B is for Baking

Thought I'd talk about Banshee, eh? Ha! No, really, I love baking -- the idea and act of baking, which doesn't necessarily translate to real-life skills on my part. I'm a disaster in the kitchen, and my idea of cooking involves mostly dinner hacks and a lot of Hail Marys when I've got a smattering of ingredients that don't somehow work together in theory. 

But I've always loved watching cooking and baking shows since I was a kid. My earliest ambition wasn't to grow up, get married, and pop out babies left and right like a good Catholic girl. No, my earliest ambition was to grow up, become a chef, and run my own restaurant. Not a whiff of a husband and/or children anywhere. After that came ambitions to be an archaeologist and a concert pianist. 

Now that I'm older, I've tuned in to those shows again, and streaming services have been a godsend. I'm a massive fan of The Great British Baking Show (or The Great British Bake-Off), and that's a series I binge and re-watch in spite of my knowing the results from the get-go. And if I really want to feel seen, I binge Nailed It! as well. In fact, I've even watched the foreign versions of that series (Germany, France, Spain, and Mexico) and love those just as much. 

A tragic lack of baking skills is an international phenomenon, folks, and it's a comforting thought. 

And if I turn to dinner hacks for cooking, I also make use of a pretty classic, easy recipe for baking whenever the urge to treat myself to "homemade" cakes: mayo cake. Apparently mayonnaise was used during WWII when certain food supplies were low (if I remember correctly), but the great thing about using mayo as an ingredient is that it not only produces a super moist cake, it also cuts down on the sweetness. 

So, yeah -- now you know. I suck in the kitchen, and yet I still haven't managed to kill myself (or anyone else) with bad bakes.