About the Project

Throughout my life, I've had an interesting relationship with cooking. I grew up in a household that enjoyed food, and cooking was always something I had been interested in from a young age. That being said, food was never my main or serious interest. That was especially true in high school, when I don't think I ever really envisioned an adult version of myself who cooked often. I figured I'd just survive on restaurants and snack food while I put the rest of my energy into my real career or passion. It's weird though, because I still liked to eat and ate quite a lot, and I would watch The Great British Baking Show and YouTube videos from Bon Appetit in my downtime - not because I actually wanted to cook, but because the food looked yummy and they were something relaxing.

During the early stages of the pandemic, I was, like many people, very bored. I think it was actually my parents who encouraged me to bake chocolate chip cookies one day to keep myself occupied. I think it was the first time I had made anything by myself, and I was terrified. I had helped in the kitchen as a kid with certain things, but that doesn't really count. Honestly, I did not know how to operate a toaster until I was a teenager. The first cookies I made were the recipe straight from the back of the Nestlé Toll House bag (a recipe that still holds up), and I remember how scared I was to just put my hand in a hot oven (I think I burned my finger during that attempt). However, when the cookies came out, I felt this deep sense of satisfaction - they were sweet and delicious (and junky), but they were also something I had made myself from start to finish. I was proud of this achievement, as elementary as it was.

I continued to bake very simple yet satisfying things over the course of the pandemic. The Nestlé Toll House cookies evolved into Milk Bar's compost cookies which evolved into Alison Roman's chocolate chunk shortbread cookies (a recipe I still make very regularly and that I believe is the end-all and be-all of cookies). Not all of my attempts were successful - I made cookies that flattened and spread into each other,   and a blackberry pie where I forgot to cut vents in the crust, producing a very unappealing soggy bottom. One time, while my mom and I were making my grandma's double chocolate cookies, we set up a double boiler incorrectly and produced a bowl of absolutely incinerated chocolate chips rather than silky, luxurious melted chocolate. But that didn't matter to me - I was having fun and creating delicious things in the process. This was also around the time that Bon Appetit had disbanded and Claire Saffitz, one of its biggest starts, had started producing her own YouTube videos. I still watched them, but for the first time I had actually realized I could try making the food myself.

In December 2021, while I was holiday shopping at the Boulder Bookstore, I saw Claire's book Dessert Person on the shelves and knew I had to have it. It was the first cookbook I ever bought, and I justified it by saying it wasn't just a gift to myself but to everyone else because they'd get to enjoy the things I made out of it. Over the next year, as I made several of the recipes in the book for friends and family, I noticed myself evolving into a better, more serious amateur baker. Unfortunately, this was also a time when I became very self-conscious of my weight and physical appearance. There were periods of time when I would severely restrict what I ate, and this made it difficult to think about baking.

Making every recipe in Dessert Person (and now Claire's second book, What's for Dessert) has been a goal of mine since I first bought it. But I think this is the best time in my life to start it seriously. My primary motivator right now is to develop a better relationship with food and eating, as well as to live a more mentally balanced and fulfilling life. On Sunday, I left my job working the line at a restaurant - it was a difficult decision because while I loved certain aspects of it, like getting to cook, and I loved the people, I also noticed that the late hours and high intensity level were impacting my studies, my eating habits, and my overall mental wellbeing. I felt a little bit of guilt over losing a steady source of income, but I knew that I needed to put myself first, and in this moment that meant walking away. Nearly a week later as of writing this, I don't regret that decision at all. I feel like it was the most important step in gaining back control of my life and freeing myself from this mentality that the more I put myself through, the better I'll be.

I'm not giving myself a hard deadline on this project per se, but my goal is to have things completed by around the end of 2024. That translates to around two recipes a week, give or take, which I think is realistic. I'm a college student, as you probably already picked up on, so I'm somewhat constrained by both time and finances. At the moment, recipes requiring a stand mixer, food processor, or blender are pretty much off limits for me, as are those containing alcoholic ingredients. Therefore, I won't be making every recipe in order - I think that's a real losing strategy, especially for someone like me. Instead, I'll be baking the recipes in somewhat of a random order, dictated by season, feasibility, difficulty, and what ingredients I have on hand. I may use alternative methods, tools, or ingredients when I see fit, and I may halve or quarter recipes that allow for that (I'm pretty much baking for one here). However, I really want to try to follow the recipes as accurately as possible so I can provide a fair assessment. I'll write a detailed review of each recipe and rank it on a scale of 1 to 10. I'll then add it to my power ranking of all the recipes I've made so far (which can be found here). And yes, I'll even make the recipes that I know I won't like! 

Baking is one of my favorite things in the world. It's therapeutic, relaxing, and it produces very delicious results. Through this project, I hope to rediscover my love of baking and the new importance it has gained in my life.