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December 06, 2018 - Image 11

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily

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I don’t have many talents.
I was never the star of the
spring musical, I never scored
the winning goal. What I have
done is bake — a lot. Baking
has inserted itself into every
holiday, every major celebration
in my life. Friend accepted to
college? Bake a cookie cake for
them. Got a cool internship?
Cupcakes! Looking for a way to
procrastinate on a Wednesday
night? I’ve got a muffin recipe
for you. Every part of baking
is personal, therapeutic and
painstakingly
meaningful.
It gives you the opportunity
to take a group of tasteless
ingredients
and
assemble
something extraordinary.
For me, the month of Dec.
building up to Christmas has
always meant a lot of things,
but one of them stands out
above the rest: baking. While
other
children
associate
Christmastime with the first
snowfall or a desperate hunt
to uncover their presents, I
was happiest peeking into the
oven, dipping my finger into
unwatched batter and being
the first taste tester of the
ungodly mass of cookies my
mother cranks out every year.
I’d like to think of myself as a
mature adult, one who doesn’t
fall for the childish whim of an
over-advertised holiday. Yet as
soon as I catch the first whiff
of my mother’s dangerously
delicious
chocolate-dipped
butter cookies as their presence
envelops my house, I can’t help
but become possessed once
more with that pesky holiday
spirit.
And so I give you this recipe

this
melt-in-your-mouth,
sacred recipe — in hope that you
will stop lamenting over the
allegedly evil personification
of capitalism and organized
religion that is Christmas.
When I make it myself, I lay
out each step as if I am a Food
Network star instead of a
19-year-old girl making cookies
alone. Each ingredient is a
story, each step an assurance,
all coming together to craft one
damn good cookie. To quote the
great modern philosopher Sara
Bareilles, “You wanna know
what’s inside? Simple question,
so then what’s the answer? My
whole life is in here, in this
kitchen baking. What a mess
I’m making.”

1 cup butter, softened

If you can give a cookie a
heritage, butter cookies like

these are technically Italian,
but that doesn’t stop my Polish
side from perfecting them each
year. I’d like to think baking
them is an attempt by my Polish
family to take advantage of
holiday cheer and reach across
the aisle to the other half of my
family, the one that came from
Italy. Or maybe they’re just
easy to make. My grandmother

and mother always fight about
who used the recipe first. I
don’t care. I’ll never tell whose
are better.

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

My 18th birthday was a
snow day. Instead of enduring
the ego-boosting delight of
everyone in the hall wishing
me a “happy birthday,” I sat
alone in my room starting and
restarting books that stood
piled on my nightstand. I made
my first mug brownie that day,
and I’ve made hundreds since.

1 teaspoon vanilla

Who isn’t obsessed with the
scent of vanilla? To this day
I inhale the aroma with the
enthusiasm of a juul addict.

Spoiler: It doesn’t taste nearly
as good as it smells.

2 cups all-purpose flour

My first attempt at baking
came at the hands of a corrupt
Easy-Bake Oven. It was not even
my own, because as a young
tomboy I couldn’t imagine
anything worse than spending
my afternoons partaking in
pink frilly activities meant to
confine women to the domestic
sphere before they even hit
puberty. I tried to make a mini
bundt cake and burnt my hand,
cementing
my
hatred
and
resentment of Hasbro and its
patriarchal propaganda.

1 cup semisweet chocolate
chips

As I normally write for the
TV section of The Daily, many
of my friends think that I am an
expert on all things television,
popular and unpopular. I nod,
agree and ignore the fact the
only show I’ve watched for
the past month is “The Great
British Baking Show.”

1 tablespoon butter

Do you ever wonder why the
world still gives Paula Deen a
platform?

Holiday sprinkles

Christmas was the last day
I saw my grandfather before
he died years ago. We snuck
too many cookies behind our
family’s back. He helped me
perfect the art of dunking a
holiday cookie into a bath of
hot cocoa, letting the red and
green colors run together like
a river. Last year when I was
baking Christmas cookies, a
cardinal perched outside the
window.

In a bowl, cream butter and
sugar.
Add vanilla; mix well.
Gradually add flour; mix well.
cover and chill for 1 hour.
Shape
tablespoonfuls
of
dough into 2-1/2-in. x 1/2-
in. sticks. Place 2 in. apart
on ungreased baking sheets.
Flatten about three-fourths of
each stick lengthwise with a
fork.
Bake at 350° until set, 14-16
minutes. Cool on baking sheets.
Melt chocolate chips and
shortening until smooth; dip the
round end of each cookie.
Add holiday sprinkles. Place
on waxed paper until firm.

And above all, enjoy.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, December 6, 2018 — 5B

I’ve been holding onto some
bitterness for a while. Almost
a year, actually, ever since I
finished the second season
of “The Great British Baking
Show” last February. I don’t
remember how I came across
the show initially. It popped up
on my Netflix queue sometime
last winter and something in
the back of my brain told me
“Yes, Natalie, give this a shot.”
I’d never even been that into

food television before, unless
you count my parents and me
watching “Chuck’s Day Off”
on the Cooking Channel or the
occasional Martha Stewart.
Food Network, despite The
Daily’s
previous
show
of
support for their work, just
never did it for me.
So you can imagine my
surprise when I became deeply
enthralled in the universe
of “The Great British Baking
Show.” Because it is, I believe,
its own universe, with the
green fields of Welford Park
and the names of its judges

Mary
Berry
and
Paul
Hollywood — existing outside
the
constraints
of
space
and time. The entire show’s
premise
isn’t
immediately
made clear, either. All I could
glean as I jumped straight
into the second season is that
it is set around a bunch of
U.K. residents gathering in
a tent to bake, be judged and
be eliminated by Mary and
Paul. A year out and I’m still
not completely sure what the
star baker stands to win at the
end of the show, other than
briefly becoming a household
name and maybe publishing a
cookbook or two. But somehow
none of this is ultimately
necessary to buy into the
show’s intrigue, which I did

without question.
Season two of “The Great
British Baking Show” became
a mode of comfort and escape
for me. I would watch as these
charming, over-eager British
men and women of all ages
would
either
persevere
or
crumble in their attempts to
make pastries, cakes, bread
and biscuits that would meet
the high standards of Mary
and Paul. Each episode is
structured the same: There’s

a Signature Challenge, which
allows each baker to present
a version of that week’s baked
good they’ve made before; the
Technical Challenge, where
the
bakers
must
perfectly
execute a recipe presented by
Mary or Paul and which leaves
out important details such
as cooking time to see if the
baker can still pull it off; and
the Showstopper Challenge,
where bakers present their
own interpretation of a classic
baked good. And in each
episode, drama would unfold
when in the final seconds

of a challenge a finishing
decoration fell askew or a

biscuit crumpled upon coming
out of its tin, laying wreckage
to an otherwise quality bake.

I bought into all of it — the
adorable optimism of bakers
like Glenn and Howard and
Christine, who were only there
to make their families proud,
and the overzealous hosts Mel
and Sue who moved the show
along with their bad puns. I
bought into all of it and, in the
end, “The Great British Baking
Show” betrayed my trust.
It isn’t that I’ve never seen a
competition show before. I’ve
watched my fair share of “The

Bachelor” and old re-runs of
“Iron Chef” glimmer through
my childhood memory. But in
accepting “The Great British
Baking Show” for what it’s
worth — its innocence, its
purity, its all together feel-
good nature that felt like, even
when someone was sent home,
it wasn’t truly the end for them
— I didn’t realize that you can’t
expect to predict the ending
of a show whose premise
you don’t understand. I’m a
firm believer, after devoting
my unreserved attention to
every detail of this 10 episode

season, that Kimberley should
have been 2013’s winner. Even
Ruby,
the
college
student
who I didn’t particularly like
for most of the season, had
performed better for most
of the season than Frances,
who ultimately took home the
title of Star Baker. I was quite
honestly shocked that Frances
even made it to the final
episode of the series. While
her bakes often qualified for
number one or two spots in the
Showstopper challenges, her
technical bakes repeatedly fell
flat, including her adaptation
of pretzels in the final episode.
Kimberley, on the other hand,
showed intuition in the craft
and
demonstrated
growth,
performing
better
as
each
week passed.
In retrospect, I should have
expected things would not go
the way I wanted them to for
Kimberley. My concern began
around episode six, the sweet
dough week, when Howard
was sent home instead of
Glenn. Despite his inability
to master the technical bakes,
Howard’s
signature
and
showstopper bakes had so
much more assurity, and he
always executed them with
confidence
(we
all
recall
his Picasso Sun Bread from
episode two). Not only that,

but he was consistently a
favorite of Paul and Mary’s,
with Glenn acting as a more
alienating
figure
with
his
frequently panicked execution
when faced with emergencies
under the tent.
I feared early on in the
season that Paul’s evident bias
in favor of Ruby would be the
only factor pushing her to the
finals. But as the episodes
passed, she began proving
herself with baked goods like a

NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer

No more breaking bread
with ‘British Baking Show’

SAMANTHA DELLA FERA
Daily Arts Writer

Measuring life in spoons

BBC ONE

BBC ONE

TV NOTEBOOK

STYLE NOTEBOOK

While other
children associate
Christmas time
with the first
snowfall or a
desperate hunt
to uncover their
presents, I was
happiest peeking
into the oven,
dipping my finger
into unwatched
batter and being
the first taste
tester.

Citrus Tea Loaf and interesting
twists on classic goods that
incorporated
ingredients
like
saffron,
proving
Paul
and
Mary’s
suspicion
of
such
ingredients
wrong.
Ruby, however, never had a
believable shot at winning
the show. Framed as a judge
favorite from the beginning,
Ruby’s win would have been
too expected and would have
glaringly juxtaposed with her
constant anxiety under the
baking tent and vocalized self-
doubt.
The shock over Frances’s
win truly stems from the

fact
that
she
was
never
extraordinary enough to stand
out among the other two. She
was the one among these three
women with the fewest Star
Baker wins, and never baked
anything that stuck in my mind
as an impressive feat. Even
on her bad weeks, Kimberley
still produced at least one that
stunned (like her vegetable
cake from week eight, which
somehow lost to Ruby). Yet
somehow
Paul
and
Mary
overlooked this, and I blame
mostly Paul and his goatee for
this tragedy, because Mary
Berry can do no wrong.

Since
my
heartbreak,
I
haven’t been able to return
to “The Great British Baking
Show.”
I
don’t
see
it
as
worthwhile
to
once
again
become attached to characters
only to see them ultimately
deprived of their due fortune.
I briefly tried again over the
summer, jumping into season
five only to find out Mary
Berry had departed the show.
This was the final betrayal.
“The Great British Baking
Show,” while serving as a brief
respite from the gaudy reality
TV saturating our lives, could
do no more for me.

Because it is, I
believe, its own
universe, with
the green fields
of Welford Park
and the names of
its judges — Mary
Berry and Paul
Hollywood —
existing outside
the constraints of
space and time.

BBC ONE

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