Tag: shallow

Who Knew!

~ wcaplan ~ 2 Comments

I know, it’s been quite a while. Yes, I’ve been baking. No, I haven’t been writing the blog. I suppose both those statements are obvious and perhaps superfluous. But I’m here now, so I might as well get on with it. I could start by making excuses about why I haven’t bothered sharing my baking exploits with you lately. (Oh my! It was 2024. How time flies.) I won’t though because if you have ever read my other blog (and, really, I’m not asking you to do that) you will know that I try my hardest not to make excuses. For anything, really. And I’m not about to start now. What I will tell you is that for the past month (I know, doesn’t really explain a multi-year hiatus) I have been traveling. To Italy. And where better to learn something new in the kitchen than Italy? Or so I thought.

First, back to that other blog I write (honestly, I’m not asking you to read it) so I can talk a little about what it is like when the shallow gal travels. Consider this a crossover episode. I’m sure at some point I’ll write more about my travels (in that other blog) but for the purposes of moving this story along let me tell you a little about our time in Italy. It was good. We walked…a lot. Saw…a lot. Ate…quite a bit. And overall had a pretty good time. The thing is, when we travel I do quite a bit of planning about getting there but not quite as much about being there. That doesn’t mean we skip all the “majors”. We make our way through umpteen galleries, museums, cathedrals, basilicas (which mostly look a lot like cathedrals) and Duomos, which again, look surprisingly like cathedrals. But it does mean that there are times, although not too many, where we’re  not sure what we want to do next. And so we do what the millions (or did it just seem like millions) of other travellers do and head to the internet where ideas are a dime a dozen. They just cost a lot more. And that’s where I found it. 

Now let me say at the outset my discovery was not a slam dunk for all of us involved. And since there were only two of us on this journey, I suppose it would be fair to say it was 50/50. Nonetheless, when I saw the “Learn to make Pasta and Tiramisu” evening advertised on a very reputable tourist site, I figured “What the heck”? ” I like to bake, and pasta, while not exactly “baking”, involves flour, so this event checked all the boxes, as they say. 

And the reviews!
“Outstanding!” (Ok, could be subjective)
“Highlight of my trip” (Really? Did it rain the whole time?)
“Met people from all over the world” (Where else would people be from?) 

Doubts aside, those clearly enthusiastic past participants and the “Likely to sell out” warning at the top of the screen, were enough to light a fire under this gal and before you could say “Cosa c’è per cena?” I had hit the “add to cart” button and sent my Euros on their way. For better or worse, I was in. Actually, we were in, much to someone’s chagrin. Because “someone” was not at all sure this was a very good idea. 

“We’ve been eating pasta and tiramisu for three weeks and now you want to learn how to make it? Can’t you find a course on steak, or chicken or anything else?”

 Well you know. When in Rome…

Upon arrival at the designated location which, I suppose unsurprisingly,  turned out to be a restaurant, we were met by a most enthusiastic young woman who welcomed us with open arms and a glass of Prosecco. So far, so good. We walked into a room filled with people who I am sure were from “all over the world” although I can’t verify that for you. We did meet the lovely people at our table (a couple and their son) who were from Texas which, as I understand, is still part of the world. Perhaps just not the one we knew. Fortunately, all the men in this group had apparently been roped into this little adventure meaning we had much in common and a place to start a conversation. 

Mine: “So what brought you here?”
Hers: “She did.”
Hers: “What brought you here?” 
Mine: “She did.”

It was a start.

After some instructions about following instructions from our now very enthusiastic, very fast talking, English speaking host with a heavy Italian accent (keep this in mind, it matters) we all moved into the kitchen to begin our introduction to Italian cuisine. 

We start with the tiramisu. Sitting in front of us are two little ladyfingers and a small cup of coffee. 

Wait a minute. 
These cookies are out of a box. 
Even me, who is not a baker, knows that a homemade dessert needs to be homemade. 
What’s with the boxed cookies? 

For the first time I feel a slight twinge of skepticism and the probability of an “I told you so” in my future. With the coffee poured over the cookies we move on to the filling which becomes a bit of a blur as the very excited, fast talking host starts talking even faster and somehow her English and Italian begin to merge into one much less understandable language. Suffice to say all of us, ostensibly from all over the world, take turns mixing the mascarpone cheese with a bunch of other stuff in one big bowl. At some point it’s my turn to take charge of the hand mixer (which fortunately I am quite proficient with) to make sure there are no lumps left in our communal concoction and now I begin to feel the weight of the group on my shoulders. Filling done. Parts assembled. A stark realisation there’ll be no baking involved. The tiramisu heads for the cooler to reemerge for our dessert. We move on to the pasta and I’m thinking here’s where things are going to shine. 

But now I find myself staring, somewhat incredulously, at the one egg and one small bowl of flour on my little kitchen stand. I’m told to put the flour on the plate, make a well in the middle, and crack the egg into the well. Knead it together to make the dough. Oh. Come. On. There has to be more to it than that. I paid to be here. To learn something. What I learned is that in order to make this stuff at home, I now need to spend another 150 bucks to buy a pasta machine. A pasta machine that I have no place for in my kitchen. Who knew! All you need to do to make pasta is mix flour and an egg, squeeze it through a vice and boil it. That’s it! At that point my husband’s words echoed faintly in the distance as it occurred to me that I had just paid a whole lot of Euros to make my own dinner at a restaurant in Italy. 

So a word of advice. If you decide to pay for pasta and tiramisu in Italy, you might just as well have someone else make it for you. Trust me.

To save you the airfare, not to mention the cost of dinner, I’ve included a couple of recipes. Prego!

How to make pasta
How to make Tiramisu 

There might not be a Partridge

~ wcaplan ~ 2 Comments

I’m the first to admit that there are some things I am and some things I am not. If you are reading this, you already know that I am not a baker. Which doesn’t mean I don’t like baking. Au contraire. I love baking. It’s just, as I have explained over many pages, that I don’t really know much about baking. Because of that, I simply take the authors of all those recipes I use at their word. I trust they know what, when and how stuff goes together and, with only a few exceptions, they have been mostly right. For this I am quite grateful as it lets me do pretty well what I don’t really know how to do at all. 

Here’s the thing. I may have mentioned this once or twice before in my other blog (yes blatant self-promotion. So sue me!) here I go again. I am also not a gardener. But unlike baking, I actually don’t really like gardening at all. And while, as an adult, I am willing to take some responsibility for my lack of interest and capabilities for this endeavour, I feel that some blame lies with my upbringing. You see, I grew up in the middle of the big city where the only plants that were planted, grass that was cut and trees that were pruned, was done by a small army of men (yes, I am that old) who drove up in their trucks once a week to descend upon a dozen or so unkempt lawns and flower beds and return them to their well manicured, not to mention rather uniform, splendour. There was no borrowing the neighbours lawn mower or pruning shears as there was nary a garage that housed any of those implements of destruction. Which is exactly what they would have become in the hands of us and those around us. Geraniums, petunias and cedars summed up the extent of my rather limited knowledge of the local flora. No admonitions here. Or judgements. Just telling it like it was for me. Enough said. I figure I’m somewhat absolved.

You can imagine then, it was with some wonder that one morning I watched my Dad come home carrying what appeared to be a rather large twig in a bucket. Intrigued, I followed him to the backyard where, after some careful consideration, he very methodically cleared a spot among the cedars and began to dig a hole, presumably to house the twig. To make a long story short, as I am sure you will appreciate, it turns out that, for whatever reason, my Dad had decided that what we needed in our backyard was a pear tree, so he planted one. A pear tree. I hate to admit this but, up until that very moment we all assumed that pears came from the grocers in little cardboard containers. Somehow (and I attribute this again to growing up in the big city) we never really made a connection between the fruit and the fruit’s origins. The fact that there might be orchards full of trees bearing pears seemed to have escaped us. Again, not judging or wanting to be judged. But here we were now with a pear tree right in our own backyard. Which was kind of nice.

It took a few years but eventually our little twig grew up to be quite a formidable size. Each year, as we watched our tree get bigger and taller, we were overcome with anticipation as we thought this might be the one. The year that one of those little white flowers would produce a piece of fruit. Alas, for many, many years it was not to be. Until one year when it was. A little white flower magically turned into a pear. Granted, there was only one, but each year after that the tree came through for us until we found ourselves asking people to come and relieve us of the fruits of our labours. Well my Dad’s labours really. 

Fast forward 50 years or thereabouts. When we moved into our new home on this Island of ours where unlike me, everyone is a gardener, we felt compelled to add a pear tree to our yard. For old times sake. And for my Dad. Little did I know that in order for one tree to bear fruit you need to plant two, which although doesn’t really explain how pears ever appeared on our little tree in the big city could possibly explain why it took so long to do so. Never one to question the experts (hence the recipe thing), we of course have two lovely pear trees in our yard. While it has taken some time, there might not be a partridge in our pear trees but this year there sure are a whole lot of pears. Which brings me to what I wanted to write about today. Pear recipes. Because for the past few weeks I have had no choice but to focus all my baking efforts on using up the abundance of pears our lovely little trees have provided. So if like me, you are not a baker or a gardener, or even if you are, and you too have a circumstance that has resulted in an overabundance of pears, you might want to try one or more of these. 

Yogurt Cake with Pear and Dark Chocolate

Recipe: Prep time: None given. Smart. I wouldn’t have come anywhere close.
Me: 47 minutes. That’s not so bad.
Favourite thing about this recipe: Chocolate. Did I really need to answer that question?
Least favourite thing about this recipe: Licking the grated chocolate off my fingers. Just kidding!
What I learned: Whether you call this a cake or a loaf (I’d call it a loaf) pears with chocolate are delish!

And here’s a few more.
Pear, date and walnut loaf
Pear and blueberry cobbler
Pear and Blueberry Muffins









		
	
			

	


				
					


	

		
Let’s Get this Bun in the Oven
	

				

			 ~ wcaplan			 ~ 4 Comments					

				

		

Here’s how I see it. There are real bakers who love to bake. If you are lucky, one of them is your friend. These people know everything there is to know about baking. It’s like they were born in a kitchen, however unlikely that might be. Recipes? Who needs one! Measure? Not in these kitchens. They simply know what to do. For real bakers, baking is an art and a science. The most beautiful and delectable creations emerge from their ovens. They are masters of their craft. And just so you don’t underestimate them, you should also know they understand the chemistry of baking. Their vocabulary includes terms like “protein bonding” and “maillard reactions”. The “magic of leavening agents” is no mystery to them. They are aware of the difference between baking soda and baking powder and have a firm grasp on how yeast, when added to dough, “feeds on starches producing sugars, alcohol and carbon dioxide as byproducts”*. Ask them, on the spur of the moment, to whip up a Mille-Feuille and they’ll reach into that fridge of theirs and pull out the citrusy yuzu cream they keep on hand in anticipation of this very request. Most of us are not these people but if you are, this new blog of mine probably won’t cut into your baking time. 





Then there are those who are not bakers and don’t have even the teeniest desire to be one. I freely acknowledge that used to be me so on this one, I know from where I speak. Non-bakers, as I have chosen to call them, have the local patisserie on speed dial for that dreaded moment when the neighbor, in her most neighbourly way says, “Let’s all get together on Monday for a chit chat. And hey! Bring a little something for us to nosh on”. They know that on “muffin day” they will make a valiant, but alas failed attempt to provide homemade goodies, ultimately requiring a late night trip to the grocers in the vain hope of finding a couple dozen muffins, with no trace of peanuts, that can be pawned off on a bunch of 6 year olds as something that has recently emerged from the oven. They are the first to sign up for crackers and cheese at the office potluck. Non-bakers have mastered the art of disguise with their stockpile of fancy cake plates and heritage (looking) cookie tins all at the ready to replace those nasty aluminum pans in which oh so many store bought goodies are packaged. Not wanting to outright lie, they simply smile and politely nod when complimented on their treats, deflecting any requests for recipes with some long winded story about promises to a great great grandmother, and all subsequent women in the family, to safeguard these most treasured of family secrets. I can’t tell you what non-bakers do with all the spare time they must have, but I’m guessing they won’t be interrupting whatever it is to read this blog. 





Finally there are people like me, and hopefully at least a few of you. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I transitioned from not baking to baking but I can tell you that when I bought my first KitchenAid stand mixer in a lovely cerulean blue primarily to add a pop of colour to my kitchen, I had no idea it was the quintessential baker’s tool. I mean I had a lovely new kitchen with tons of counter space so, why not? Little did I know how soon my life would change. Was it the first batch of rugelach? The banana nut bread with dates? Can’t say but somewhere along the line my life turned upside down, (although not like COVID-19 upside down). Except for one thing. Even though I bake, I am not a baker. And if that confuses you, let me explain. I know nothing about baking. Shall I repeat? Nothing. I don’t know why I add baking soda rather than baking powder or what will happen if my eggs are not at room temperature when I add them to the mix. I can never figure out why dry and wet ingredients have to be mixed in separate bowls even though, in the end, they end up together. And yeast, quite frankly, scares the heck out of me. As a result, I just do what I am told. Recipes are my bible. Measuring spoons and cups my trusty companions. If there’s a baking pan or cookie sheet that self-proclaims “best in its class” and promises I will never again be faced with an unevenly baked loaf, you’ll find it in my baking drawer. Yes, I have a baking drawer. 





You might be asking yourself at this stage of the game, why would someone like me decide to write a baking blog?  Well there are a couple of good reasons the least of which is that even I, the self-professed “shallow gal”, have to admit it’s a tad difficult to come up with ideas for “Shallow Be My Name” these days. Don’t worry. For my small but loyal following I’ll keep writing that blog too, just not quite as frequently. Although I can’t really blame that on the new normal as my old normal was pretty sporadic too. More importantly however, I thought it might be useful for me to share what I like to call the “truth about baking”. You see, for real bakers everything goes pretty much the way it should. For me, and maybe for you, not so much. Let’s face it. We both know that a recipe suggesting a prep time of 15 minutes means setting aside a good hour, perhaps and a half, to get oven-ready. And speaking of ovens, if I were to preheat when told I’d likely be able to roast a chicken as I work on mixing and stirring my little loaf. And you have to know when my recipe calls for Red Fife flour I will scour the city to find it because in my kitchen, there are no substitutes allowed. And that’s the difference between me and a real baker. They know what I don’t. 


This blog is about that. What really happens when we bake. The good, the bad and the ugly. Edible and inedible. With pics. So, without further ado and, as they say in the biz, let’s get this bun in the oven!


Almost forgot. If you are so inclined, feel free to follow/subscribe to the blog. I’d love to have you along for the ride. 


*https://sciencing.com/chemical-reactions-that-occur-during-baking-12731635.html