A Sconedays Story: Mistakes, Lessons and Learning to Love to Bake
Some people love to bake and others lean toward cooking savory dishes. When I’ve asked some family and friends why they don’t bake, it usually comes down to one thing: fear of doing it wrong.
It’s true baking is more of an exact science. It involves measuring and cooking techniques that are different than everyday cooking. Baking incorporates things like sifting, leveling off, beating, folding and precise measuring.
The good news is that it’s okay to fail and make mistakes. That’s where the learning comes in and the good stories come from.
I’ll never forget the time in middle school when I had just taken this cooking class and wanted to make something for my dad and me. I came home all determined to conquer this recipe. I made it by myself, baked the cookies and served them up.
Yuck! They were disgusting.
My dad took one bite and spit it out. In that moment I learned the big difference between baking powder and baking soda.
It was a bummer because I had to toss the cookies out. They were not edible. But I learned a valuable lesson about baking ingredients. I still had a blast cooking them and felt proud of myself for being able to bake on my own.
My mom and I had a similar incident just last week trying to make two new types of scones for our Sconedays series. We tried out oat milk, as a non-dairy substitute, for the first time and found out it makes some really, really dry scones. It turns out we won’t be sharing that exact recipe, but we plan to keep refining it.
The thing I learned from this Taste Test Kitchen fail was that scones are a forgiving food to practice baking with because you don’t have to be as precise and rigid when following the recipe. It really is hard to mess up a scone. The scones we made were delicious warm out of the oven, yet dry by the next day. It wasn’t the end of the world, and the food wasn’t wasted.
So if you are feeling nervous or afraid of failing, try out a scone recipe to start and trust that it will work out. Take the pressure off and just enjoy baking.
~ Rebel
