Baking Therapy

It is no secret, especially to people I know, that I love to bake.  I love to bake cakes, pies, bread, anything really.  The interest for baking came from the fact that growing up I don't ever remember having cake that I really enjoyed.  The bakeries in India back then sold really dry cake with a thick, tasteless frosting made almost entirely from vegetable shortening.  Pies were almost unheard of.  We did get good, freshly baked bread though, but the variety was limited mostly to white bread.   The interest for baking that was born out of necessity developed into a hobby then into a love and has now become my passion.

I still remember my first attempt at baking a cake when I was about 12 or 13 years old.  It was a simple cake, but it turned out really well.  I didn't frost it, but everyone enjoyed it all the same.  The next time I tried baking the very same cake, it sank in the middle.  As I remember it, I was so impatient to see if the cake was done.  It was only ten minutes after  I put it in the oven to bake, and I ignored my mother when she told me not to open the oven to look inside.  Now I know never to open the oven door at least until the baking time mentioned in the recipe.  I also remember the first time I baked a pie.  My first attempt was a huge success.  My second attempt, not so much.  I realize now that each time I tried something new, I followed the instructions to a T on the first attempt and then tried to take shortcuts the second time around.  Not a good idea.  This has taught me to take my time and try to do everything right every time.  Shortcuts are okay only if I am 100%  sure that the end result is not compromised in any way.  In a strange but interesting turn of events, lessons learned from baking have become life's lessons for me.

Over time I learned that adding cold eggs to cake batter will curdle and separate it, making for a cake that is hard as a rock (well, almost).  I learned that all ingredients need to be at room temperature.  I learned that I cannot get by without preheating the oven.  I learned that there's a reason I need to take the time to cream the butter and sugar, whisk the eggs well, sift the flour.  I have to incorporate air into these ingredients if I want to have a soft, fluffy cake.   I learned that when baking bread I need to be very careful with the yeast or I will kill it.  I learned that I have to knead the dough well.  Kneading dough is physical therapy for me.  Feeling the dough between my fingers while getting all the ingredients together takes me to my place of Zen.  I can get all my frustration out from punching the dough.   Then comes the proving.  Speaking colloquially, you gotta prove.  If the recipe calls for it, more than one proving is required.  I have learned that I cannot hurry up any of these steps.  All if it requires patience.  Here again, lessons learned from baking have become life's lessons. 

Yet when it comes to pie crusts, I have to throw out the window everything I've learned and adopt an entirely different strategy.  All the ingredients have to be as cold as possible.  In order to get the best results the ingredients should be minimally handled so as not to allow the warmth of my hands into the crust.  I need to use a chilled pastry blender to incorporate the ingredients.  I need to gather up the dough into a ball and then chill it again before rolling it out.  After rolling and lining my pie dish with the dough, I have to chill it again.  I have to get the oven as hot and place the cold, cold pie dough into it.  That's how I get a light and flaky pie crust.  Life's lesson learned: I need to be flexible and adapt to change.

As I continue to learn, there are times when everything aligns as if by magic.  I had to bake a cake for work this past week.  I actually had to bring the cake in on Tuesday, but on Monday I woke up with a very bad back.  I cursed my awful luck and worked from home that day.  I planned to bring the cake into work on Friday.  I had planned to make a fat free sponge with whipped cream and berries.  While shopping for the berries, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that strawberries were selling for $1 lb.  I don't remember the last time they were selling so cheap.  Had I baked the cake on Monday as planned, I would have had to pay $2.99 lb for the strawberries, if not more.  So my bad back was actually a good thing.  A happy song was playing in my head as I bought 5 lbs of strawberries.  I also bought raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.  I baked two layers of  fat free sponge cake.  I whipped almost two pints of heavy cream.  I hulled 5 lbs of strawberries.  I washed and dried the raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.  I assembled the cake.  I was waiting for something to go wrong but nothing did.  Everything just fell into place.  

That's how life is sometimes too.  They may be few and far between, but there are situations where everything happens almost effortlessly.  I just wait for something to go wrong and nothing does, which makes me feel like it's almost too good to be true.  And miraculously, that's just how it turns out to be.  Too good to be true.

PS: Forgive me for the oversight, but I meant to thank the many people who have encouraged and supported me thus far.  My late father, John Powell, who loved to bake and who helped me find my wings; my immediate and extended family; everyone in Active Life Fellowship; Parag Parekh, Saurabh Khandwala, Xerxes Cama, the entire "Rum House" gang; Rohinton and Shenaz Parakh, who trusted me with their childrens' birthday cakes when I was still honing my skills; Jonathan and Binaifer Powell, who trusted me with their wedding cake; Rachel and Shehan Gooneratne for the same reason; Everyone I work with at T-Mobile who show up every month for the Birthday and T-Mo Anniversaries celebration; Everyone who has ever been a willing guinea pig for my "experiments". Thank you, all of you for being the wind beneath my wings.