Chocolate is not my favorite. Neither is baking. In fact I rarely bake. Baking, or I should say making desserts is a calculated risk. Yes it is. Cooking is forgiving, it is not about exact measurements. Most people who like to spend time in the kitchen define themselves as either: a Baker or a Chef, but not necessarily both.
I define myself as: Taster.
This New Year I promised to make more cakes. French Husband and Sacha will love that promise. I will gain weight and have chocolate stains on most my clothes.
Though I wonder if I will ever get beyond the egg…
Aren't French Brown eggs pretty? French brown eggs rule in the way white eggs rule in the USA. If you go to any grocery store or open market you will find brown eggs a plenty.
(Side note: By law French eggs are tagged on the shell with a mark that defines if they are free range, organic, or living under a light bulb with 40,000 other chickens in a indoor coop.)
The thing about baking is that I lick my fingers, the spoon, the bowl…(I bet that makes you want to have cake at my house!) I eat most of the batter before it ever hits the baking stage. What is it about raw egg, sugar and butter? Though chocolate is not my favorite…melted chocolate with anything is…. well…. impossible to leave alone.
Empty bowl syndrome is what I have. I cannot stand to see batter in a bowl and not stick my finger in it! Hence baking and I do not see eye to eye.
A few years ago I bought this lovely French Dessert cookbook. You see I have made this New Year's promise before: *Bake more cakes. I promised to work through the cookbook, making two cakes a week, following the recipes exactly as written and then rating them with my family.
I broke my promise 14 cakes later.
French Husband rated all the cakes 10. He is not a good judge. All cakes are created equal and delicious in his book. Though he was good for my ego. Still I stopped at 14 cakes.
Most of them turned out… how can you go wrong mixing chocolate in anything. The batter was delicious. Though due to my bad habit the cakes were bit small and lop sided.
The dessert book I followed was Anne Willan's step by step Desserts and it was in French. I thought I could learn to read French and bake at the same time. Chocolate – Chocolat is an easy word to read in French.
No where in the photos did I see Anne lick the bowl.
French dessert from the bakery around the corner, 55 steps from our house.
55 steps is sinfully easy to do.
I promise to make more cakes. Do you have a cake recipe you would like to share?
* note: My Mother is an excellent baker. The link above is of a song she sang often to us around the house.
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