T'is Still the Season 

Baking is always a part of the holidays and this year I baked a couple of pound cakes (one to share for Mike to finish with marzipan and glaze and one for myself) and some bread. The pound cake turned out great and I think the reason was really just the amount of whipping I did when making the batter. At least so says founder and owner of Milk Bar, Christina Tosi. Tosi's point being you can't really play with the ratios of ingredients in baking but how you handle them makes a difference, like whipping more air into a batter.

On the other hand, I hadn't baked much bread lately because I was avoiding bread, gluten and carbs. I have to admit after avoiding gluten and dairy for almost eight months I couldn't see any big difference in my health. I could still avoid the carbs but I'm not sure I have the problems with gluten that others have so, basically, here comes the bread! Baking bread is fun. I use a pretty simple and forgiving recipe so it's easy to imagine playing with it by adding seeds or nuts, or even things like olives or sun-dried tomatoes. A lot of people took up baking bread over 2020, whereas I sort of stopped, but I think this year I might get back to it.