Baking,
I was browsing the internet at work and came upon a book that piqued my interest. That book is Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman. Now you might think it is odd for me to be interested in any kind of cooking, since I really only enjoy meat, pasta, candy and any combination of those three things, especially if you melt mozzerella cheese on top of it.
While the idea behind the book is interesting for sure (learning the basic formulas of food and then experiment and expand on them with no need for recipes), what stopped me in my web surfing tracks was this.
A sweet ass Bread Wheel!
Countless times I, and many other philosophers, have wondered what exactly the difference between pancake batter and crepe batter is. What makes muffins sort of cake, but not really? Now the mystery is solved. My mind was blown when I saw that all that seperates a Fritter from a Popover is one extra part of flour. This is real life magic.
After obtaining the book, I did what I do with any instructional material. I skimmed through half of it and then went of half-cocked and attempted to create something.
Cookies were picked as my starting point. For the past three weekends I have made them. I started of baking with the very basic ration in the book which is 1 Sugar, 2 Fat, 3 Flour. This cookie is on the crunchy side and obviously doesn't have much in the way of interesting taste, but hey, it was an actual cookie, and I didn't chip a tooth or give birth to a colony of intelligent parasites in my gut.
With the attempts that followed I experimented with the ingredients and ratio of each. My goal was to figure out how to make a cookie that was chewy, and this weekend I achieved it! Go me.
Now the question is, what kind junk do I want to throw in there. I did the whole chocolate/peanut butter chip thing. It seems odd that I've spent large portions of my week conjuring up different flavor ideas in my head when normally I would looking at strange women and wondering what they'd look like nude and in my house.
I've mainly just been thinking about what are in my cabinets and then combining them together. This has led me to amazing flavors such as maple syrup/cashew and Cap'n Crunch/bourbon. I have also decided at some point I would like to make scotch and sodabread, but that is much farther down the road of my doughy journey.
I would also like some help in switching my wardrobe over to mostly items with an elastic wasitband. What cookies do you like that I should eat? What never before seen cookies from myth and fantasy would you like to see made?
