Week of the baking brown thumb

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I know it may seem like I’ve got this whole baking thing figured out (if you ignore all my posts about hair-tearing), but I do sometimes make mistakes.  Usually, though, they’re few and far between in the grand scheme of things.  But not last week.  Last week was the week of baking disasters.

A little substitution... and bibbity boppity boo!

Pin It Baking over here can be trying. Not only are the conversions a bitch (my recipes now have temps in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and ingredients in cups and grams), and the ovens electric and therefore highly varied, but there's also the matter of being a poor student.

Point the first: poor. Meaning I don't have the money for such indulgences as a Kitchenaid mixer, or even a Cuisinart like my mom has at home (Hi Cuisinart, baby, I miss you!), or even such small luxuries as different sizes of pan/sheet/dish in which to bake.

Point the second: student. Which not only reiterates the poverty, but also means I'm here for a limited time, which makes any investment I could feasibly make seem like a stupid waste of money, since I can take very little back with me across the Atlantic.

So why do I keep trying? Because baking makes me happy.

How did housewives in the 50's make it look so easy?

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Seriously.

You know the picture: the adorable, pin-curled fifties housewife, in a perfect little circle-skirt dress with a darling half-apron tied at her tiny waist, bends over in her heels and pulls a tray of perfect little circle-cut cookies from her beautiful, pristine oven in her immaculate kitchen. No dirty dishes in the sink, no flour in her hair. No burned edges or squishy centers. Just perfection, served effortlessly.

And here's my picture: the slightly sleepy, disheveled erstwhile student, in wrinkled pajama bottoms and a dingy men's undershirt, spends hours and every dish in her kitchen making all manner of goodies for her tea party, and when she pulls the cookies from the oven they're melting into each other, burning and simultaneously too raw, the beautiful patterns of the expensive cookie cutters becoming no more than blobs in the heat of the electric oven.