May 14 2008, 09:46 PM Keeping In Proportion

As of late, I have been cooking and baking far more with ratios than actual amounts. An example: breakfast these days is more often than not a construction of 1:1:1:some:some, with a side of "put enough coffee in the basket of the moka pot so that it doesn't explode". The coffee to milk ratio is not 1:1, but it is close. The trick I've discovered for fresh pasta is one large egg to three quarter cups of semolina, and make an egg's worth for each person showing up at table. The pizza dough is a 2:1:some:some an some again of flour, water, yeast, oil, and salt, respectively. More flour gets tossed around during the kneading, but that always happens, so I won't include that in the formula, and in cases like this it always seems best to me to simply toss all the numbers right out the window and let my hands figure out if the dough is a reasonable thing yet.

This makes me something of a heretic, in the storied tradition of baking. I find it odd and funny that I know longer actually have any idea of how to make bread anymore that I am able to transmit, just that I do it. I have worked hard to reach this point.

On the way back from work I was walking with a friend at the top of the long hill that is Murray as we were weighing merits of routes homeward. He mentioned that I could very well stop at the new Chinese bakery that we both had thought was a cafe, proceeding homeward with armloads of baked goods. This did not exactly happen, but: they have buns, stuffed with things, baked every morning there in the store. More: they have buns, stuffed with red bean paste, baked every morning there in the store. The bread is golden, airy, with a light sweetness, and the beans lurking inside have a light sweetness too, but coming from a different direction, dark and rich. I bought two.

I will have to go back to try the cookies.