After a good many years working in the food service industry, in the kitchen searing my eyelashes together opening the hot oven, making whipped cream from scratch 12 times a night, smelling like cheese, going home with french fries smashed inside the soles of my non-slip (why and I still slipping?) shoes… I’ve learned a few things. First, everything on your body will hurt and that’s how you know you’re using all of your body and heart to make food for people to love. Second, you know it’s going to be a good night when 4:30pm staff meal has steak in it. Third, the best meal, the very best meal you’ve ever eaten in your life is that grilled cheese that your roommate made you after you get home from a long shift. While it may be a little burnt on the one side, it’s melty just right, and you’re sitting down and YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO MAKE IT YOURSELF.
Food service people can be the harshest, most grippy critics, or they can be like… ‘please put mostly fine food on a plate because I don’t have the energy or equipment to sous-vide or saute, rest and rise, pipe, fry or bake… and don’t be too too rude to me but even if you are, I’ll still tip you well because I know that you too have non-slip shoes that still slip, and you’re tired, and you don’t know that I know’.
The food that I didn’t stand, stir, contemplate, and bake is the best food of all. Even if it’s just a turkey sandwich. Someone please make me a turkey sandwich. I’ll take it with as much mayo as you’re giving… but I also won’t be choosy.
Here are the five things I don’t bake at home because I think they’re best when someone else’s precise and loving hands, their hot hot ovens, and their tender loving care… all that, is there… man-alive it tastes better!
• Macarons are delicate almond and egg white sandwich cookies. They take some determination and patience and a bit of a perfectionist streak. I think it’s the perfectionism and focus that makes them extra special. I prefer to splurge by the boxful, very occasionally. Luxury, for sure. For the very good among us, a Step-by-step Guide To French Macarons.
• Here’s what I’ve found with baking: the fewer the ingredients, the less fat, the more likely I am to fudge up a recipe. Fat from eggs and butter add a generous amount of forgiveness to a recipe. Baguettes, beautifully crusty French bread, is made with four simple ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. The way to a dreamy baguette is in yeast development, shaping, scoring, aaannndd and extremely hot, steam-capable oven, aka: often best from a bakery. For the eager and bread among us, Food52 has a 4-Hour Baguette recipe, or… if you’re in New Orleans: Bellegarde Bakery.
• In the same way that baguettes need time, love, and a really hot oven… good thin crust pizza is an elusive animal at home. I find that the best way to enjoy pizza is sitting on my butt, stating my pizza order to someone kind enough to make one for me, and promptly drinking two glasses of lambrusco. Or.. grilling a pizza is the at home move, if you have a grill and maybe someone to grill for you (ideal). (Am I lazy?) (Rhetorical.)
• Have you ever had a perfect canelé? They’re the ideal amalgamation of caramelization, crunch, chew, and soft custard. They’re perfect baking science and my eyes go wide at the thought of making them really well. I think they’re tough! A few years ago Chez Pim told us all about it here. The perfect canelé is nearly burnt… so very close to being burnt brown on the outside, while soft, custardy, but not too airy on the inside. I’ll take mine by the three-ful from a professional baking case, and eat them too fast with too much coffee and pretend I’m in a Maybelline commercial. (Born with it.)
• Layers of flakey, airy, buttery crust, filled with dark chocolate, and topped with just too much powdered sugar. This is the Chocolate Croissants. Homemade is possible, sure… but ordering a dry cappuccino and eating a chocolate croissant while reading a good book alone on a Saturday morning. In New Orleans: Gracious Bakery. In San Francisco: Tartine Bakery (Amen!)
What are your must-buy baked goods? Follow-up: Are you free this afternoon for a coffee and croissant date? After our turkey sandwich.
Kate
I 100% concur with this list. I would also add English muffins because the ones you can buy at the store (nooks and crannies!) are legit delicious and cost like $3. Oh and also, I live in Seattle, five blocks from a Top Pot, and because of that will never ever ever make a doughnut at home.
Paula
Every time I go to visit my husband’s family, I tell him that I need to go to Top Pot. We haven’t made it yet. I feel so deprived.
joythebaker
this really is a NEED. get the maple old-fashioned.
joythebaker
nooks and crannies… gets me every time.
Allegra Hanson
Definitely cupcakes. I have every ability to make them but something about frosting each individual little cake makes my hands tingle. I’d rather buy a couple of beautifully frosted cupcakes on $2 Tuesday at Bliss cafe here in Fayetteville, AR and share them with a friend over coffee.
Toocutedobs
My husband and I have decided that we rarely have any food out in a restaurant that we could not have made better at home. I can make awesome hamburger buns, he can make incredible croissants and brioche. Cakes, pies, cookies all made at home. BUT, (big but there), I am making my second attempt at macaroons today. Those tiny little suckers have been quite the challenge and I may have to go your route. So buying bread or buns, or going out to eat is for the convenience. Also, we don’t have Guinness on tap here at the house :)
Robin Schatz
When I am in Bethesda, MD, I buy my macarons and croissants at Tout de Sweet Bakery on Woodmont Avenue. Their almond croissants are to die for, as are their pain au chocolate. But the best by far is the combination of the two flavors in one amazing almond-chocolate croissant. I am drooling just thinking about it. Fortunately, I live 3 hours away which is the only thing saving me from looking like a beach ball.
Love your blog.
Wendy R.
I love to bake cookies, but I prefer to buy cinnamon rolls and cake. Cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite foods EVER, especially when paired with coffee, but I find that they’re hard to do well. We used to live near a bakery that made the most amazingly sticky, soft, chewy, gooey cinnamon rolls (we even had them at our wedding), but it closed. Luckily for me, it was replaced by a bakery that makes the best classic cakes, cupcakes, brownies etc. I go there often to get my chocolate or celebration (a.k.a. Funfetti) cake fix. I like to buy cake because it’s not something I excel at, it’s more fun to eat a slice than a cupcake, and cake is much harder to freeze or gift than cookies. Stale cake is sad.
Christine
Macarons are a good one to buy. Second.
I prefer to make danish, really, but the idea of having 24 of them sitting around my house is not good. It’s delicious! I’d rather buy one or two at a time. Good ones are really hard to find!
I always buy almond croissants. The croissant part is difficult enough. If they’re not gone when they come out, there’s still no way I’m adding an almond element and rebaking. Plus, I really have to plan to get a delicious almond croissant and having a single purpose to my trip makes the treat even yummier.
Lastly, I always, always buy buns. Somehow the thought of making them fills me with dread. Lazy.
allison bridgman
I don’t mind cooking/baking but I certainly don’t love it mostly because cooking for one is a pain; I would much prefer to make things for others to make them happy. Due to the monotonous chopping for a salad or stirring for a quick soup for one for dinner, I adore when other people cook for me. Turkey sammie made with love? I’ll be there. Almond croissants at the cafe down the street with a bunch of adorable, oh so kind, ask about your day and genuinely care, hipsters? I can be there in 12 minutes.
Noelle
I love this post… I worked in the front of the house for years (this year was the first year I’ve only worked one job in a long time and NOT waited tables/tended bar) and hubby is a chef. It’s a tough gig! And I totally feel you on those non-slip shoes… I don’t miss the nights of coming home smelling like some kind of fried fish and having red wine all over my shirt and with god-only-knows-what in my hair… but I SO miss the people!
And we definitely buy baguettes, bagels and croissants (we had an adventure in croissant making gone horribly wrong)
Becky
True enough – Tartine bakery in San Fran bakes AMAZING croissants. Our favorites are the ham and cheese and their morning buns. Delicious!
Terri Sollazzo Achmann
Yes!! It’s great to know we “could” make croissants or baguettes or macarons… But I’m happy to leave that to the pros with pro tools/kitchens/staff/ingredients/dishwashers. Until I’m in a situation where, maybe I’m living in the middle of nowhere, and we are all crying out for pizza or…. You know? Actually, now that I think about it, I DO sort of live in the middle of nowhere! Oh dear… ????
Stacy
I have to confess I am better at cooking than baking. I love sweets, but I do mess things up more often than I care to admit. I like to make muffins, crisps, cobblers, and even the occasional artisan bread, and can do so pretty well, but anything more complicated is beyond my ability.
What I cannot do to save my life? Layer cakes. Leaning Tower of Pisa every single time. I would love to be able to bake the perfect birthday cake for family members, but since I love them and do not wish to give them a lopsided side, I buy cupcakes instead.
sally
flip the top layer upside down. the rounded side will be facing down, and the top will be flat! works every time.
Natasha
Buy a cake level! $5 on Amazon, it’s super easy to use, doesn’t take up much valuable kitchen real estate and you’ll never have that issue again.
aravism
One more suggestion: Buy cake strips! (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/cake-strips)
You dampen the strips, then velcro them around the outside of the cake pan before baking. It works its magic, and you get totally level cakes.
Also … make sure your oven is level.
Maria
Some foods like the ones on your list can be just as much about the experience of getting them as they are about the food itself : )
As far as the thin-crust pizza goes though, this thing exists! http://uuni.net/
Kendra, The Lazy Genius
I don’t trust people who don’t like mayonnaise.
Valerie
I would never attempt a croissant at home. If I’m feeling decadent, I buy one from Julie’s in my shopping center to share with my husband. Just don’t talk to me while I’m eating it!
Kat
If I were in New Orleans this afternoon I would totally meet you for a croissant, and a cocoa cuz I just can’t do coffee. Perhaps someday!