29/01/2023
Burnt Honey Baking Commandments #12
Above all else, share.
When it comes to recipes and techniques it shouldn’t shock you when I say that I subscribe to the school of sharing. Whether you’re a home baker with a killer shortbread recipe handed down for generations, a stupidly successful professional pastry chef with an internationally croissant, or maybe you just reckon you’ve got the key to the world’s best chocolate chip biscuit, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain in sharing your knowledge with those who seek it.
Something I learned very quickly when I was trained to make croissants in one professional kitchen then tried to replicate the process in another is that a beautiful bake exists purely at the equilibrium of recipe, kitchen, ingredients and baker. If any one of these variables shift in the slightest the end result can become something wildly different, so where’s the harm in sharing just one of those for key variables, the recipe, with someone else?
Furthermore, the perfect chocolate chip biscuit isn’t enjoyed in a vacuum. When you’re eating that biscuit there’s emotion attached, whether you like it or not. Now I’m no sop, but I can tell you that when I eat my mum's Greek biscuits I’m thinking about Mum and the fact that she made not only the one in my mouth but a couple hundred of them for my wedding day and about how much that meant to me. When I’m in London eating a Fitzrovia Bun from Honey & Co I’m thinking about what that bun means to Sarit who dreamed it up, about reading the recipe in their book before I started working there, all the while enjoying just how gosh darned tasty they are. Consciously or not, when you eat a beautiful baked good either gifted to you or purchased by you, the exchange and everything surrounding it contributes to the experience and hence your memory of it. So even if someone does manage to replicate that bloody chocolate chip biscuit, it will never truly be the same.
