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Food

Holiday Baking Bliss

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For many people, cooking and baking can be anxiety-inducing enough, without the added worry of subjecting your dish to your friends and loved ones for scrutiny. If you don’t find holiday baking bliss in here, let’s at least shoot for something below a panic attack when the next potluck invite comes your way.

When I was 11 years old, I made brownies in my best friend’s kitchen using my mom’s battered old copy of The Joy of Cooking. Let me tell you, Irma S. Rombauer doesn’t coddle you along. If you are reading her recipes, she assumes you know some basics. Except, well, I was 11, and my friend was 12, so we knew nothing. Which is why, after melting our Hershey’s bars in the microwave to get that rich, chocolaty goodness, we just dumped the mess into our batter, which (little did we know) instantly curdled our eggs—ultimately creating brownies that tasted like a chocolate omelet. This perhaps sounds better than they tasted, which was God-awful.

Now, most cookbooks and recipes that you will read nowadays know better than to assume that little girls and boys grew up learning how to “Do Things Properly,” but just in case, let me take a moment to impact some basic kitchen wisdom.

Measuring

  • Liquids should be measured in a liquid measuring cup, preferably Pyrex brand because they will live longer than you will.
  • Solids can be measured in measuring cups, but make sure you adhere to additional rules
    • Flour (and really, powdered sugar as well) should never be scooped up from the bag with the measuring cup. Instead, spoon it into the cup one scoop at a time with a regular tablespoon. When you have a little hill over the top of the measuring cup, tap the back of a butter knife on top and smooth it out. This is to make sure you do not compact the flour.
    • Brown sugar, on the other hand, must always be compacted. Press it into your measuring cup with your fingers or a spoon so that when you dump it out, it somewhat holds the shape of the measuring cup.
    • Granulated sugar (which is the baking name for plain ol’ white sugar), chocolate chips, baking soda/powder, peanut butter, whatever else can all be simply scooped with your measuring cup.
  • Though spices can be estimated, please do not estimate baking powder or soda. Adding too much or too little can keep your baked good from rising properly. These powders react with the liquids of your recipe to create air bubbles, which elevate your batter. Not enough powder and you have too few air bubbles. Too much powder and you get too many bubbles, which pop each other, collapsing the dish. And what’s the difference between baking powder and baking soda, you ask? Baking soda is a basic (as in pH) sodium bicarbonate, which needs some sort of acid in the recipe (often lemon) to react while baking powder is baking soda with a dry acid mixed in, which activates when wet.

 

Mixing

I have been watching Gordon Ramsey’s Ultimate Cookery Course, which has been utterly delightful and extremely informative. He knows his stuff. But I was appalled when he was making blondies (cookie dough in a single casserole dish) and just threw all the ingredients willy-nilly. Dumb idiot, that’s not going to rise! And it totally didn’t! And still, it was on TV! Let’s not make the same mistake:

  • Mix “wet” ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, milk, melted chocolate, vanilla, etc.) separately from “dry” ingredients (flour, baking soda/powder, cocoa powder, spices, etc). This is critical for the dry ingredients, so that the baking soda/powder gets fully distributed throughout the flour (remember, those air bubbles are everything for presentation). It’s also beneficial for the wet ingredients as well, which sometimes need a pretty thorough beating, which you don’t want to give them when dry ingredients are in there, too.
  • “Why can’t I mix dry and wet ingredients for too long?” you whine. Well, when you mix dry and wet ingredients together, you are forming the glutinous bonds that will hold your treat together. If, however, you form too many glutinous bonds, your treat will be super tough and unpleasant and all your friends will hate you. Typically, recipes counsel you to mix “until just combined,” which I will repeat. It’s mixed when it looks homogenous.
  • Tempering. This is a scary word to some and it is part of Intermediate Baking. But not to fret. I taught 4th graders how to do it and I can teach you too. This is the skill that was missing from my repertoire during the infamous Omelet Brownie Debacle.
  • Here’s the situation: you have a hot thing (usually chocolate or hot cream) to which you need to add to a room temp or colder thing (usually containing eggs). What you want to do is slowly raise the temperature of the eggs by adding just a bit of that hot liquid (like 1-2 tablespoons) to your cooler thing, while whisking constantly. This will warm the little eggies up gently. Scoop up more of that hot liquid (go ahead and use ¼ cup this time) into the now-less-cold liquid and keep whisking. Keep doing this until both are completely combined and you are ready to continue the recipe!

 

Mise En Place

This is a French phrase that means “everything in its place” and it is the crux of kitchen bliss. Not only does it mean that your kitchen is somewhat organized when you set out to cook, it also means that you are ready mentally and physically.

That means that you have read the entire recipe already. That way, when you get to the phrase “chill overnight or for 8 hours,” you won’t start swearing because your party starts in 30 minutes. Seriously, read the whole thing as soon as you decide it’s what you wanna make.

Make sure you have your ingredients ready to go. Have your butter and eggs out on the counter (they ideally should get to room temp, anyway), have your measuring cups clean and ready, have your pan greased and your oven pre-heating. If you want to be super smooth, put pre-measured ingredients in little prep dishes. This will make everything so, so much smoother. Little things like this can make the difference between sipping your wine while tapping your foot to jazz and getting flour in your hair just as you start screaming!

Let’s Bake!

For the holidays, people love certain seasonal staples. Cooking/baking “in season,” meaning the produce is freshest at this time of year, will absolutely boost the taste of your food, especially if you buy from your local farmer’s market.

Try baking with the following produce, in season during autumn and winter:

  • Citrus fruits (clementines, oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines)
  • Kiwis
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Persimmons
  • Dates
  • Chestnuts
  • Squashes (acorn, spaghetti, butternut)
  • Cranberries
  • Jujube
  • Pumpkins
  • Pomegranate

 

Recipes to Try

I have not tried all of these recipes but don’t let that stop you! Find something that looks doable and delicious and you’ll be achieving baking bliss in no time!

  • A delicious, unique collection of recipes can be found at mom.me
  • Two recipes with pomegranate seeds: Chocolate Pomegranate Clusters and Orange Pomegranate Bread
  • 15 fantastic pear recipes from one of my go-to recipe sites, Real Simple
  • Chestnuts can be intimidating, but also delicious and unique! Plus, Trader Joes sells them all ready to go! Try Chocolate Chestnut Torte or Chestnut Cupcakes (for piping frosting on all pretty, spoon it into a Ziplock baggie and cut off one of the corners for an instant piping bag!)
  • Persimmons make fantastic bread and cookies, but be careful! Fuju persimmons are squat and flat at the bottom and can be eaten like a stone fruit, when orange and slightly softened. Hachiya persimmons, however, will leave a dry, cotton-y taste in your mouth and taste super tart if not ripened to mushy softness. The latter are the most commonly used for baking and taste fantastic when allowed to fully develop. Try them in cookies and bread.
  • Check out this tasty compilation of sweet squash based desserts!
  • Cranberries pair beautifully with sweet flavors. Try Pear Cranberry Crisp or Cornmeal Biscotti with Cranberries and White Chocolate
  • If you are feeling exotic and adventurous, try a dessert with the Chinese winter fruit jujubes, like the Jujube Tart with Walnut Cream. The jujube has the consistency and taste of an apple and looks wrinkled like a date. A larger farmers market should have them.

 

Contingency Plans

Help! Help! My dish failed and I have 30 minutes until my event! Okay, okay! Try this!

 

You are now ready to prepare and consume a delicious holiday treat that will impress and satisfy your friends and neighbors and banish your enemies into a vortex of shame at their inferiority. Go forth and bake!

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Style

Unmentionables Unearthed: Buying Bras

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The humor and irony of writing this article on the purchasing practices of bras is not lost on me: this June marks exactly fifteen years since that fateful summer day when my doting, dutiful grandma bought me three training bras of differing colors and sizes and placed them on my bed… which I, in turn, threw on the kitchen floor in a hateful rage. I slammed my bedroom door and sent myself to bed without dinner. I was fighting a losing battle against Father Time and puberty. I was not going to wear those nasty body girdles. I was going to play outside on the trampoline in my overalls in all my asexual glory. Every day. Forever.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Well, that didn’t work out so well. That nasty body girdle did indeed become a part of my future. During my freshman year of college, I held down a job at Gap Body (you know, that area of the Gap where the music suddenly changes over to the spa-day playlist and there are never any boys ever). Every day, I measured at least three or four different ladies for their bra size. Would it shock you to know that most women are walking around wearing the wrong bra size? These weren’t 13-year-old girls, clueless about what the eff was going on under their overalls (do 13-year-olds still wear overalls? Was that just me? Whatever, irrelevant). These were grown ladies who ought to have known that they were wearing the wrong size! One day, I did a measurement on myself, only to find that I, too, was in the totally-wrong-size club! I remedied that right away with my sweet employee discount.

You can find these tutorials all over the interwebs, but here are a few basic tips that I learned that year for figuring out which bra is perfect for you (all DIY!) from sizing to style and everything in between:

  • First of all, find out what your size really is! Get a flexible measuring tape and wrap it around the area that’s just above your ribcage and just below your girls. If, for example, you measure in at 31”, your band size is typically 2-3 digits up from that number (so, a 34). Traditionally, you’re supposed to round up. Everyone should get measured! Wearing the right size feels great. Your clothes suddenly fit better, and you might discover a more defined waistline that wasn’t there before!
  • If you’ve got some mad spillage occurring over the edges or if the center isn’t lying flat against your sternum, your cup size is too small. If you notice the fabric / padding is lumpy and folding in on itself, it’s too big. If it feels nice and smooth when you put it on and you can’t really see the lines under your shirt, then well done! That’s the right cup size.
  • However, my next point is about to debunk everything I just said! Not all bras are created equal! I know, right? But, just like pants in a size 2 at one store fit like another store’s size 4, sometimes bras don’t all fit the same. Every bra fits each body a little bit differently, depending upon how much padding the thing has, how broad your shoulders are, how tall you are… everything! My advice is to try everything on, no matter what. Whenever ladies would come into the store and ask for something in their size, I’d always recommend that they try it on before walking out the door with it. Treat your bra size like a really solid ballpark figure. If the bra isn’t comfortable when you put it on, then try a slightly different size (see the next bullet point about “sister sizes”). I know this isn’t what Victoria’s Secret and the like would want me to say about this, but I think every lady can attest to this: sometimes, an article of clothing is just…well… made differently.  TRY. IT. ON.
  • So, like, another bonkers thing: bras are designed so that a 34C, for example, should fit you the same as a 36B. People call these “sister sizes”. The cup size is actually relative to the ribcage measurement. Technically, you ought to stick to your correct band size, but you can get away with it if you absolutely have to have that particular bra and they don’t have it in your size. It should probably fit fine, but as I said before, try that puppy on!
  • Now, something I had to recommend to the ladies over at good ol’ Gap Body was to put their shirts back on over the bras once they tried them on. For whatever reason, not everybody does this in the fitting room! But unless you’re making this purchase for one specific, frisky evening and you don’t ever plan to wear it under your clothing, you should seriously make sure you know what it looks like under your shirt. A lot of people don’t put their shirt back on! Why, I do not know! It’s worth noting that I was recently at a Victoria’s Secret location that had a t-shirt in each fitting room to encourage this practice! It was such a nice idea that I just had to give them a shoutout here.
  • Now, some practical advice as it relates to style: I don’t know about y’all, but not every day is lacy push-up sexytime day. I need a wide variety of comfort levels in my unmentionables drawer. American Apparel makes my absolute favorite everyday comfort bra (which is awesome for both casual wear and for working out). These come in a wide variety of styles and colors. I adore them, but I’ll admit they don’t provide a ton of support if you’re more endowed than I am! But the point is this: pick your favorite comfort poison, and buy a bunch in that same style. You’ll want an arsenal for everyday wear. Then, crank it up just a hair and buy a few that are flirty and fun, but aren’t necessarily bras you’d go jogging in. These should still be comfy and look great under your typical work clothes. There’s nothing weirder than wearing a super sexy bra under a top you’ve had on all day (perhaps in preparation for a big date or you just haven’t done laundry in a while) and it’s obvious that it’s just too much. So, continue to keep it simple in shape and scope. Lastly, get yourself one or two really high octane get-ups. (These, my friend, do not necessarily have to look appropriate under the shirt!)

So, what’d we learn? Measure thyself. Be wary of slight differences between designers. Don’t be afraid to be down with sister sizes. Put the shirt back on. And buy what makes you look and feel not only sexy, but comfy too! After all, we can’t wear overalls forever. Not that we should aspire to.