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Look, not to brag, but I may have invented stress baking.
For those not familiar with the term, stress baking is one way to occupy your hands and mind in an effort to shift your focus from stress and panic to calm and comfort.
Some people vacuum under the couch, I bake all the things; to each their own. I’ll just remind everybody here that stressed is desserts spelled backwards.
I find comfort in the simple act of frosting a layer cake, my mind is soothed by sprinkles, I am calmed by cracking eggs. Flour is my solace, creaming butter with sugar is my yoga breathing.
When it comes to emergency preparedness, my stockpile consists of baking powder, flour, eggs, cultured butter, crème fraîche and an arsenal of baking sheets, spring form pans, a quiver of rolling pins and cookie cutters, pastry blenders, the list goes on.
While you lot are worried about toilet tissue supplies, I am ordering a pallet of parchment paper to stash in the basement. Rest assured that if the world goes up in smoke, you will find me in my flour-covered kitchen, rolling out sugar cookies while Christmas music plays in the background. It’s just how I roll in times of strife.
If this feels like you, or something you might be interested in doing during these uncertain times, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s roll up our sleeves and dive into some recipes that hit all the crisis criteria—they are relatively simple, don’t require a ton of crazy specialty grocery ingredients, and are comforting in a time when the unknowns outweigh the answers.
When damp, depressing weather strikes, I turn on the oven instead of the heat. In the best cases, warming is done from the inside out, so crank up your oven and let’s get baking.
Who is ready for panic pie? Chaos cookies? All jokes aside, we’re here for you in your time of need, and I hope that you find baking as soothing as I do.