Why I Hate Baking

So, a few friends of mine started doing something called "Supper Club" a while back that I only recently have been a part of.  I decided to host the January chapter, in which I thought it would be fun to have a New York themed dinner, since we just celebrated the new year.  Accordingly, all the food is roughly New York related, and I decided I would tackle something that terrifies me: baking.  Not only baking, but baking Chris' favorite delight, cheesecake.  (New York style, of course.)

The day of baking started off poorly when I ruined one of my favorite snacks, baked sweet potatoes.  (Though technically this is baking since it involves an oven, I have been told it's not traditional baking.)  The delights are incredibly simple to do, and I snack on them with great fervor.  However, I left the house to pick up a special pan for the cheesecake and didn't make it back in time... when I opened the garage, the house was full of smoke and the alarm was going bonkers.  The cats were terrified as Chris darted upstairs with a ladder, and there were my beloved sweet potatoes ... ruined!

I ate half the tray anyway.

This was the worst way for me to dive into a project that already had me irritated.  Let me first explain the reasons I hate 'traditional' baking.

1. It's messy.  Not only does every typical ingredient get everywhere, but they are usually sticky and get all over me.  Plus you always use a crap ton of dishes in order to do anything.

2. You have to follow the directions.  LAME.  Everyone knows I hate rules and directions.

3. If you don't have a million specialty gizmos, most of the work is a pain in the rear.  Manual everything in baking is tedious and frustrating.  (And extra messy.)

4. When you're finally done, all you have created is something poisonous you shouldn't eat.  If you share it with others, all you're doing is poisoning your friends.

I had to literally buy every ingredient on the list for my cheesecake since we were low on milk and eggs.  (The rest of the items I either never buy or they had been sitting at the bottom of the cubbard for 4+ years.)  I got the smallest box of sugar possible - the recipe called for more than half the container!  Disgusting.

The graham cracker crust had me frazzled since it was very unspecific as to how much graham was required.  Chris and I mashed a giant bowl of graham crackers until our arms ached, only to then realize it was way too much.  (The crust filled half the pie pan when we poured it in.)  I totally forgot to grease the edges and had to take the crust back out anyway once I had it level.  By that time I was pretty annoyed, my kitchen was a mess, and I still had to deal with cream cheese and sour cream. (SO NASTY!!) I was told to give the pan a "bath" so that it wouldn't crack.  Personally I didn't really care if it cracked or not, but lo and behold of course the one thing I don't care about turns out to be utter perfection.

I'm not eating any of this thing after knowing what is in it ... but I can't have anyone try it until our dinner party on Friday.  Hopefully everyone likes it ... I guess with an entire bowl of sugar who can resist?  I was almost angry that it came out so pretty looking ... I'm not sure why, but I think deep down I wanted it to have an attitude with me when it came out of the oven like, "Mwahahaha! See this? Screw you! You can't bake!"  Instead it came out looking basically perfect.  I have nothing to be mad about.  I've already been told "See? Baking is easy!" by a few people.  Ugh.  I don't care if it's easy ... I don't think it's fun, and that is that.  I think this was my own way of double checking that fact.  So now instead of telling people "I can't bake" I will instead inform them that "I despise the activity of baking treats."

So there.