It's the Most Wonderful (Smelling) Time of the Year, Sweets Edition
Executive summary: This “Decembake,” I’ve been seized by the holiday spirit to fill our home with heavenly scents of goodies baking in the oven (or simmering on the stove), and I’ve found a way to expand my repertoire that’s consistent with my minimalist principles.
You could argue that as an interior design enthusiast, my nesting instinct is always on: for me, organizing and rearranging and reimagining spaces is a constant hobby, not a one-time burst of energy that hits before a baby arrives. The other part of nesting that I more rarely experience (maybe there’s another term for it, but to me, it has a similar feel) is the urge to make my home super duper cozy. Perhaps all I’m feeling is the holiday spirit seeping into my psyche, not in the form of decor (which we’re forgoing this year, since we’ll be gone half this month visiting my parents), but in the form of delicious food smells. I’m not sure what triggered it, but one day in early December, I decided that nothing would feel cozier than having a mouthwatering scent (sweet or savory) wafting through the house on a daily basis. I am usually a minimalist cook at best (see here for my “capsule pantry”), not given to fits of fancy feasting, but some desire has spurred me this month to transform my home into a haven of heavenly aromas. The result has been roasts and stews, cakes and baked treats, mulled wine and hot beverages. Decembake has well and truly arrived!
Nesting with my nose. The cinnamon in this baked baguette French toast smells particularly cozy, given the season.
Today, I’ll focus on the sweets, as this is the time of year when people go into a cookie-baking frenzy (of which I sometimes get to be the lucky recipient). The problem? As someone who considers adding eggs to boxed cake mix “homemade,” baking from scratch is sheer madness, I tell you!! I don’t possess any baking ingredients or implements, so becoming a cake or cookie creating connoisseur requires an expansion of my capsule pantry, which I tend to resist tooth and nail. But the holiday spirit/ nesting drive persisted, so I decided to give it a shot and start a baking section, comprised of flour, white and brown sugar, butter, baking powder, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. I haven’t tried enough recipes to say whether this is a baking capsule pantry, but it works for the treats that I intended to make.
I also thought hard about whether I needed to acquire any baking tools, and ultimately decided that I would welcome a single new item into my home: a double-ended measuring spoon (with a half and quarter-teaspoon size, which I consider to be the most versatile). Despite what the internet may say is necessary, I do not own items like:
A whisk (I use a fork. So advanced)
An electric mixer (I use a spoon and my puny arm muscles. Granted, I don’t mix up doughs that require a lot of physical power)
Measuring implements other than my double-ended teaspoon (I use mason jars to measure both wet and dry ingredients, which is apparently some sort of baking blasphemy)
A kitchen scale (I’m not discerning enough to care if my quantities are 10% or even 50% off)
A sieve/sifter (sorry, I don’t bother - I toss my ingredients in as is and the sky or my cakes haven’t fallen down)
A cooling rack (I just “lift and shift” the baked good in its foil wrap out of the pan and onto the counter after it comes out of the oven)
A rolling pin (if I need one, I find a skinny bottle to do the job, e.g., my olive oil container)
A pastry brush (I use the backside of a spoon to smear/spread)
A round cake pan (I line a square glass casserole dish with foil. This one I could concede if I intended to make cakes on a regular basis, which is TBD)
So to any aspiring bakers out there who are intimidated by the long list of “must haves,” I say get a teaspoon and you can get cracking! The disclaimer is that I only bake a handful of goodies – it’s just too easy (and enjoyable) to walk to the cute bakery across the street for any treat that requires more time, energy, or equipment.
This double-ended measuring spoon is the only item I acquired to enable my baking mania - I otherwise use general kitchenware (e.g., fork for whisking, mason jar for measuring, casserole dish lined with foil for baking)
Now let’s cut to the chase: what have I been making with my baking capsule pantry and lone teaspoon? Well, I just happened to stumble upon the Smitten Kitchen cookbooks at the (online) library, where I appreciate Deb Perelman’s distillation of recipes into their most crucial ingredients and instructions. Most of her recipes are still more involved than the minimalist in me wants to tackle, but I was drawn to her baked goods. I’ve attempted the:
French toast baguette with caramelized sugar (so easy in the oven)
Peanut butter-stuffed chocolate cookies (this just screams me, especially since I simplified the recipe further)
Cinnamon apple cake (topped with an orange cream cheese glaze that I made with store-bought icing and OJ. No powdered sugar mess for me to clean up, thank you)
Red wine velvet cake (it didn’t turn out red at all, but it was fudgy and gave off almost literally intoxicating fumes of wine, mmmm)
Add the mulled wine (which we discovered on our European Christmas markets trip several years ago), and we’ve got scrumptious scents permeating every corner of our small space as I try out and tweak these recipes till I find a minimalist version I can make on repeat without thinking – that’s when I truly “adopt” a recipe and consider it mine.
Tomorrow, I’ll share the savory dishes that I’ve had baking and simmering away this month, which I had intended to be a part of this post until I realized I was writing a novel. I just can’t seem to be minimalist with my words. A shortcoming I’ll have to drown in my next slice of boozy cake, sob.