THANKFUL FRIDAY
Cindy Maddera
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I am not much of a baker. There was a time in my youth when I did a whole lot of baking, often for 4-H related events. Mom always had a pantry stocked with cookie ingredients so that chocolate chip cookies could be whipped together at a moment’s notice. Over the years though, baking has fallen into the bucket of things that I used to do mostly because I had to do them, but now I don’t have to do anymore. Like singing on a stage in front of an audience. I rarely have a pantry stocked with the things one would need to bake a cookie or a cake or even cornbread. The few baking tins that I have yet to donate to Goodwill are all crammed into the cabinet above the refrigerator. In order to access them, I have to stand on a step stool and pull down all the wine boxes/bottles just to open the cabinet door. I have a sourdough starter that I feed irregularly sitting in my refrigerator that I mostly only use for making pizza crust.
Saying that I don’t bake is not the same as saying I can’t bake. Pies are generally my specialty and about twice a year I will make some sort of fruit or lemon meringue pie. I do this to only to keep my crust making skills honed, because I might only eat a small sliver of the pie before I take the rest to work for my coworkers to devour. Cakes and pies go to waste in this house. They just don’t get eaten. Michael is not big on baked goods and the Cabbage only likes six things (poptarts, cherry tomatoes, cheese pizza, refried (no spices!) beans, mac-n-cheese, candy). I don’t bake for people who will not eat the things I bake or who complain about the thing I have chosen to make. But like many of us during this pandemic, I have discovered a renewed joy in creating a baked good. It started with an angel food cake a few weeks ago. I had purchased a large carton of strawberries meant for snacking, but thought about how much better they would taste on top of a fluffy slice of angel food cake. We had two dozen eggs sitting on the counter that needed to be used up and for once, I had all of the things in my pantry for baking except the cream of tartar, which was easy enough to get ahold of. I carefully separated ten eggs to make this cake, knowing that the tiniest bit of yolk contaminate would prevent the egg whites from whipping up into soft white peaks. That was the only time consuming part of the recipe and the truest act of mindfulness because I do not have an egg separator. The result of that mindfulness was a mixing bowl filled with beautiful, soft white fluff. That fluff was folded into dry ingredients and then baked, creating a cake so light that when it was done I was surprised it didn’t float out of the pan on it’s own. For a whole week, we ate angel food cake topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Or at least I did.
Tuesday night, as I sat on the couch, I started thinking about the blueberries I had purchased that I knew where not going to get eaten. I thought “blueberry muffins sound nice.” The last time I made blueberry muffins, I used Bisquick and used the recipe on the back of the box which is basically just add sugar, milk and egg and blueberries. This was years and years ago. I can’t even tell you the last time I bought a box of Bisquick. I looked up a recipe for blueberry muffins online and ended up using one from the food section in The New York Times. It was simple: mix flour, baking powder, salt, in separate bowl cream butter with sugar and then add two eggs and vanilla, stir into dry ingredients with a half cup of milk, fold in blueberries, bake. Wednesday morning, while everyone else was still sleeping, I spent my morning meditation following that recipe and making blueberry muffins. As I spooned the batter into the muffin tins, I knew that these muffins would not get eaten. The Cabbage might eat one. Michael might eat one, but the rest of them would sit in a container until I threw them out. None of this seemed to matter to me because I realized as I slid the muffin tin into the oven that I was not doing this for any one else but me.
I’ve eaten six blueberry muffins since Wednesday.
No…maybe, but I didn’t make those muffins so that I could eat a blueberry muffin every other hour. I made them for the shear joy of baking, the mindful process of blending ingredients to make something lovely. I think I have started baking again for the satisfaction that comes from doing something well. It is a way to compensate for not being well adjusted to working from home. I can’t solve any problems on a microscope today, but I can bake a beautiful and delicious angel food cake or soft and lovely blueberry muffins. This is something I can put on my list as something I can do well right now.
That’s all I need for today.