CASE OF THE MISSING "BAKING GENE"

Hello! 
 
Welcome to Dragonfly Tales, where one just never knows what they are going to be reading about!  I'm happy you were able to drop by today!

I was reading an article this morning that made me realize that I do not have the "baking gene".  I think it skipped a generation, and I was the one that got skipped.  

My mom bakes, my daughter loves to bake, heck even my son-in-law bakes. And, they all do it well.  But me?  No.  Not a bakers bone in my body.  

I'm not really much for cooking either, but that's another story.  Usually at any kind of pot-luck family gathering, I'm the pop and chips bringer.  And, this is usually at the host's request.........

Anyway, I have kind of suspected that I didn't have a "baking gene" for quite some time now.  Oh, sure I have a few hundreds of recipes pinned on Pinterest.  But, when I look at the huge number of items one needs to bake something from scratch, I'm like, "really??????? who does this stuff?"

I do have a few spices in my cabinet that I have bought over the years. But, those were kind of a "guilt trip" purchase.  They stare at me accusing-ly as I walk by them at the store.  Due to my panic-attack tendencies, I try to avoid the whole baking/spice aisle.  But, occasionally I'll slip up and find myself there, and I feel an over-whelming compulsion to buy a spice.  So, yeh, I have a bunch 
five ... maybe.  I know for sure I have pepper and cinnamon.  I haven't opened the cinnamon, so it's kind of like "emergency cinnamon".  

Anyway, the article that finally made me admit to my missing "baking gene" was about making biscuits.  (Admitting you have an issue is the first step to recovery... right?)  Okay, about the biscuits, I have helped watched my mom make biscuits for years, but until today I hadn't really read an article about the intricacies of making biscuits.  Mom has the "baking gene", so she never uses recipes.  So, consequently, I have never been a recipe reader.  Hmmm... did I just find a way to blame my mom?  Ha!  I love you mommy!

Moving on... did you know that to make biscuits properly you should use really cold, like even frozen butter?  You probably do, because according to the article, "most of you probably already know this, but it bears repeating".  At first I thought they meant you should be slathering cold butter on your biscuits after baking them, and I was all like "NO WAY".   

Reading further, I discovered they were referring to when one combines the butter into the flour one should use freezing cold butter for "irresistible flakiness".

And, this is just step 1, there are 5 more steps to making "light, pillowy,crusty" biscuits.  I'll have to save those for another day, because I don't see my psychiatrist for another two weeks, so I am going to have to deal with my "baking gene inadequacies" on my own until then.  I need my mommy!  dialing.........

Until later, happy baking...... if there is such a thing,   (I wouldn't know.)

Vicki