Although once a career considered only for the lowly peasant in medieval Europe, baking can become a successful enterprise in the current day and age. If you are skeptical of me when I say this, I ask you, who doesn’t occasionally crave a little sweet treat? And, if you’re me (Maggie the Baker) you know that everyone wants to be friends with someone who can provide said sweet treat. In this article, I’m going to give you some tips and tricks for how to be a cool baker. But of course, you can’t trust me yet! You don’t even know anything about me! Thus, I will start by sharing some history about my journey as a baker.
When I first began baking, it was simply out of accessibility. My mom (being the good housewife she is, god bless women) was always baking, so once I was old enough she started including me in her projects, and teaching me everything she knows. Unknowingly, my mom saved me from a lifetime of loneliness. At the time, I didn’t have any friends, but once my mom taught me to bake, things quickly turned around for me. In fifth grade, I started my underground cupcake business on the playground. Each cupcake sold for 50 cents, and the people went crazy. Eventually, my business got shutdown because of unknown reasons, but over the years I continued to bake treats for free, persuading my friends not to leave me. Over the years, my projects have also gotten more difficult, from learning how to bake croissants to making a pie good enough that my dad will say something more ecstatic than “nice”. Don’t quote me on this, but I will challenge that I have the skills to take up any baking project now, and so I count myself qualified and required to tell you everything I know.
When you begin baking, remember to choose something that you actually want to bake. The few times that I have started a recipe that I had no interest in, the product came out terrible. This leads to my next point; when people speak about baking, they talk about how you should bake something “with love”. However, I disagree with this statement. When you bake, you should bake with the power of jazz. Think of yourself as Remi the rat from Ratatouille. You are an accomplished chef, not a lowly street rat! As a baker/chef, you are creating dishes for family and friends, and you do not want to present something unworthy of their tastebuds. When you bake, I recommend turning on some good jazz music, and pretending you’re more Parisian than you are (trust me it works). My favorite way of pretending to be more Parisian is to throw in various French sentence fillers every once in a while (ex. Bah, bref, donc, voila, ben, hein).
You want some actual baking tips? Okay. Now I will begin to teach you the things that my mom has taught me over the years. Not all of them are exactly culinary skills, but small things you can do that will make your life easier when baking, and maybe cause you to enjoy baking a little bit more. My first tip is: clean up the kitchen as you bake. If you save all of your dishes and countertops to clean until after your dish is done baking. You will be feeling a very common sense of dread, wondering why you decided to bake something in the first place. However, if you heed my advice and clean up as you bake, you will be able to sit back, relax, and watch Ratatouille when you’re finished baking.
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