Food Goes In Mouth

“I don’t bake.”

You’ll hear folks say those three little words for a wide range of reasons. A few are turning their noses up, as if to say, “Bake? That’s for women and peasants!” as though the grill and sauté pan are the only viable means of introducing heat to raw ingredients. We’ll refer to this group as “Idiots.”

I hear many people explain their baking-free lives by saying, “I like the spontaneity of cooking that you don’t get with baking. The exact measurements and weights and science behind baking aren’t for me.” And boy do I understand the argument. You sure can’t pop open the oven, grab the cake and a spoon, give it a taste, and firmly chuck a handful of garlic at it before returning it to the hotbox. Which is why I have spouted this argument myself in the past.

What irks me about that idea is how it comes across, at times, as equally condescending as the “Idiot’s” argument. Sometimes what I hear is, “Baking is just exact measurements. If you have the recipe, mix the ingredients accordingly and go, it’s done. What’s so hard about that that?”

The thing is, the improvisation so adored by non-bakers is just one thing that makes standard cooking so hard and baking difficult. I can overcook my pasta sauce by two minutes. I can add one too few cloves of garlic and twice as much basil and everything is more than just fine. It’s arguably original. The mistake here is assuming that because the instructions are written, plain as day on a piece of paper, they are as good as executed in the kitchen.

You can’t make that leap. And you can’t claim that’s it’s easy enough to do, if you simply chose to do it. Until you physically do something, you haven’t done it. Until you get exact, follow instructions to the letter, and stop leaning on the flexible cane of whimsical cooking, you will not bake. And if you have not baked, you cannot bake. You don’t hear folks claim they can swallow swords without ever having gulped down so much as a toothpick.

What’s more, the strict science behind baking doesn’t kill original recipe creation, it makes such originality admirably more difficult. You need to understand levening, proteins and fats, glutens, tempering, and so much more. Beats the hell out of something as mindless as switching orange for pineapple, or adding paprika. A baker is a true craftsman and good original recipes are admirable.

So, with all that laid out, I’d like to say, “I don’t bake. The patience and dedication required to so much as reproduce a recipe in this field escapes me, the lazy cook. I don’t bake, not because I find it trite, but because I come to it with the knowledge of a child. In short, I don’t bake because it scares me shitless.”

But it’s time I took baby steps.

What I Used

• Graham Crackers, pulverized into tiny bits
• Butter, melted
• Granny Smith Apple
• Ground Saigon Cinnamon
• Brown Sugar
• White Sugar
• Heavy Whipping Cream
• Fresh Vanilla Bean
• Water
• Ground Nutmeg

What I Did

• Follow the about.com instructions for a basic graham cracker pie crust. That is, combine 1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup white sugar, and 6 tbsp of butter in a bowl with your hands.
• Press the crust evenly into a 10 inch pyrex dish. Yea, you should probably use a pie tin. But I made this at my folks’ place, and they don’t have one. Not that I have one at my own apartment…
• 
• Core and peel the apple. Using a mandolin slicer, make thin even lengthwise cuts.
• Arrange the apples on top of the crust. You could and should overlap the apple pieces in a circle and make it look pretty. I didn’t, because I wasn’t thinking. And I knew I’d just be covering it up with all the remaining steps.
• Dust a couple pinches of cinnamon over the apples. I’m sorry I don’t have an exact measurement for this part, but I’d guess I used 1/2 teaspoon in total. Just evenly and thinly coat.
• Evenly distribute 1/4 cup brown sugar over the apples.
• 
• Move this to a 375° oven for 15 minutes. I did it for 20 and the edges got a little too crispy and brown.
• Make Alice’s caramel sauce per her instructions. Except, warm the cream in a small saucepan. Take half a vanilla bean, split it open and scrape out the inside. Add the bean and scrapings into the cream and whisk vigorously while the cream warms. Remove the bean pod before incorporating with the syrup. Tada, vanilla caramel.
• 
• Chill a metal bowl, the inserts on your electric hand mixer, and a cup of cream. You can whisk by hand too, should you be looking for a bit of a workout.
• Add 1 tbsp of ground nutmeg to the cream and begin beating on low while moving the mixer around. When the cream starts to thicken, you can pick up the speed. Stop when the cream reaches soft peaks. Increasing the mixer speed early just makes for a mess, by the way.
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• Cut the apple tart into service size wedges, top with caramel, and a dollop of whipped cream. Declare victory over dessert.
• 

This was also my first dessert. I think the only reason I don’t make desserts is that I almost never eat them. I rarely order it at restaurants, almost never buy them at the store. I just don’t think about it. The people who ate my tart enjoyed it, so this might inspire me to give dessert a try more often. A certain member of the family ate the remainder of the caramel with a spoon, so once again bravo to Alice for giving us such an easy to follow recipe.

Ok, I know, graham cracker crust dessert, it’s barely if at all baking. But I got my toes wet. Next time I’ll get down to my ankles in the shallow end. I’m thinking pâte à choux? Maybe for some gougères? If you have any suggestions for relatively easy next steps, go ahead and leave a comment.