Food: Baking from Scratch

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Baking from Scratch
Thursday, March 30, 2006

When I was growing up, my mom was not much of a baker. She cooked our meals every night, or most nights, anyway, sometimes giving us a frozen pizza or taking the whole family out to a local restaurant. But when I think back on scrumptious baked goods, I do not remember my mom spending hours in the kitchen making cookies, pies, cakes and other goodies, unless it was Thanksgiving or Christmas. The few times I remember having fresh baked cookies when I came home from school was when an aunt or other relative or friend was staying with my brother and me while my parents were out of town. Don't get me wrong: my mom always had goodies for us, they just were not the home baked variety. She always had Oreos, Nilla Wafers, Pop Tarts, and other kid-friendly sweets, and we were happy with those. I never wanted for something to eat and I never wondered why some moms baked and some did not. My mom was who she was; she was good at a lot of things and not so great at other things, just like every single one of us.

The problem lies in the role model that I was given. I grew up thinking that baking day meant taking the Betty Crocker box off the cabinet shelf and making a cake from a mix. As far as I knew, cakes came in two flavors: yellow or chocolate, because those are the only mixes my mom ever had in the house. Frosting came in a little package, as well, and was magically mixed with water to make a perfectly iced cake. Cookies were scooped out of a plastic tube, put on a cookie sheet, and miraculously became warm and tasty in less than ten minutes. Pies came out of the freezer and were cooked for an hour and then served. Usually they were made by someone named Mrs. Smith.

Now that I am all grown up and have a family of my own, I have struggled mightily at the concept of baking day. A few years ago, I realized that my own two daughters, then eight and nine-years-old, thought, as I did for many years, that cakes came out of a box. I realized this when their little friend came over and began asking if things were made from scratch. She pointed out that HER mother made everything from scratch and that SHE only liked things made from scratch. My daughters didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so I explained it. They very logically asked me why anyone would spend a large amount of time and energy making a cake from scratch when one could be made much more easily from a box? I told them that most people think that home made cakes, cookies and pies are better. They were interested. Cookies can be home made as well? What about those cookies we make from the tube bought at the grocery store? No, I explained, those don't count as home made, even though we put them on the pan and bake them ourselves.

So at that point, I began a crusade to teach my girls how to bake; really bake. I bought a package of chocolate chips and used the recipe off the back of the package to make chocolate chip cookies. I looked through an old, unused cookbook my mother had given me years ago, and learned how to make a cake using flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and all the other ingredients that go into a cake; those things that somehow end up in the box from Betty Crocker. I even made home made blueberry muffins from the wild blueberries we picked at the end of the summer. But the results surprised me; my daughters told me they did not like the blueberry muffins from scratch. It turns out they preferred the muffins from the mix, with blueberries that came in a neat little silver can. Oddly enough, I had to agree.

I guess it all comes down to familiarity. We were all used to the boxed muffins, so that is what we will continue to eat. We love the cookies made from scratch much more than the plastic tube variety, so we will continue to make those instead. Cakes are debatable. I spoke with the mom who makes everything from scratch, and it turns out, she has a secret of her own. Some of her cake recipes are right from the box, but she simply adds a few touches of her own. If that's baking from scratch, then count me in!

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