Back to Baking

When I was six I spent the weekend with Great Grandma making homemade sugar cookies and real applesauce (who knew people made applesauce?).  I gawked incredulously at being introduced to her boxy gas stove with seeming mini-burners and hand-cranked appliances. Can opener, egg beater, spatula, whisk. Where was the electric mixer and a microwave for melting butter?

She taught me everything I know, more or less — at least the basics — about baking. And why everything tastes so much better when made a little slower, with more care, without paying so much attention to exact numbers, and without so much modern technology. I’ve adjusted my own style of baking since she passed away many years ago now, but I can still feel her with me when I’m making her recipes. Which is less frequent as I get older, as day to day obligations take up most of my free time.

But it feels good to get back into baking…and with a new twist. I’m a big fan of the Slow Food movement championed  by Alice Waters (who was recently a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher). Not slow as in “slow” but slow as in purposeful. Knowing what you’re putting in your body before you throw it into your pasta or on your pizza or into your shopping cart. It’s taking the time to make better choices (which does not mean super-expensive choices) about what we eat. And taking the time to enjoy what you are eating. As in, avoiding food that is not only pumped with additives, preservatives, sugars, fat and artificial flavoring but that doesn’t light your mouth afire.  Why waste those calories on something that tastes meh and is hurtful to your health?

So I’ve applied that to my renewed baking adventures. Last night I found a great Nutella cupcake recipe, and through a little research devised a way to make them health-friendly and organic. If you’re interested in the recipe, email me and it’s yours.

I spent some time today fleshing out my baking pantry. I weeded out any leftover bleached flour, refined salts, granulated sugars and expired extracts and spices. I restocked with a visit to my favorite quaint organic store in Appleton – The Granary Bulk Foods at 2125 North Richmond Street. My friend Jess over at Black Cat Kitchen steered me there for some extra virgin organic coconut oil earlier this year, and I’ve been hooked since. My grocery list:

• Extra fancy Durum Flour (for pizza dough and fine breads)
• Sweet cream buttermilk (key in frostings)
• Real Salt
• Evaporated Cane Juice (organic)
• Organic corn flour

For a few things they didn’t have in stock, I headed to Woodman’s Food Market:

• Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (15 oz on sale for $7.99!)
• Lighter Bake (butter & oil replacement made of pureed fruit) by Sunsweet
• Organic Coconut Flour
• Shelled Hemp Seed (natural, sustainable, no pesticides)

Really hoping that keeps the cubby stocked for at least the summer. Along these lines, if anyone in the Fox Valley area is interested in getting into a local baking exchange, let me know. I’d love to organize a quarterly Ladies Night Wine Bake, of sorts.

P.S. Missinsidegirl is Moving! Stayed tuned for the official “You must go here” post directing you to my new site!

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