My 2018 - This is my Hobby: Baking till the madness.

This is first and maybe last time I will ever take part on competition(at least in one with this much of writing!). First, I’m awful loser and second, I love breaking rules way too much, but let’s see how it goes. As topic is near and dear for me, I try to honor rules! Look @eveuncovered what you made me do! HONORING THE RULES!

And @anomadsoul, is this long enough for you?

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Stick those hands in the dough!

Baking is something I really don’t consider as a job, nor really a hobby, for me it’s way of life. It is something that I’ve always done, and it is something that I always will continue to do. The first time I’ve ever baked is when I was like 1 years old, my grandma who basically raised me, was a passionate baker and I caught her spark. I can’t really remember the earliest times I have baked, for obvious reasons, but story tells that I found it relaxing and empowering even when I was only a child.

I can totally understand why I loved baking as a kid already, I’m pretty sure the reasons are still the same. I still love how the dough feels, how it is like silk in your hands when made correctly. I still love to watch how it rises and lives. I love the sound that hard crust of bread makes when cutting the bread. I love the smell of fresh bread and pastries and the smell of sour dough. For me baking is overall experience that I enjoy with all my senses. It always has been. I have always had eye for beautiful things, why wouldn't I create them my self?

My grandma fed my crazy creativeness all my childhood, and I can’t thank her enough for that. She taught me to rely on my senses, and common sense beyond recipes. And even when everybody else is saying that baking is a matter of science, it is also a matter of passion and common sense. The true reason why I love baking is exactly that combination of passion and creativeness and pure science. Everything happens for a reason and it’s my job to know when, why and what, in order to control the process.

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Out of Love

Baking and creating pastries are always being a synonym for love and care for me. I bake and cook for others, that is how I show my affection. I’m not good with words, and I rarely tell anyone how important they are to me or how much they mean to me, but by baking for them I can show my compassion without being cheesy. I’m sure that my feelings towards baking comes from my grandma, not necessary on purpose but I felt that she baked for others to show her compassion as well. I remember that we used to bake every Friday, not because it was necessary but out of love.

The smell of cinnamon buns

It was that specific day, and specific pastry, one my grandpa loved, cinnamon buns. All my childhood there were fresh cinnamon buns, every Friday. I’m pretty sure we didn’t miss a week. This tradition came to an end though. After my grandpa passed away there was no one to bake to, for my grandma at least. The heritage didn’t die though, I might not bake every Friday but every time I make cinnamon buns, I remember those times we baked together, and how grandpa was fooling around and stealing corner pieces of dough. Ironically, I don’t even like cinnamon buns, but the smell brings up so many memories that sometimes I bake just for nostalgia value.

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Investing your Everything

Baking is something I like to do alone nowadays, the reason why is that I enjoy and like to be concentrated on the process of creating something that is technically challenging, beautiful and tasty in the end. I like that there is a lot of rules that I can break for the sake of creating something extraordinary. My style and passion towards baking has evolved a lot over time, as it should. I’ve become more and more perfectionistic about it. Even though I’m not sure if this really is a good thing when you consider baking as a hobby, but as said it is also a job for me. I’m a self-taught baker, well of course my grandma taught me the old school style basics, but evolving as a chef, that's something that I’ve done by myself.

I used to be obsessed. I wanted to know everything, learn every technic there is to learn, this was mainly because I have always felt that I’m an underdog. I have no fancy degree for baking, nor fancy apprenticeship experiences, so I have always felt that I must work that extra mile just to show people that I am good at it. The funny part about this here is that I assume nobody else really cares, beside me!

Like most of hobbies, baking relies not only on skills, but also on the quality and the amount of equipment you have. When you are getting very serious about your hobby, things might get out of hand and you must make sure that you have all the equipment you need(want). Imagination never runs out when it comes to cooking and baking, nor does the amount of money you invest in. It is obvious that you need to invest money to succeed and to improve your skills. It is mostly rewarding when you have spent a lot of time in cooking and improving. Money is usually irrelevant at this point already.

So, I bought everything I needed (wanted), where do I keep all this stuff? Having all the stuff is one thing but having them stored in the kitchen is another one. You need a lot of space, and trust me, I have a huge kitchen, and still more than half of my equipment lives in my hallway closet. Extremely practical don’t you think? But I really don’t even care that this hobby suck’s me dry out of currency, the feeling that I get when something works out is priceless. And even when I fail (and that has happened a lot of the times), I want to try and fail as many times that I need so I can succeed.

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Knock them off

My philosophy baking vice is to create something that will knock your socks off! I get so much joy out of finished products that are complex, tasty as fuck, and surprises the one enjoying it. I hate being basic in every section of my life, this is no exception. I think that hobby where you can create something that brings joy, not only to you but for the others too is worth having.

So, baking was, is and will be my business, there is nothing to add.

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^{Shout out for @rubencress who manage to read all this blabbering and even helped with it! Sorry for erasing all the jokes...}