Kim Sam Soon and Baking

Today I locked myself in the room, and settled for a marathon viewing of I am Kim Sam Soon. It is a Koreanovela about a slightly chubby, plain but very headstrong pastry baker who’s unlucky in love. And while it really is a love story, it’s when the focus shifts to her baking, the scene snapping to Kim kneading the dough or decorating the cakes that makes me sigh. It reminded me of the days when baking was my guilty pleasure and addiction.

Sometimes I still find myself missing the feel of flour on my hands, the sound of the electric mixer and the spattering of batter on the sides of the bowl. How after placing the prepared batter into the oven, one always went back to the mixing bowl and like a child, licked the bowl dry of its moist, uncooked yet delicious contents. There is a feeling of peace, a sense of discipline that is peculiar to baking. That satisfaction of having made something special and fragrantly delicious out of spartan ingredients.

Even now after not having baked for some time, having lost my cravings for bread based delights and pastries, I could still close my eyes and remember the goodies I churned out daily. All bakers I think begin with the basics- brownies, cookies and muffins that require nothing more than mixing and placing the batter/ dough in the oven. I began with the basic fudge brownies—chocolate, butterscotch, revel. The secret, I discovered after testing out various brownie recipes, is to avoid overmixing and to underbake bar cookies for a few minutes to get that fudgy texture. Because brownies and muffins by themselves are plain, I tried making crumb tops and all sorts of frosting to go with them. The easiest being the buttercream type-- butter, powdered sugar and whatever flavor you want.

After the cookies, brownies and muffins, one moves on to cakes and pies which require a little more time and patience. Cakes require a myriad of stages---preparation of the cake/crust, fillings and toppings/frostings. There is a reliable chocolate cake recipe that I use without fail which I took from a cooking site in the internet. It sounds wickedly delicious and hard to prepare with its caramel filling and chocolate frosting— but in fact it’s quite easy---make the batter, boil up the condensed milk in its can for the caramel, and make the super easy chocolate butter frosting. The secret, I discovered, to fluffy cake are a few teaspoons of vinegar.

My brother liked Peach Cobbler so much that for a time I baked this almost every week. It is a recipe that sounds expensive and imported but it is truly one of the most comforting and easy-on-the senses food I know ---canned peach halves, flour, egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg for that heady warm flavor. It comes out golden on top, with the cinnamon butter and yellowcling peaches slightly browned. But when you cut the cobbler, there is an almost liquid feel to it, the crust smooth and filled with the essence of the peach syrup. You may top it with whipped cream, eat it warm with ice cream as a cold counterpoint, or reheat it in the oven to get that slightly burned nutty sugar taste.

Of course I had my share of disasters--- a batch of the fancy named lemon biscotti which turned out hard as stone, how I burned my first batch of chocolate crinkles, and the pizza crust that turned into a pizza loaf bread. But I think my worst bake-off was the time I first tried making baguettes, or French bread. It turned out really really yeasty in flavor, it was like eating live yeasts. I, in my excitement to see if they will turn out, did not follow the rising and kneading procedure to a T and got a monster of a bread with the tell-tale bitter and beerlike yeast flavor. If anything though, baking has taught me to be fearless. For all my cautiousness and I-don’t-think-I-can-do-it attitude in real life, I was never scared of trying out a new recipe when it came to baking. Because what’s the worst that can go wrong anyway? If it turns bad you throw it away and learn your mistakes. Which is how, I guess, one should deal with everything about life.

There is something thrilling about finding a potentially great recipe and trying it for the first time. There’s the fear that I might be missing or skipping something essential, one becomes obsessed with the details. Does it say beat the egg yolks until soft peaks or hard peaks? Is it possible to substitute butter for shortening (Crisco) or will it totally change the texture? Do I bake it in the middle tray or the lowest tray? It’s easy to get lost in the details. To worry if the cake will rise properly, if enough sugar’s been added to the yeast. But most of the time though, it turns out fine. And you get that heady aroma of vanilla-infused air and the satisfaction that you have made something that is almost of you. Because that’s how it feels for me when I bake, a part of me is in there, mixed in within the buttery slices which I offer to my family and friends as a not-so-obvious but heartfelt gift of happiness.

I suppose what one says about baking is also a cliche for love and life. The thrill and hesitation at the beginning, how we become wary of the hurdles, how we obsess about the nitty-gritty, this sense of unbelief that maybe it won’t come through the way we want it, but then once we start something changes, and we begin to allow ourselves to get caught up by the process itself, to enjoy the fears, to understand that the uncertainties will never go away, so heck, why not just enjoy it, ride it out and who cares if you get burned sometimes. It’s a small thing in the sea of personal satisfaction you get from just trying. And I know how it is easier said than done. Which is really why I’m writing it now as it comes. And hope that when fear gets the better of me again, that somehow I’ll find this in my blog and get the proper perspective on things.