Editors Note: So clearly by creating a series called FRIDAY FUCK-UPS, we’ve acknowledged the fact that this blog is about the creation of food and not the perfection of food. But, we’re come a long way since our early days of just messing around on the stove top and have acquired some serious food talent. Here’s CCC and her explanation on why gansie can’t bake for shit. If you’d like to read the fuck-up, click here for the original blondie recipe.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who can bake, and those whom baking hates.
Baking, unlike cooking, is a lot like math; it’s all about proportions and balance and equal sums. Cooking is more like poetry or music; there’s a structure that should be followed, but there’s a lot more wiggle room for improvisation and last-minute additions than baking. When you’re cooking a casserole or a pot roast or just mucking around with a sandwich, you can always add stuff here and there, dilute and reduce, taste and re-season. But when you’re baking, it’s live or die. Once your cake or pie goes in the oven, it’s boarded a one-way time train to the future, and when it comes out, it’s either spot-on or sudden death. Yoda summed it up nicely when he philosophized, “Do or do not, there is no try.”
In the case of Gansie’s recent fuck up, it’s a matter of balance. Substitutions are just as workable in baking as they are in cooking, but it’s important that the proportions be taken into consideration. If an ingredient is removed or reduced, there has to be compensation somewhere else, or the whole mix can be thrown out of whack.
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