A twinge of sadness floated through me after baking this cake. Not the usual “I wish I was a better baker” sadness. There was no need for that because I had made a classic moist chocolate cake with just enough fudgy icing. Cutting the cake into small squares kept it light. What brought on the melancholy was the fact that it was super easy to make, painless really, which must sound ridiculous but here’s the reason:

I grew up thinking that a homemade cake was a powder substance poured from a box, mixed with water and oil, baked then iced with a creamy sweet goop from a tub. The many flavors and combinations to choose from made it especially fun. I loved this baking even though we only did it on special occasions, not even for a birthday because that was a cake bought from a bakery. I made the distinction between this fun homemade version and a time consuming, tedious cake made from scratch. I never even thought I could bake a scratch cake; never saw my mom or grandma do it even though they were both good cooks. Scratch cakes were complicated and unnecessary when you had mixes in a box.

So I am sad when I make this cake that is NOT complicated, only barely more time consuming and hugely superior to a box. It feels like convenience foods cheated me from the baking experience that I craved. Now I walk by the many cake mix and tub icing choices in the grocery store and I can’t even look at them, I cringe. I think maybe my baking life would have been different if I had baked a cake like this from scratch when I was a little girl. I loved my grandma immensely and she gave me many gifts but I am thinking that Grandma Hermalin taught Maida something about baking that I missed.

During the yoga class, which I took before baking this cake, my kind teacher pointed out that we call it yoga practice not yoga perfect. I loved this and it helped me feel better because I was having trouble holding the poses even getting into the poses. Later with the challenges of my puff cake, again this idea helped me. My goal to become a better baker entails practice. If I were already perfect, I would have a different goal.

Practice. It’s not that I’m unable to follow steps or complete the techniques. Experience is what I need and practice provides that. Recipe writers have tested and retested, practice leads to flawlessness.

Maida alludes to her own practice with this cake in her introduction. She says this was her father’s favorite cake; that he said it turned any day to a good day. While he was living with her she made him one cake each week so he could have a slice every day. That’s certainly a lot of practice. So, of course she knew exactly how long to beat the egg whites and how they should look;

how long to beat the egg yolks and what it means to fold them in gently but thoroughly; what thoroughly is and how much you can do that without messing up the delicate batter; same for the flour, how much gentle handling it can handle and still come out fine.

I’m sure, unlike me, she was not nervous to fold too much and then end up with a batter not fully mixed. Perhaps this is why she recommends mixing on a flat platter instead of a bowl. All this I managed through and thought I was ok, but then came the tube pan. I’m sure Maida knew that batter will leak from a loose bottom tube pan, even though she does not say to wrap it. My orange puff cake forgave me, though. Despite a good amount of batter leaking though the bottom of the pan, it baked fine with a cookie sheet underneath it. Maybe my cake was not as puffy as Maida’s but I can see why her father loved this one.

Next time I will know better, this was just practice.

The question poking and prodding my mind of late: How can I become a better baker?

For all my life, at least the part of life I can remember, I’ve wanted to learn how to cook, especially bake. I’ve always dreamt of attending culinary school, but the closest I came was an unsuccessful search for Le Cordon Bleu during a long ago trip to Paris. The address I had must have been incorrect because I ended up at a building with a lot of steps and a locked door with pamphlets outside. I think it was their administrative office and not the actual school. It left me feeling ridiculous to even think I could participate and that this was only a dream. A dream, I wanted to come true. My attempts turned to more tangible quests: pouring over Gourmet magazines, loving every page. Escaping to TV cooking shows. The day I discovered the Food Network in its earliest form was one of my happiest finds ever. I loved Gail Gand’s Sweet Dreams best of all. I wanted to be her. No matter how many shows watched, articles read, or cookbooks bought, none ever made me a chef or a cook or a baker.

I wonder… if I can’t take a class or attend a culinary school program, if I can’t be an apprentice or work with a mentor, can training happen in the quiet and solitude of my kitchen? It’s a kitchen that’s warm, bright, and well equipped, with the comfort of my dogs as assistants.

My hypothesis involves Maida Heatter’s dessert cookbooks. She published the most detailed books sharing her passion for baking, writing generously in small notes that reveal “a you can do it” attitude and “a cooking is love” philosophy. Can I learn to be a better bake along her side, even only from her books?

During her life Maida Heatter’s worked as pastry chef in her restaurant and wrote nine dessert cookbooks. The first, Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts, was published in 1974. I thought this book was a good place to begin my training and quest. If I follow meticulously and make every recipe in every chapter and buy the right ingredients and equipment and do not change them up to meet my own tastes, will I learn by her side as if she were here with me in my kitchen?

The book has 264 recipes. I’m going to write here about my successes, challenges, mistakes, inspirations, learned techniques, discovered equipment and most of all tidbits of wisdom from Maida’s directions. I hope it is ok for me to call her Maida.

On a side note, today is the first day that I write in this baking journal. I’ve kept a private online journal for about two years now and I feel nervous about transitioning to a more public writing phase. Having said that, I am happy to think you are here with me on this journey. Thank you so much! It helps me to feel not alone, sort of like I’m in a baking class. Please feel free to write, comment, or bake along with me at anytime. I’ll even have a Maida book sent to you if you need one, just let me know!