and over, well.

Cakes love rhythm, consistency, heavy baking tins, hot ovens, baby offset spatulas, parchment paper, sifting and perfectly room temperature butter.

The structure, the concise emulsion, the soft and light and pretty cake batter becomes a lovely cake

because of air.

And air, is a very light thing, as you know.

Air gets created in cake batters in the first trimester: when creaming occurs.

If:
* your butter is not room temp
* you don't cream the butter until light before adding the sugar
* you throw many things in at the same time
* you don't scrape down the bowl a few times while butter & sugar are creaming
* your eggs are cold when you add them to the butter-sugar light fluffiness
* you add all your eggs at once
* you don't sift your flour and leavening
* you dump all your dries in at once

* you don't pay attention to your cake batter while it is becoming a being,

Your cake might not rise.

And, god forbid, you have to whip egg whites or triple sift or get to ribbon stage with your eggs, or any of these things that make cake baking daunting, because then you're really in trouble if that cake thinks you don't care or are resting on your laurels. God Forbid that cake knows you're cavalier!

In the professional baking world we know almost anyone can make one cake once very nicely, maybe even well. But in order to make that recipe over and over, dozens and maybe even hundreds of times, one needs understand some basic rules.

Ms. Deb, at the venerable baking-machine of a blog, Smitten Kitchen (who saw her spread in Martha Stewart like me and thought, "I know her! Wow.") has made 2 cakes recently that sank. In quickly reading through her posts I realized she didn't know why they could have done that.

Remember when I said cakes rise because of air? Air is created in the process of cake making, but held in place by structure, which, in cake baking science is generally called protein. In baking, protein provides the walls holding up roofs.

The concept is that certain proteins work in conjunction with other ingredients, thus providing cake with more than just a prayer to help it to rise. {Don't misunderstand me though-- praying does help!}

If you can, think about your ingredients like this:

1. Is that ingredient heavy?
and
2. Will that ingredient help to create or destroy my much needed air?

You and your cake relationship will go farther.

In Deb's 2 cakes: Honey Cake & Guinness Gingerbread, the batters were liquid and used volatile liquids to make them so. Volatile liquids in cake making are not flammable, but they do interfere with the tenuous process of creating and holding onto air. Liquids are heavy, and in baking they tend to be highly acidic.

Here is my comment from her Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread post:

    "The sinking in these two cakes you mentioned is from a batter being too liquidy for the ingredients in it that give it structure to keep it up. Also the liquids in both the Honey Cake and the Claudia Fleming cake here are quite volatile.

    Honey has enzymes in it that are impossible to kill and do funny things to eggs, for example. Guinness and molasses are extremely high in acid, and if this batter is not the exact right temperature, going into the exact right baking vessel, when all the stars are aligned just so, sinking will occur.

    Batters that are basically liquid love shallow baking vessels, because of how heat distributes quickly and evenly through them, making for an even, efficient bake.

    These acidic, volatile, liquid batters can’t reach very high, (no matter how many eggs, egg whites or chemical leavening you put in them,) so deep vessels are a struggle. And then you have the dreaded sink because after it struggles to reach, it has not enough structure to keep it there out of the oven, where it relies on structure ( = proteins) around air to keep its crumb intact.

    All that said, this is a challenging recipe (I worked at Gramercy Tavern when it was in production) and my hat goes off to you for making it. For St. Patrick’s Day I will be making hundreds of them…"

These two cakes sunk because the baking vessels she put them in were too tall and deep for cakes too heavy to climb tall buildings in a single bound in.

When a cake rises, the batter is actually climbing a baking vessel's sides in anticipation of becoming what it knows it was always meant to be. The baking vessel is just that. It is the container conducting heat, thus baking the intended raw ingredient.

What the baking vessel is made of-- how heavy or light it is, if it sits on top of a pan or just your oven rack, how tall or short or old or young it is, if it likes your oven or not-- all these things determine if it's the right pan for the job.

While leavening and egg whites and yeast and prayer are there to push and cajole and force that cake to rise, if all that air you so lovingly and painstakingly created is defeated under the weight of itself, it will climb and climb up the sides, where the heat is, but sink in the middle because it didn't have enough umph, enough structure to seal that air in place, like Pompey.

Cakes also sink, or collapse after cooling, because you've turned the pan in the oven too soon.

Turning the pan is what professional bakers do, to create as even a bake and rise as possible, but it hasn't quite caught on with home bakers. /Even though I think it should.

In restaurants and bakeries we set what we call 'setting' or 'shy' timers. If we think a cookie takes 20 minutes to bake, our first timer is 10-12 minutes. We always give ourselves windows from which to check up on our creations. But if we think a cake will take an hour to bake, we know it's not a good idea to turn the pan until the cake is 'set.' Upsetting the hot, fragile, precarious liquid is a bad idea until we're sure most of the baking magic has taken hold.

Cake making is a series of lessons about building and science. A cake is craft and alchemy and hope and love. Recipes are created, followed, experimented with, tweaked, changed, and tossed in the bin. Not every cake suits every person's baking facilities.

It's an honour to become intimate with a cake because all its lessons are met in the process. Making a cake just once is lovely, yes, but make it over and over is when you understand why the temperature of your butter is important, and how miraculous eggs are!

A cake companion is an amazingly loyal one. You'll both learn and teach from each other forever.

London Snow Photos.

No one can believe it. Snow! Falling and sticking and piling up in London. It's a lovely sight to behold. And  kept me from work today!

I'm sure you've seen some photos, but here are some more.

p.s. and for some great prose on yesterday, head to the Guardian ~

"London's day of innocence

Stuart Jeffries revels in the hush, the beauty, the joy and the anarchy of a city magically transformed"

{I love that I live in a city where this headline could be the opener of an article.}