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Typically, I don't bake. In fact "I don't bake" is something of a mantra for me. This Christmas, however, I decided that I would bake, and I discovered an extraordinary invention that has considerably altered my attitude toward baking: the electric mixer.<br />
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Since "I don't bake," I never figured an electric mixer as something worth buying. It always annoyed me when recipes specified the use of an electric mixer&mdash;surely this dish was made before electric mixers were invented! surely there is a non-electric way to do this!* About a year ago, though, I got a hand-me-down mixer, and this Christmas it really earned its keep. In the course of my baking frenzy, I learned that one of the keys to using an electric mixer is knowing when <strong>not</strong> to use it. A batch of pumpkin cranberry cookies came out with a really odd (cakey) texture, and I think it's because I mixed the dough to long. But once you get going with an electric mixer, it's really hard to stop! <br />
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I enjoyed baking pumpkin cranberry bread and cookies, walnut spice cookies, pumpkin spice bread and zucchini bread, and I hope that my family members enjoyed eating it all. This experience has not, alas, converted me to baking, although it has rendered the idea somewhat less distasteful. On the whole, I'm a fairly selfish cook and really only enjoy preparing things that I will also enjoy eating. I like to eat sweets occasionally, but I don't really like having them around. Also, the outcome of baking, if you're me, is fairly unpredictable, and error correction much more difficult than with other types of food. I will no doubt continue to dabble occasionally in quick breads and cookies, but even the advent of the electric mixer hasn't inspired me to attempt anything more elaborate.<p class="note">*In fact, it still annoys me when recipes specify the use of an electric mixer or food processor. I still don't own the latter, and I refuse to believe that there are dishes that simply CAN'T BE MADE without the use of electricity. </p>