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Pie Baking

I think I might benefit from reading this book about baking that does not invoke the feelings this author describes

If you’ve ever followed a recipe for pie, you know that the instructions for making pie crust often read more like you’re casting a spell than baking a dessert.Add water until the dough “just comes together.” Drip ice water over flour and butter at the same pace as a late summer rain, until they resolve into shaggy clumps. Picture your grandma while adding water to the flour and butter mixture; stop when you think she would.

It is actually worse when the ebullient baker explains it all in her nice YT video - step by step and you still miss the mark by a mile. You think you were following along just fine until the dough starts to act weird and does none of the wonderful things it is supposed to do. In addition, your oven may have an uncomfortable relationship with the truth. The reported temperature may be off by 15-25 degrees (I have read that somewhere) so you need to get a feel for what is real. So when precision is the name of the game that is way over three strikes already and time to drop the baking project. 

When I remove the "finished product" from the oven, I am often loath to just toss it away. I try to find a redeeming quality in the "baked good" I just produced- but there is none other than it not being charcoal yet. So once it cools down, I may put it away in the freezer like time and cold will transform it into something wonderful. I will pull the thing out six months later and wonder yet again why baking is so hard for me. Like they say you need to bury the pain to forget and dig it up to heal. That must have been the process I followed a couple of dozen times until I finally learned to bake a good whole wheat bread.

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