To think this kind of baking, isn't really baking?

[user8558]

I'm a member of a baking group on FB. Where people take photos of what they've baked that day. That's all. It's nice.

But over half of these creations are based on some other kind of baked good/biscuit/chocolate/confectionery.

Mars bar and Malteser slice, Biscoff and Rolo cheesecake, chocolate orange and Toblerone brownies.

Maybe I'm just hangry.

But it's a bit annoying. Why is everyones baking using branded goods that already exist?!

It's a bit like buying plants from the garden centre. Can you really call yourself a gardener if you haven't grown everything from seed? Well, you've created a lovely flower bed so yes, you can. Does it really matter what mixture of sugary crap you stir together in a bowl? You've still made a cake or traybake or something at the end of it.

All baking apart form the mars bar and Maltese stuff

@Smidge001

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculaas

Biscoff cookies are the best known branded ones in the UK.

Mars bar and Malteser slice, Biscoff and Rolo cheesecake, chocolate orange and Toblerone brownies.
I take it that you roast your own cacao seeds from scratch then? Or do you just buy a large bar of chocolate like the rest of us and melt it down for your brownies? What's the difference between melting down a bar of chocolate from the baking aisle vs going to the confectionery aisle and buying a chocolate orange to melt for a different flavour?

If it goes in the oven it is baking in my world. I even tell kids I baked if I do cornflake cakes.

Impressed with buttercream a six year old can do that surely.

I hear you Op and I think the sane. I don’t think branded chocolate adds anything to a cake or biscuit either whether homemade or shop bought, which also seems on the ruse.
I think it’s a bit naff to boot. A chocolate brownie is lovely in its own right without a commercialised chocolate bar stealing the glory.

Biscoff cake is wonderful though, YABVVU. You can use the Aldi versions of the biscuits on the top to avoid the branding and call it a speculoos cake if it bothers you.

God, how I would have loved a birthday cake covered in Maltesers or other proprietary chocolate as a kid. Bloody dry sponge covered in royal icing, or worse still, fruit cake.

Naff by whose standards? Are you in some kind of imaginary cake competition in your head with your online "friends" Leflic?

Well now I feel like baking something

I just want to know how Americans pronounce risotto please

With a long “oh” sound in the middle (like the O in low and row) rather than a short “ot” sound (like the O in cot or rot) which we use.

"Maybe you should have a kit kat and take a break"

^This . Or have better have a break and some cake

*Or even better,

Facebook groups are not moderated properly, usually. Like DIY group posting memes about weight gain with no connection to diy whatsoever. I'd get my baking ideas on a better more serious source.

EmpressMatilda really?? LIke "Riss Oh toe"??

Two questions -
Maybe they can't get their hands on flour or bicarbonate or other vital ingredients for actual baking?

Where are these wonderful, resourceful and determined people?

I just want to know how Americans pronounce risotto please

Rizz-O-toe

Why do Brits call 'YO-gurt' 'yoggurt'?

By this logic, nothing with chocolate in, can be proper baking? Because no one makes their own chocolate from scratch.

Or jam. Or treacle or golden syrup.

I have done a bit of baking recently. Been a couple of birthdays. Made a pie. The the cakes and pastry made from scratch. Because I have had time.

I dont cover anything in butter cream or icing. Dp and the kids don't like it. I only do it, if the cake is going to to someone else's house. I dont even have a food processor.

That doesnt make it any better than anyone else doing the same, but putting something like an oreo on top.

Basically, its snobbery. As pp said, what is with people (mainly women) turning it into some sort of social and moral competition.

I remember when lockdown started, posters saying those who hadn't baked their own bread before lockdown shouldn't be doint it now. They would get it wrong and go buy bread anyway. The flour must be left for those who already baked bread. If you mentioned that maybe people have always wanted to bake their own bread, but didn't have time and now do, you were told if they wanted to bake bread they would get a bread maker like all they all do. They really didn't like being told that baking bread isn't that hard. I havent done it for 15 years, and lo and behold, I made loaves and pizza bases in the last couple of weeks with no problem. No breadmaker needed.

Why people seemed to think they had priority over flour or that they were better because they made bread before.....i just don't understand.

It not like I think I am better, because my pastry, cakes, bread are done by hand. If I go to someone's house and they make me a sandwich with homemade bread, dont in a bread maker....i am not going sneer and go....well thats not proper home made bread.

And ready made pastry.....is fine too.

You bake what you want to bake. Keep your judgement and competitive 'i am better' comments in your own head.

Is there anything people are allowed to do anymore without being judged and ridiculed online for it? I’m a baker for a living, and if someone wants a biscuit on their cake or a toblerone in their brownie then I’m sure as hell going to do that for them. And now apparently I need to worry about people thinking I’m not a proper baker because I happen to use something that I couldn’t possibly make at home because who the fuck can make a toblerone!?

What about using the chilled pain au chocolates you can get in tescos, they have the dough already made and you just unravel the packaging the roll into shape. Put in the oven for 10mins and voila! Freshly baked pain au chocs

@DippyAvocado, @kateandme

The word speculoos is used interchangeably for the biscuits and the spread by a lot of people, sometimes with 'spread' and/or 'biscuits' added for clarity. E.g. I've seen recipes which call for '500g speculoos biscuits' and '500g speculoos spread'. The spread has only existed as product since 2007/ 2008, and been widely available in anglophone countries for much less time than that, so usage isn't entirely standardised yet, but I see 'speculoos' without 'spread' fairly frequently (as a proportion of all the times I see the word in English at all, which admittedly isn't every day). Biscoff is just a brand name used by Lotus in the UK and US, Lotus call it speculoos in the rest of the world and speculoos is the generic name used by other companies.

Exactly!

That was to FortunesFave 😀

Baking middle class and 50s!! Before I got married middle classes had a cook to do it for them, cerainly didnt do their own. I bake, old skool everything from scratch. Dont have to eat it and get fat. Yes, I do buy pastry, arthritic hands unable to make pastry. I do make bread, and I cant stand bread makers (the electric ones that is) I do now have a mixer with a bread hook, although I make and fold cakes by hand, there was a lovelly lemon drizzle yesterday!!

because I happen to use something that I couldn’t possibly make at home because who the fuck can make a toblerone!?

I bet, someone experienced with chocolate making could. The right thermometer, a conching machine (if you used a machine would it be baking?), the right shape setting mold etc.

But why the fuck would you, when Mondelēz already do it so damn well, its very difficult to work with chocolate and get it right and your customer asked for toblerone. Not your version of toblerone. Actual toberlone.

You are good. You are a proper Baker. The only people who think its not are people who feel the need to feel superior to others, so jump on anything they can.