What 5 Bakers Make To Say "I Love You"
Cooking for Love: Volume II is real sweet.
My tiny mom had four babies by four c-sections, each of us with heads the size of cantaloupes. She stayed in the hospital for three days recouping from her first (my brother Harry) after which she made a brief stop at home before driving with my dad to Kegler’s bowling alley. She was their contracted chocolate chip cookie supplier and “they needed dough,” she tells me, unflinching. Raw surgical wound and brand new baby notwithstanding, she stood over Kegler’s Hobart mixer to make one of the hundreds of batches she would between decades of dinner parties and sleepovers and just whenever she was bored, really.
If you ask the right people they’ll tell you my mom’s cookies are the best they’ve ever had. They’re incredibly dense, sky high and filled with whole walnuts, more brown sugar than white and oat flour, a trick she learned from her close-reading of Mrs. Fields’s autobiography. I in my youth never knew an empty cookie jar, never abstained from its contents and made my own batches by the dozens, too, my mom standing over my shoulder and creaming the butter herself most times because no one can like she does.
That was until age nineteen, when I started my first of four years as a clinically depressed loser. I mean that objectively, and not without sympathy, but I’d say it to her face if my younger, sadder self were sitting on the love seat next to me now. I’m sure she wouldn’t argue. She was molting, always either on the verge of tears or on the StairMaster or both, attempting to reclaim control over a bad case of collegiate ennui by becoming As Skinny As Possible. I oriented my competitive nature and perfectionistic tendencies to being the best at eating the least, intermittent fasting (a scourge), crying all the time and going months without dessert, denying the essential nature of my upbringing by insisting “I don’t have a sweet tooth.” The cookies wouldn’t make me happy anymore.
It took eleven days in a chartreuse hospital room to scare me out of it and a move to New York to make me better. I fell in love with life again, and all the good things I’d done without — bread service, doing nothing, sleeping in, two sheet trays in the oven and the same warm smell I’ve known since infancy wafting into my 6th-floor bedroom. The smell of my arm getting sore from folding in the walnuts and of the silver bowl full of dough set to chill in the fridge and of “your mom made these?!”
I’ve baked mom’s cookies for best friends, for boys when I’m head over heels, for housewarmings and dinner parties and just whenever I feel like it, really. I’m eating one as I write this. It tastes like home and like feeling happy again.
In the first volume of “Cooking for Love,” we talked about dinner — chicken and steak and stew, whole meals meant to fill you up or make you feel warm. But that is not what baking is about. Baking says “I love you” with different words. Baking is a manifestation of abundance and overflow of both flour and feeling. Baking says “I am so obsessed with you I’ll save room.” Baking says “look just how sweet this can all be.”
So, dream of dreams, volume II is about just how sweet. Hold on to your whisks, you freaks!
, . , and are here to share their favorite things to bake to say “I love you.” Save room for dessert!!!
1. What’s your favorite thing to bake to show someone you love them?
I love taking what people love to eat and turning it into something I love to make. I’m best at and enjoy baking cakes, so I’ve transformed a lot of my loved ones’ favorite desserts into those. For my sister who loves creme brûlée, I’ve layered vanilla bean cakes with vanilla custard and splattered the whole thing with sweet, crunchy caramel. My boyfriend loves coconut cream pie, so one year I made him a giant ultra coconut cake, with coconut flakes in the batter, coconut cream in the icing and a mix of toasted and sweetened coconut flakes on top. Another year I took the pistachios he was constantly snacking on and ground them up into a flour to make a toasty, floral pistachio cake, and layered it with silky cream cheese frosting laced with vanilla and cinnamon. That was a long way of saying my short answer: cake.
2. If this dish could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
Cakes are the best celebratory dessert because you can really send a message with them. Whether that’s via a design or a literal message written in frosting, I don’t think there’s any other treat that you can really speak through as well. I particularly like putting people’s names on cakes, and nothing else. There’s something about seeing your own name spelled out so large and in something delicious that feels really special to me.
3. Have you made this dish to this end before? How’d it go?
I guess I gave a spoiler earlier, but I have! Many times! Besides all of those times I’ve turned desserts into cakes that I already mentioned, I’ve done this big-name-on-cake trick a bunch too. I did it with powdered sugar over a Victoria sponge, with toasted coconut and vanilla frosting, and even with cake itself — I once baked and frosted four cakes shaped as each letter of my friend Ruby’s name. That one was really special because I alternated between chocolate cakes with cookie dough frosting and funfetti cakes with vanilla buttercream and rainbow sprinkles. If that didn’t show her how much I love her, nothing will.
1. What’s your favorite thing to bake to show someone you love them?
Baking–the practice of using my hands with undivided attention and creating something sweet to share with someone–is my preferred method of showing affection. I love nothing more than coming up with grand, complicated plans of what I will bake for a loved one, special occasion or not.
The galette, a flat French disc of buttery flaky dough haphazardly folded around a filling, is the simplest, purest expression of love in my wheelhouse. To some, the galette is the pared down stepchild of the pie. To me, it is an elegantly imperfect blanket of butter to wrap around in-season fruit, a blank canvas for produce straight from the farmers market. The opportunities are endless and the outcome is always delicious.
2. If this dish could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
Pie crust is undeniably meditative to make, cold butter binds with flour and is patted into a compact square before being wrapped tightly in plastic to rest. Once rolled out, the dough may fuss and crack, but these imperfections only make the final product more appealing. The galette’s craggy edges are so endearing to me, and they leave room to show off a special filling: take the favorite fruits and flavors from a loved one’s palette and mix it with what’s seasonal…et voila! A delicious, thoughtful treat. Perhaps fresh strawberries and bergamot for a summer birthday with a sweet tooth, or caramelized leeks and soft new potatoes for a savory-leaning winter baby.
3. Have you made this dish to this end before? How’d it go?
Many times, for many occasions, for many loved ones. My favorite was this cornmeal galette dough filled with pistachio and sliced plums. It felt (and looked) like a big summer hug. I brought it to a new friends’ backyard birthday where I was with a lot of strangers, but it felt like the perfect introduction: Hello! Here is my lopsided piece of pie crust full of beautiful juicy fruits!
I made plum and frangipane scones with the leftover fruit, butter, and nuts. It was awesome. Seasonal baking is the best, and I think those born during cherry season are the luckiest in the world.
Every third photo in my screenshots album is of something that
made. She publishes recipes for the most delicious things you could possibly imagine (read: “chocolate cake with earl grey crème diplomat and caramelised white chocolate buttercream” wtf?!?!) at breakneck speed in her eponymous Substack, and she lives in Sweden by way of Scotland. I want to Freaky Friday her but that would be selfish.1. What’s your favorite thing to bake to show someone you love them?
Two people come to mind here–my partner, Rob, and my dad. Rob doesn’t have a particularly sweet tooth, but there are a couple of desserts that he does love–tiramisu, and lemon tart, so for him, those are what I would make.
My dad is someone that indulges in a sweet treat often–I suspect I get my sweet tooth from him. I would say that he is the person that gets the most excited, and is the most appreciative, when I bake, and will take a generous helping of whatever I make. He has a particular soft spot for Chelsea buns, but there is one thing that he mentions more than anything else, which is pear tarte tatin, so those are what I would make him.
2. If this dish could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
Simply by putting in the time that each dish requires to make; to make elements that could be shop bought by hand–the shortcrust pastry for the lemon tart, the savoiardi for the tiramisu, the puff pastry for the tarte tatin… to make sure that the dish is as good as it could possibly be. I think no matter what it is, to make something for someone that you love to show that you love them, with it being chosen because you know that it is a favourite of theirs–that in itself says “I love you”.
3. Have you made this dish to this end before? How’d it go?
I have made them all before, many times over the years. I use the River Cafe lemon tart recipe which is great, but be prepared to go through many, many lemons. I use a wonderful recipe by Letitia Ann Clark for tiramisu, from her book La Vita è Dolce, and for the Chelsea buns I developed a recipe which is on my Substack. For the pear tarte tatin, I most notably made this when on holiday in the north of France, on a beautiful warm late-summer evening, using incredible Normandy butter and Guyot pears. Eaten outside in the last of the golden sun–a perfect moment.
1. What’s your favorite thing to bake to show someone you love them?
Definitely a birthday cake. I think baking a birthday cake for someone is a true labor of love because it has layers—both literally and metaphorically. To create something for someone’s birthday that they get to consume feels intimate and special, and my favorite version of this is a Strawberry Vanilla Layer Cake that I bake for my closest girl friends on their birthdays. It’s moist, delicious, not-too-sweet… and it’s PINK! I love celebrating the beautiful people in my life with something sweet. They deserve it!
2. If this dish could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
Did I mention that it’s pink? I think that because this cake takes time to bake and decorate, it’s the utmost form of unspoken love. I’ve actually cut it into the shape of a heart before, so it’s super proprietary to love. If it could talk, it would say, “I’m here to comfort you, and I want you to have FUN in my presence.” (Is that weird? Why does this feel weird?) My cakes are never too serious and never perfect, and I think that’s what makes them so enjoyable. No Michelin stars in my kitchen! We’re approachable here!
3. Have you made this dish to this end before? How’d it go?
YES! It’s always gone well. As mentioned, I don’t think my cakes are ever perfect (though my kind friends would probably disagree with me) (I have OCD). I’m my own worst critic when it comes to my baking, but one thing is for sure—life is sweeter when you’re a dessert person. And thank God I am one!
1. What’s your favorite thing to bake to show someone you love them?
My favorite thing to bake to show someone I love them is a flourless chocolate cake and over the years, I have cycled through a few different recipes. King Arthur Flour ironically has an excellent recipe that is the pinnacle of indulgence. My recent favorite, however, is a recipe by the New York Times for a chocolate souffle cake. The result, for reasons I can’t explain, feels riddled with a drama and a tension that I am drawn to. It is ever-so-slightly more involved, requiring you to add the egg yolks and egg whites separately, but it’s otherwise very easy. I reduce the baking time slightly to get a truly melty middle. And the result is consistently perfect. The real treat is pairing it with homemade whipped cream. It has been years since I have served whipped cream that wasn’t homemade and I have always found the extra effort worth it.
2. If this dish could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
Chocolate, of course, is extremely sexy. But what I love about a chocolate soufflé cake is that it’s actually very delicate, the addition of the whipped egg whites lending itself to this very light and airy texture. It’s a dessert for the “will-they-won’t-they” kind of love. A sort of “I love you but can’t tell you” kind of cake. It’s easy but intentional, in the “I was thinking of you” that is easily played off as “oh this old thing.” And whether because of early 2000s rom-coms or my own anxious-avoidance, I find this kind of love devastatingly romantic.
3. Have you made this dish to this end before? How’d it go?
I have made this on countless occasions. For friends, it’s a crowd pleaser, an expression of a different kind of love, that hopefully communicates just how much I care about them. On one occasion I made this for a crush, who came as a guest to one of my dinner parties in late summer and we ended up sitting in my kitchen for two hours talking about love, relationships, intimacy, and our shared hopeless-romantic tendencies while the other dinner party guests finished their drinks and continued talking outside. He has a girlfriend now, kms.
Thank you thank you for reading that my sweeties. Now tell me your answer for crying out loud.
PS: “Cooking For Love” is a serious dream project of mine, and I was just positively floored by the response to its first installment. I can’t wait to do it for forever, and I hope you’ll join me for every menu — dropping every six weeks, for now. Love you seriously xx Pony.
Kate🩵here I am reading on the F Line with visceral CHILLS. too many of us girls trying to become as Skinny As Possible & not enjoying the most simple things in life. Our mom’s cookies!!! I love this, I love you.
King Arthur recipe for a flourless cake! And your addition of the phrase ‘god forbid’ in a very funny spot. Kudos on this beautiful writing. Loved the opening sentence too.