The love of baking + what part of putting things in the dishdrawer do my family not understand?

In the recent TV finale of New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker competition, the two finalists (Emma and Toni) basically wept over how much baking meant to them – it was all about “love”. Yes, that’s what they got out of it – it was about expressing love for the people they were baking for … so noble, so loving!

I enjoy baking and indeed I enjoyed watching the TV series. For me, some of it was about feeling greatly reassured when these supposedly top kiwi bakers stuffed up. That sounds a bit harsh – but when I misread a recipe, miss something out, under cook or over cook something – well I feel bad – like I’m stupid. And it seems a terrible waste (like all those eggs and olive oil that have to be thrown away every time I fail to make aioli – think I have now converted to Kato sadly).

So it was weirdly affirming that even the hot bakers muck up! But the “love stuff” – I’m not so sure about that.

Today I was hit with the “need” to bake. Was it about wanting to express my love for my lovely family? Well – a little bit – let’s face it there’s not much point in baking just for oneself. You need an audience – you need someone to eat it or you can are going to get really fat! This is the upside of still having two children at home (they are 17 and 20) they appreciate (and dispose of) the product.

But were they my prime motivators? No. I simply had an overwhelming desire to eat white chocolate and cranberry cookies – why? Possibly a little hung over – certainly tired – and they are one of the best cookies in the world. But I couldn’t have justified cooking 50 (the recipe claims it makes 60) cookies just for me and the old man.

And then the apple crumble. Well – that was a lot about using up some scungy old apples and the last of the rhubarb in the garden. So sensible am I! And also, healthy (sort of ) – both the cookies and the apple crumble have oatmeal in them. Shame about all that butter and brown sugar!

The down side of baking is creating dishes. Luckily we have a new Fisher & Paykel dishdrawer. It’s really great being able to load up one drawer and dispose of the extra baking dishes. But why – why -  why – can’t my family learn to use the dishdrawer concept.

Why do they leave dishes on the bench? Why do only put dishes in the top drawer ignoring the fact that we’ve started filling the lower drawer? Why if they don’t get this can’t they read the little system of dirty/clean signs so they don’t have to look at what’s in the drawer?

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Tags: baking, dishdrawers, Families, hottest home baking, teenagers