Baking on a Friday Night
I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but when I’m stressed out, I bake. Sometimes cookies or bread, but more often than not, I bake complex items that take on lives of their own. Dishes with several well-timed steps that take hours to bake, chill, whip and beat into submission. It’s like choosing a geometric theorem over simple addition; it takes every ounce of concentration, so there’s no room in my brain to fret and run my worries over and over like a hamster wheel.
So, when I’m stressed out, I bake. This is why I have a platter of chocolate mousse in my refrigerator, why I have a tiny mountain of scones in Tupperware on my counter, why I have a bowl full of clotted cream on the shelf above the mousses.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: chocolate mousse? That’s not so hard to make. Fold Cool-Whip and meringue into melted chocolate. Voilá. But this assumption is false.
If you know me at all, you know that I did not Google “chocolate mousse recipes” and make a simple one from Cooking Light or Allrecipes. If you know me at all, you know I pulled out my French cookbook (I always bake French pastries when I’m exceptionally frazzled, because they are fantastically complicated and exceptionally delicious – plus, then I can pretend I’m in a Parisian cafe instead of my overly-warm Los Angeles bungalow) and entangled myself in a two hour frenzy of chocolate-infused pastry cream, whipping cream, freshly-shaved chocolate curls and complicated meringue.
I admit it. I’m a bit of a food snob. I can’t help it: I took baking classes, which automatically raises the level of my palate’s expectations. Also, I think the month I spent in France ruined me for life. All these factors work against me when it comes to gustatory preference. I’m just the victim here.
So anyway, I have a fridge full of chocolate mousse. Once I finished the mousse, I took the clotted cream I accidentally made (I whipped the first batch of cream too much, and that is the fascinating science behind clotted cream) and instead of throwing it away, I decided to make scones for breakfast. This was a great idea! I could keep baking, putting off the negative thinking patterns, and also have food other than oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow.
This is how I spent my Friday night; sweating in my poorly-ventilated kitchen, wallpapered in alternating layers of flour, sugar crust and lumps of chocolate pastry cream. This is how I forgot about my broken-down car, my joblessness, bills I cannot pay, houses I cannot afford, a career I still yearn for but can’t have, and a glass of Cabernet I also yearn for but cannot have. Unlike 99.9% of my writing, with baking at least there’s a result on which I can rely.
Take that, universe.
34 Comments
Lance
My wife is Le Cordon Bleu trained chef but can’t bake that well. My teenager is a self taught baker and can do pretty much any dessert. I never realized the talents that go into stuff in the kitchen because I don’t care about food. It’s pretty interesting.
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Natalie DeYoung
HOW CAN YOU NOT CARE ABOUT FOOD!?
Daniel Nest
Damn those look good!
The only thing I do when I’m stressed out is flail my arms wildly and hyperventilate. I’m lucky if I remember how to not die when I’m stressed. So…props to you, is what I’m saying.
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Natalie DeYoung
They were good. All of them. 😉
Pam
A) Can I come over!?! All of that sounds DELISH. B) As with your clotted cream, I’ve found some of my best creative masterpieces are the result of me fixing something that was originally a mistake (eg the khaki pants I hemmed, accidentally made into capris, then reattached the bottom part- I get a lot of compliments on the unconventional placement of the midcalf seam). And C) I totally get the urge to do something meditative to combat stress. For me, it tends to be exercise.
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Natalie DeYoung
Come on over!
I exercise for stress, too, but sometimes I need to mix it up.
Marcy
The treats sound delicious, and I admire that you can do something so productive when stressed. I am the opposite. I sink into a ball of laziness and can get nothing done.
Natalie DeYoung
For me, the laziness comes after a frenzy of working too much: crashing and burning.
Considerer
I can’t quite decide whether what I had here was a foodgasm at the idea of all those French pastries (incidentally, thank GOODNESS you’re a food snob, because you might be precisely the ONLY PERSON who knows what clotted cream is, and that it’s not something akin to sneeze) or a wordgasm at your use of ‘gustatory’ – I almost felt the neurones firing off at that one!
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Linda Roy
I know what clotted cream is Lizzi! lol Oh lordy Nat, to have been in your kitchen on Friday – or anytime the place is wallpapered in such deliciousness! So cool that you took baking classes.
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Natalie DeYoung
Linda, we are twins.
Natalie DeYoung
OF COURSE I know about clotted cream! Nothing goes better with scones! 🙂
This is my favorite comment of the day. 🙂
chamanasgar
The sound of those baked goods makes me want to try some.Good one Natalie,not a bad way to spend your time.
Natalie DeYoung
Quite a good way to spend a Friday. 🙂
Robin
Culinary vocabulary is delicious.
I love chocolate mousse. I am more likely to eat it when I am stressed than to make it. I have 5 cookbooks: three different editions of The Joy of Cooking and the other two are Mediterranean. I rarely use any of them.
When I want something French to eat, I go to a little French cafe.
When I am stressed, I need to replace my thinking with something else that uses language – reading, TV, or radio. Chocolate helps, too.
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Natalie DeYoung
I think stress-coping mechanisms are fascinating. I am such a wordy person most of the time, that when I’m stressed, I need to silence all the words.
Vanessa D.
When I’m stressed I usually resort to hiding my head under the blankets and marathon napping. Your way seems far more productive and delicious.
Vanessa D. recently posted…Me and My Big Fat Mouth
Natalie DeYoung
Hey, sometimes you just need a nap, though.
Jack
Great googly moogly it is midnight and now I want some mousse. That is not cool. 😉
Jack recently posted…Sometimes Father Doesn’t Know Best
Natalie DeYoung
Haha, any time.
Robbie K (@momma23monkeys)
I love chocolate mousse but I hate baking or anything that requires precise measurements. I do love to cook and am told I am an excellent one…as long as I follow my heart & my instincts and ignore all things recipe.
Robbie K (@momma23monkeys) recently posted…Fractured Friday Fifty
Natalie DeYoung
I agree – cooking by heart is vital. I look upon the recipes as suggestion.
Karen
I haven’t had chocolate mousse in years, but now I’m on a mission to find some. Too bad you don’t live closer 🙁 I guess I’m going to have to make my own.
P.S. Cooking and baking are very soothing for me as well. It’s true what you said about there being no room left in the brain to fret.
Karen recently posted…Goosebumps
Natalie DeYoung
Do it. Make your own.
I’m a bad influence.
Mollie Claire
When I’m stressed to the max, I clean something. This is a far better use of all that energy. 🙂
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Natalie DeYoung
Ah, if only I had that impulse. Sadly, I never feel the impulse to clean, unless it is really freakishly dirty.
Samantha Brinn Merel
What an absolutely delicious way to forget about your anxiety for awhile. I think I may have to go buy myself a french cookbook. My go-to cookbook lately has been The New Basics, and while the recipes are delicious, they aren’t overly complicated. And sometimes a girl just needs a complicated dessert to make. I totally get it.
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Natalie DeYoung
You must have a French cookbook. It is essential to one’s happiness, I’ve decided.
Jen Brunett
I love that you do something so complex to erase the other complexities in your life! You can come over and bake for me any time you want. I’m not a baker. My grandmother was though. Sigh, wish we still had her recipes!
You have inspired me though, I may try a mousse sometime!
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Natalie DeYoung
I will ship you some baked goods, okay?
Tamara
I think maybe I need to try this for stress in my life.
My husband is more of the cook/baker and he recently said he wants to make mousse with avocado. What??
I’ll try anything, though.
Tamara recently posted…Sometimes I Think Horrible Things About Myself.
Natalie DeYoung
I’ll try anything (food-related) once. And I’ve heard avocado is kind of a blank-slate flavor, so it could be okay…
Bill Dameron
I bake every once in a very great while and it is never simple. It is as if I save up my desire and have to turn it into a complicated all day event. It is usually something for Paul. (I know food is a metaphor for love and I’ve got it bad 🙂
Natalie DeYoung
Haha! I make things and give them away – could it be psychologically motivated? 😉