The Joy of Baking

Having baking as a hobby was always a challenge for me, especially because I have a habit of getting angry and blaming the recipe rather than myself. It seems obvious now, of course, that I was to blame for all the burned food I prepared. But now that I am trying to be patient with myself and not rush the process, I am seeing better results. I finally understand how baking or cooking can be fun! 

I used to be jealous of people who would eat good food at restaurants and be able to recreate the dish at home. My goal is to become one of those people. Because let's face it, we can't always go to a restaurant to eat good food. Plus, something about the sense of accomplishment makes the food taste better. There's something relaxing about taking your time and cooking something you love. Eventually, you start to think of ways you can improve the recipe and add your touch to it. Like, yeah cookies are cookies but mine have coconut flakes. Which makes them better. 

The euphoric moment of getting a recipe perfect after so many failed attempts is amazing. Yes, I am speaking from experience. 

So, a few days ago I wanted to make a Castella cake. It's supposed to be easy. All you need is cake flour, eggs, butter, milk, and vanilla extract. Easy! So, what you do is get your cake flour and mix that with some melted butter and milk. You separate the egg yolks and whites, the yolks go into the flour mix, and the whites are whipped till they have a soft peak. After mixing everything together, the batter goes into the oven with a hot water bath to add steam. (Here's my source) Everything looked simple. I had only had to go out for one ingredient, everything else was at home. I was ready to go. 

But, if I'm honest, that cake almost broke me. I cried over my failed attempts of making that cake, that's how much it was getting to me. Now, you may be thinking this was an overreaction (and it probably was) but the thing you need to understand is that this was supposed to be easy. I underestimated the work that would go into making this cake something you can actually eat. 

My first three attempts were awful. The bottom of the cake was completely underbaked and I couldn't figure out why. 

We had fun eating the top layer though. The only thing that could be eaten on that failed attempt. I tried three more times. I tried whipping the eggs more so that they were stiff, I tried making the melted butter at a hotter temperature, and each time I was getting close and closer to my goal. The secret was the water temperature. The recipe specified the water should be at 80 degrees celsius, and mine was at about 75 degrees. I got a thermometer specifically for checking food temperature, tried again, and...it worked! 

Not perfect but we could eat it! After three failed attempts my only goal was for the cake to be something we could eat, and it worked! I learned something from each failure, I improved my strategy, and I picked myself up and tried again no matter how horrible it felt to fail at something that was supposed to be easy. Turns out, learning from your mistakes is a useful skill. Who knew? 

Making that cake was so worth it! Because now, I get to start adding my own twist to it! I'm thinking I could drizzle some honey or melted chocolate as it comes out of the oven. It definitely needs way more vanilla than what the recipe calls for. I've found myself in a weird mindset--I actually want to make mistakes. Because then I know what to avoid. This doesn't mean that I want to purposely make mistakes, it just means I want to stay calm and think about how I can improve. I hope that mindset follows me through every aspect of my life.