I did some basic prep work while thinking of potential recipes to try. Unloaded the dishwasher, made coffee (a MUST), washed my face and brushed my teeth. But I didn't get around to putting on real clothes. I enjoy baking in my pajamas...a t-shirt and underwear, that is. Yes, that's right. I prefer to bake, like I prefer to sleep: pants-less. But hey, that's one of the simple pleasures of living alone. You can do those sorts of things. You can prance around your kitchen elbow-deep in flour with nothing on but your Hanes. And that's exactly what I did. You should try it sometime, assuming you live alone. It's quite freeing.
Anyway, given my limited supply of ingredients (no milk, buttermilk, or shortening), I didn't think it would be possible to make my ultimate craving: flakey, buttery, homemade biscuits. Nonetheless, I flipped through some recipes on my iPad.
Almond milk biscuits.
My eyes stopped on those three words. I did have almond milk in the fridge. Almost a whole carton. And that could be a fun twist! So I clicked on the link and skimmed through the full list of ingredients. Flour. Banking powder. Salt. Sugar. Butter. Almond milk. Yup, I had all of it. And it looked easy enough.
I turned on pandora, unloaded all the ingredients form the pantry and fridge, got in the zone and got to work. Measuring all the dry ingredients into a big bowl, I felt all my worries float away. My senses were tantalized with smells, sounds, and textures. Coffee brewing. Flour particles clouding the air. I was back in my refuge.
Measure. Pour. Measure. Pour. Stir. Sift. Measure. Pour. Cut. Work. Mix. Fold.
I found the rhythm and felt like I was back in sync. With the universe, my surroundings, and myself. Working the consistency together with my very fingers, ever so gently as to not over-mix the biscuit dough (the key to a perfect, buttery-flakiness), I felt alive again. Connected to the creation of something. Doing the very act of creating. In the messy, exhilarating way of working with your hands until they're sticky with chunks of dough hanging off each finger.
Lately I've felt so far removed form this sensation. Working a desk job, wether in an office cubicle or a loud, vibrant coffeeshop, it's easy to feel yourself slipping away form your natural identity as a creative. Developing spreadsheets, composing emails, and even designing graphics just aren't the same. The computer screen somehow creates this physical divide between you and your work. Fingers typing on a keypad or moving a mouse just doesn't quite qualify as hands-on creation. Maybe if you're a techie person. But not for an old-school girl like me, it just doesn't have the same life-giving effect.
But baking...starting with pure, raw ingredients. Mixing them together in various quantities, orders, and combinations. Measuring, pouring, and mixing with your human hands. Until you've created something out of nothing. With smells and tastes and textures that bring your senses back to life. It's intoxicating. It's creation.
I'd forgotten how much I love to bake. Because I don't really have a lot of time for it these days. But the moment I stepped into the kitchen and got back into the rhythm, I remembered. And I was hooked again. To the stimulation of my senses, awakening the creator within me.
I have a very small kitchen in my one-bedroom apartment. So I haven't felt the need to fill it with all the awesome baking instruments I don't need, desperately want, but don't have the room for and really can't afford. Uhh, someday I will shop at Williams-Sonoma. And fill a glorious, granite-counter kitchen with everything in that store. Someday. But for now, I improvise. Like using almond milk for biscuits because I don't buy milk anymore. Or using two knives to cut the butter into the flour mixture, because I don't have one of those fancy tools for that specific task. Or using a plastic pipe my baking friend Sue gave me for a make-shift rolling pin, because you guessed it, I don't have one of those either. And you know what? It works great. It rolls out the dough just the same. Smooth and even. Ready for the measuring cup I use as a biscuit cutter to sink in and form "perfect" circles.
Improvising. It's a life skill I highly recommend learning if you haven't already. And low-budget baking in a seriously small, understocked kitchen requires an extra large dose of it.
Finally the time had come to plop those buttery bites of heaven into the oven. The recipe called for 22 minutes at 450. So like any good baker, I set my timer for less than called for: 18 minutes. Planning to check on it at about 15 to be safe.
Well, after about 15 minutes, my nose detected that oh so familiar smell of burnt to a crisp baked goods. Running to the kitchen (yes, the one that is about a foot away from the couch), I reached for the oven mit, pulled the oven door toward me, and grabbed the piping hot tray. A heavy cloud of smoke filled my tiny kitchen. And the second I set them on the stove, I heard the obnoxious, high-pitched beep. The smoke detector. SHIT! (I'm full of profanities when I bake. Seriously. While some chefs stick to "pow" or "kabam" for their signature kitchen phrases, I prefer the F-bomb).
I sprinted to the balcony door, swung it open, hurried back to the kitchen, grabbed the oven mit again, and proceeded to fan the smoke detector. More F-bombs escaped my lips between the fanning motions and ear-canal-bursting beeps. This was not my first smoke alarm scandal in this apartment. And so as extra seconds began to separate the alarm sounds, I knew I was in the clear. "Whew. That was close," I said, always fearing being that girl who burnt down the apartment complex and had to embarrassingly evacuate the building in nothing but her underwear. Yeah, that would be bad. So I threw on some pants before reassessing the plan for round two of biscuit baking.
That's another thing about baking. If you aren't prepared to totally bomb, don't even try it. Recipes are great, but every oven is different. 450 on your oven could be like 400 on mine. Especially when you're working with older kitchen equipment, you just don't know how accurate your power is. Same with microwaves and stoves. You gotta consider electric differences and tread carefully. But more importantly, you have to be comfortable with the idea of putting a lot of work, time and money (depending on the ingredients) into something that might come out a black, crunchy, bitter mess. Because you just never know.
It might be totally inedible. It happens. Or, in my case, you might have to slice off the bottom half and throw it away, leaving yourself with a half-decent, half a biscuit. As someone reminded me today, butter fixes everything. You know what I'm talking about, Paula Deen. Toss the burnt to a crisp bottom, spread some yellow lard on the top, watch it melt into the flakey dough, and sink your teeth into what will still be delicious. That's what I did.
But don't stop there. Try again. Cheesy? Yup. But you gotta do it. Reassess the situation. Think back through the steps to see what went wrong. Make some changes. And take another whack at it. Why else do you think recipes make such large quantities? It's to ensure you have enough to screw up a little. There's always plenty of dough or batter to redeem yourself in round two. Always.
And redeem myself, I did this morning. I turned the oven down a little lower than 450 and placed the second tray of biscuits in, setting the timer for 10 minutes, less than half what the recipe called for. I kept the balcony door open to continue airing the place out and my nose alert, sniffing the air for the faintest hint of burnt biscuit. Checked on them a couple of times. And when my timer went off and I opened the oven for a sneak peak, guess what I found? Just golden brown biscuits. Not a single sniff of burnt crumbs in the air. Even the bottoms were golden, sliding off the tray smoothly with a spatula instead of sticking.
They were perfect. And you know what I realized? If I hadn't burnt the batch before them, I just wouldn't have felt that good when I caught my first glimpse of those flakey, unburnt biscuits. Sure, they still would have tasted delicious come time to bite into their fluffy layers soaked in melted butter. But they wouldn't have had the sweet, sweet taste of redemption flowing through every bite.
The satisfaction in myself and in the final product I created just wouldn't have been so high.
I'm coming to realize that we're supposed to screw up. We're supposed to get messy, go the wrong way, and burn the crap out of biscuits every now and then.
It's more than the simple fact that we're human. We are, and so we'll never be perfect. But we also have a God who redeems. And I want to be able to notice him do just that in my every day life. I'm not saying He wants us to continue to knowingly follow a dark path of destruction. Or to willingly stay stuck in a cycle of sin. But I do think He wants us to be the type of person who sees His very acts of redemption unfolding in our lives. And I think its the screw ups, failed attempts, falling down, and recipes gone wrong that develop an eye for noticing. Taste buds for detecting the sweet flavor. Noses that can pick up the faint but ever so delectable scent of redemption.
He's always working to redeem. Every single broken piece of our lives. And I think when we focus too much on doing things right, striving for success, becoming the best, or developing perfection, we unfamiliarize ourselves with reality. Broken, burnt reality. To a point that redemption is no longer the supernatural, glorious gift that it is. And so we don't see it. We miss its very happening. We can't experience it in its fullness.
You see, redemption is always sweeter. And always taking place.
Burning biscuits just helps us taste its full glory when it arrives.
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