What grain are you growing?
Dammit, you’ll hit off with H, he has the exactly same interest as you. Well, luckily he is not a member of HO, I won’t allow. 
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They must be really happy to have you around! What do you make for them?
Hello! I’m Mig, and was “migmigmig” on Chowhound. I was based on Brooklyn until the pandemic, when I temporarily (hah) returned home to PA to weather the virus with my mom.
I’ve been “baking online” since my days on ECHO, the early-internet bulletin board founded in NYC in 1990. Despite not having a clue what I was doing, I got my first paid cooking gig from ECHO - catering a dessert reception for the wedding of two ECHO friends. Among the 90 guests were two well-known cookbook authors; I’m grateful I didn’t know they’d be there ahead of time. I remember I made a three-tiered lemon poppy-seed cake (it was January - no seasonal fruit around) from a Martha Stewart recipe, and I attempted (but failed) to make my first-ever semifreddo. Part of my payment for that gig was a daffodil-yellow Kitchen Aid mixer that I still use today, 20+ years later.
My baking style (all sweet - I don’t get excited about bread) is very much homespun, seasonal, and fruit-intensive. I don’t have any visual gifts, so making highly stylized or conventionally pretty things is really difficult for me. Relatedly, I have a built-in aversion to food that looks way better than it tastes (most wedding cake, gigantic uber-American cupcakes, out-of-season strawberries, most “French” pastry made in the US., etc.)
One thing I’m proud of having made is bespoke chocolate-chip cookies for another friend’s very fancy, black-tie NYC wedding. Her mother (who was paying for it all) insisted on a traditional tiered cake for dessert, over her daughter’s strenuous objection. So my friend hired me to make a second dessert, her true heart’s desire: her favorite kind of cc cookie - big, wrinkly around the edges, etc. City Bakery’s (RIP!) ccc’s were a particular inspiration. I spent several months testing recipes until I found the winner. I was also a guest at the wedding, so I got to see people’s reactions when the cookies were served. I’ll never forget it.
My main passion is the entire pantheon of rustic American fruit desserts (crumbles/crisps/grunts/brown betties/slumps/pies.) Whatever fruit is in season locally, I bake with it obsessively for those few weeks; then I move on.
Other favorites are making homemade ice cream, Christmas cookies and holiday baking, and baking with the homemade fruit jams I can in the summertime. During the months without fresh local fruit for baking, I bake a lot of Bundt cakes. I confess I had a sourdough phase at the beginning of the pandemic, but my favorite thing about it was using the discard for things other than bread.
I learned a ton from the other bakers on Chowhound, and especially enjoyed threads where we took on a cookbook together, or cooked the same dish together (“OK everybody make cheesecake this month! Let’s compare!”) Looking forward to continuing to learn here on HO 
Oh, and this photo is a wedding I catered just last October - all bundts
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I have a feeling that, without amendment to soil ph, it’s probably going to be rye. Thanks to Stanley Ginsberg, I’ve been able to turn out 100% rye loaves that are excellent. His book, The Rye Baker, has been instrumental in building my confidence baking with a grain that handles very differently than wheat. He also has a website:
Again, just an excellent, excellent resource.
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I’ve made Ina Garten’s Spinach and Cheddar Souffle. I always thought that Souffle was super complicated to make because I first saw Julia Child make it and she attended Le Cordon Bleu.
When I saw Ina Garten make it, I decided that I could make it too. I really relate to her she’s so humble and her recipes are tried tested and true, full proof and easy.
The Yorkshire pudding I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking.
P.S.
What kind/type of Souffle have you made?
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I love all kinds of baking, but cakes are definitely my favourite thing to make and eat. I’m not sure what I’m most proud of, but I have tackled macarons, croquembouche, gâteau St. Honoré, and a wedding cake, and probably lots of things I can’t even remember! These days I often make simple things at home and save the projects for when I am baking with my 11-year old niece. Pavlova is her favourite thing to make and eat.
My family’s favourite things are classic layer cakes and a raspberry cream cake from a long-closed local cafe that I attempt to recreate every once in a while. We are not big chocolate eaters, except in cakes.
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It’s a while ago, lemon souffle is sure, an alcohol one probably a whisky souffle and a savoury cheese souffle (Comté or Emmental). As you said, if the recipe is serious, it’s pretty straight forward, I didn’t fail in my first try.
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@rwcfoodie , the Chowhound Coconut Tres Leches cake recipe that Chowhound links to is here coconut tres leches cake
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Thank you!!!
I most often bake sweets-—cakes, cookies, quick breads, tarts, galettes, the very occasional pie—but also savory quick breads, tarts, and galettes and the occasional yeasted bread. I have enough baking experience that I’m comfortable tweaking recipes and not infrequently do. I don’t have the patience or talent for intricate decoration. I’m the go-to for birthday cakes for family and close friends, and they’re always well-received and appreciated.
As far as most proud of, I suppose it’s a couple of the recipes I’ve developed from scratch that have stood the test of time and gotten lots of compliments, but are also things I worked out because they were things had a particular desire for and managed to get just right: a pear fudge pie I created over twenty years ago, and a very orangey orange almond cake made with marmalade as well as juice and zest. I’m especially pleased that a few other people have made that cake and it worked as well for them.
I’ve been on a baking hiatus that might last until summer, but there sure are a lot of things I look forward to making, and I find there’s always more to learn.
For the past half dozen years or so, I coordinated a baking analog to COTM on Chowhound, where we chose a quarterly (or sometimes four-month) baking book. I’d be happy to do that here in the future, if Hungry Onion bakers are into it.
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Greetings, Fellow Bakers.
I’m a decent baker when it comes to sourdough and artisan breads, and have been baking all our daily bread and pizzas for several years. I’m fairly new to sweet baking, beginning with pies about 3 years ago, and recently migrating over to cakes and sweetbreads. Not a big fan of ultra gooey, sugary things, but love a crossover treat between savory and sweet. This year I’ve been focusing on biscuits and scones. My fan base, which includes my husband and my 94-y.o. father, loves quick breads and cookies – an easy please. My personal, recent favorites include things like this cinnamon star bread shown here in slide-show format, an Irish scone and a fruit-laden coffee “cake”. I learned a tremendous amount about baking from the very generous CH community and look forward to continuing to do so here.
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Hello! Finally made my way over from CH, where I was also rstuart. I briefly considered picking a more creative name… but decided to stick with the tried and true. I tend to stick to cookies, bars and simple cakes… I especially love Christmas baking.
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Nice to see you here. Welcome!
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Hi there! glad you made it over.
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I hope all of you can guess what my favorite thing to bake is
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Love?
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Well I do bake with lots of love
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My mother always told me," If you don’t cook with love then the food won’t taste good". Same holds true for baking.
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You know, I’ve found this to be true! When I’m not in the mood to cook, or I’m trying to hurry too much, my food doesn’t taste as good, even if I put the same stuff in. Fortunately, I used to be in the mood a lot! Just as fortunately, my H is now developing his love of cooking, and he’s good at it. I’m trying to approach it as I once did. I’ll get there, hopefully. This applies to baking too, of course.
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