Baking is much more science-y than cooking. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But cooking allows for my ADD nature.
Baking, well......
Baking requires temperatures and mixing of precice measurements and frothings and tools with strange names such as "pastry hook." I mean, really? What the hell did people do before Cuisinarts? Hire pirates to help them in the kitchen? That just doesn't seem very realistic. After all, they are known for their pie thieving.
Mmm. Tuna pie! Maybe this is why, in the 1950's, if you wanted a desert, you would most likely be presented with something like this:
So, for this damn King's Cake you need five egg yolks. My husband told me that we reallyreallyreally had more than five at home. So we didn't buy any at the store. But then, of course, when we got home there were just four. Naturally, I suggested he steal one from our neighbors who are out of town for the week. We will replace it before they get back, not to worry. This is why they gave us keys, after all. I poked him with a sharp stick while I said all of this to drive the earnestness of my need home and to force him into the debased state of stealing from the very people who we love and who trust us with their house keys. He sheepishly left and brought back an egg. When he returned, he was sweating a little. Also, he said that the egg was actually dated to be thrown out three weeks ago.
In the spirit of baking science (Science!)
Mike looked up three ways to tell if an egg is still good. Something about it floating or sinking. Something about a sloshing sound, and something about a flat yolk. It passed all of these so I went ahead and used the egg. I'm making this for a non-profit agency. That's akin to saying it is for orphaned children, right?
I will put aside my judgement of my neighbors terribly old eggs and why they didn't just buy new ones for the moment.
So, the recipe. I have to mix these five egg yolks with one and a half stick of butter and a cup of milk. And it all has to be sort of warm but not really hot because we have to throw in two packets of yeast in the mix. Yeast, the drama queen of all food items.
"I have to be hot! ... Oww! That's too hot! I'm dying!!! I need it to be dark! I want it to be quiet! Stop stomping. I swear! If you take my beauty towel off to check on me ONE MORE TIME I am going to collapse! It will be all your f'ing fault, you bitch!"
Yeast is like Lady Gaga. But more like when Lady Gaga was actually Madonna.
I think we all know, though, if Lady Gaga were actually Madonna more crimes would be solved.
Okay. Egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, 4 1/2 cups flour, milk, butter, salt, and the goddamn yeast. It's all in there. It's all mixed to a pasty pasty dough which I mauled with my bare hands.
And I threw a teaspoon of vanilla in there. Oh yeah, I did. It wasn't in the recipe, but I just did it anyway.
And (pssst) this is why all of my baking fails. I just can't deal with chemistry. I have to fuck up the balance one way or another.
So now the dough is rising in a quiet sanctuary of a red Target plastic mixing bowl in an oven where the environment is as controlled and quiet and close to a recording studio as anything in my kitchen. It's supposed to double. I was supposed to make it into a ball and put oil on it, but that wasn't in my contract and she isn't going to pay me overtime. Plus, I hate it when she calls me Alejandro.
I make this filling from cream cheese and one cup confectioners sugar, lemon juice - and just for fucks sake I throw in pecans. I know, I know. The cake and I are going to hell. I'm just asking for it. I can't help it really that the recipe said nothing about pecans. But they were all staring at me in the baking aisle promising me a really good time for two dollars! Tell me you wouldn't do the same?
While the cake is rising, I also make the icing from three cups of confectioners sugar, lemon juice, and some milk. Also, vanilla. I put some more vanilla in there, so sue me. I did it. I don't care. I don't feel guilty.
Someone told me I can't put a baby in the cake anymore. They stopped doing that because of the choking hazzard. So, okay. But what the fuck am I going to do with this small child I brought home from the Pac n' Save, now? Can anyone tell me that?
Shit.
Can't people just eat around the baby? Do you have to protect people from everything? This is why people need to just slow the fuck down and chew their food.
Instead of a baby I will use a small uncooked bean.
I guess I can still use the small child to sew shirts once I figure out how to thread the bottom bobbin on my sewing machine.
You know, in the olden days, the person who got the baby, or the bean, or whatever the fuck they were using when they were not worried about being sued to death like they are these days, you know what happened to that person?
Yeah yeah yeah..... he was crowned king and all. Such an honor! Such a blessing!
You know what happened at the end of the week when they were all sick of his kingly narcissistic ass?
They took him out back of the cornfields and slit his throat!
Except, instead of cornfields, they had wheat fields. And instead of slitting his throat they had.....
No. Just kidding. They still slit his throat.
It was for the gods! It was important. That was why he was King of the Bean. You don't want to be responsible for the failure of all the crops and the starvation of thousands, do you? If you don't kill the King of the Bean, that's just what will happen and it will be all on your head.
You think all those bog men just got hung and drowned on their own?
Please, honey! It takes a village.
But now we can't put babies in the cakes and we can't take people out into the cornfields when they bug us too much after a week.
*Sigh*
Mardi Gras sure has changed.
So the dough rose and I made it into a ring and I stuffed the middle with the nut/cheese filling. But there is a HELL of a lot more filling left than what I can put in the ring! Even after I make one ring and one extra brioche type thingy on the side. This is not a good sign. I believe I may have screwed up again. There is nothing to do at this point but forge ahead and continue baking.
Extra filling ->
Brioche ring -->
I set everything aside to rise for 45 minutes.
45 minutes it still hasn't risen. It's bitching about being cold. I didn't put it back into the oven space.
This time, it's in the oven and I will check again in 30 minutes.
Okay, this time it rose. I put milk on it, as per the instructions, but this seemed to make the dough fall just a little. I have no idea what that means. However, once in the 350' oven, I'm supposed to check back on this thing in 30 minutes. I will do this.
After 30 minutes I began to smell a burning smell. I checked the cake and discovered it was quite dark on the bottom. As a result, I had to perform an ancient ritual of my people using a sacred serrated hunting knife wherein I scrape the darkness away from the bottom of the cake. This darkness represents the bitterness of winter. I must keep scraping in order to perceive the incoming sweetness of the sunlight of spring.
Once done I poured the icing all over the cakes. It was drippy and not at all spreadable -
I put the requisite tri-colored spinkles on from my Safeway multi-pack festive sprinkle collection!
And the result looked something like this:
Not entirely a disaster. They might not even make me eat the bean this year. Though it did look a bit like an overly festive sphincter. Not that sphincters are a bad thing.
You could be a food writer. My morning is much more cheerful than it started out. :D
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