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.
