Baking Blunders (aka My Life)

I have spent more mornings with a rolling pin than most folks spend with a pillow. And I am not joking. That is what baking does to you. If you are expecting tidy lessons or polished advice, I am afraid I do not have much of that. What I do have is a kitchen full of stories, some with happy endings, most with a mess to clean up. (maybe that is the point.)

When I started, it was cakes for the staff room and sticky scones for the local show. I will never forget the WI judge’s note: “salty and tough.” My swiss roll came second once, though I was the only one who bothered to enter. Apparently not enough sugar on top. The sting faded with time. You learn to laugh at yourself, or you will not last long in this racket.

You might think, after all these years, I would have stopped making mistakes. Not so. I still mix up rosemary and basil now and then. Basil bread, anyone? I have to serve it with a grin, hoping nobody minds. Sometimes the loaf flop, sometimes the bread rises anyway. Either way, I have learned not to get precious. Eat the evidence and move on is my favouritie moto. There is always tomorrow, and there is usually more butter.

I will say this: planning does help. Laying out every ingredient, reading the recipe twice. Still, the real problems come when I get ahead of myself or try to be clever. Then the dough will not come together, or I am halfway through before realising I am missing the one thing I need. At my age, you would think I would learn. Truth is, we are always learning. That is not just baking, that is life.

So if you are up to your elbows in flour and thinking, “I will never get this right,” well, neither did I. Not at first. Not even now, if I am honest. The kitchen is for getting things wrong as much as getting them right. If the cookies fall apart, glue them back together with chocolate. If you burn the toast, eat the unburnt bits and call it breakfast.

We are all stumbling along in here together. That is the real secret, I think. The mess, the mistakes, the mornings when it is just you and the dough and the radio playing some old tune before dawn. That is what stays with you. That, and the friends who will eat your flops and come back for more.