Not Without Salt

I have a habit, whether it be good or bad I have not decided. I simply can not follow a recipe. How as a baker can this be? Well, a couple reasons… 1. I have a foundational knowledge of the science of baking and can slightly tweak recipes with an understanding that most likely the recipe will come out. 2. I have a lot of failed baking attempts. 3. My wanderings from recipes may be ever so slight.

So now I ask myself why do I do this?…1. Just as an artist does not consider a painting their own if they simply copied someone else’s work so I too do not consider myself a true pastry chef if I am using another’s recipe. But this is silly isn’t it? All chef’s use the recipe of another and then they may tweak it to suit their own needs but only after they have examined, tested and studied the original recipe. Am I right on this?

Well, obviously I am unclear on normal protocol, but what I am clear on is that everytime I go to bake I wander from the recipe and then once the finished product reaches my mouth I wonder…. “if I would have stayed with the original recipe would it be more moist, more flavorful, less chewy, more tender, sweeter, lighter, denser”… and so on and so forth. So then I am left to wonder if it was my alterations that caused the good/bad outcome or if I would have stayed with the original recipe would the results have been the same?

Take for example my bread baking experiences over this past week. When I go to make bread I love having the freedom to throw in some flour, water, yeast/starter and salt and then a few hours later have bread. But the thing is some days it’s perfect and then the next day it’s not. If I were to follow a recipe than my results would be more consistent and I would become more familiar with the product and once I have mastered that recipe it is then that I may tweak and know exactly what has occurred due to the deviation from the recipe. (Sorry for the run on sentence but it is late and I am trying so hard to make sense of this conundrum.)

So now the question is… should I devote myself to the discipline of following recipes so that later, when I have a better understanding of baking and the science involved, I would have more luck tweaking and creating my own recipes?

I am curious how others in the pastry business feel about this. Please let me know your thoughts on following/creating recipes.

 Branded Fruit

The link above is an article about the latest trend in large companies such as Disney and Warner Brothers, to put their kid friendly cartoon images on fruit with the intent to attract more children to eat fruit. Winnie the Pooh adorns organic apples. Daisy Duck dresses up peaches and Mickey and Minnie sell pre-packaged grapes.

Even as I write this I realize that I have sort of a cynical tone in my text. But why? Shouldn’t I be excited that children will be consuming more fruit? Even though they are almost being duped into doing it. At least they might forget for a second the candy the lies in the next aisle over.

Correct me if I’m wrong (and I mean that) but shouldn’t we as parents be more in control of what we allow our children to consume? That way eating the fruit would be a necessity with or with out the cartoon characters.

My three-year old niece goes crazy over edamames, she begs for grapes and gets so excited to eat “crunchy carrots”. The typical American child her age has already acquired a keen taste for soda, sodium and sweets (ironic coming from me I realize). So how is she different? Is it that her taste buds are different from every other child or was it that her parents made eating healthy and fun activity?

I’m so curious how others feel about this. Please comment. I would love to start a discussion as I have yet to come to a conclusion about this.