[Insert some copyrighted music that might imply danger, and highways. Or one specific highway. You know, fill in the blanks.]
The stakes are only as high as your rise.
Okay, okay. I’d say that I’m done with bad jokes, but I’d hate to start all of this out by lying to you. My name is Erin. I’m about to embark on a baking challenge. And I’m inviting you to join me.
About once a year, my husband challenges me to these sorts of things. Last year, it was the Great British Bake Off Challenge, where I lovingly, sometimes horrifically, and always with a plethora of the sort of colorful language that would absolutely get me banned from the show itself (you know, if I wasn’t American and could participate – yes I looked it up), recreated one of the challenges from each episode. Some were more successful than others – the Dobos Torte will go down as one of the most time consuming, pain in the ass projects that I remain the most proud of, but I tried to use a turkey baster to fill my donuts with creme and that went, well, exactly as well as you’re picturing that went – but regardless of success or not, at the end of the day, I loved it.
Baking has become almost a religious experience for me. Sometimes the sort of religious experience that you read about involving self-flagellation, but a religious experience none the less. It’s meditative: it’s a space where all I have to focus on is my work. It’s blind faith: that I didn’t somehow fuck it up along the way. It’s sometimes something I dread getting up early to do.
Anyway, this year’s baking challenge has been to complete all of the recipes in Christina Tosi’s Momofuki Milk Bar cookbook.
In her book, Christina says something about the people they work with being called “hardbodies.”
“Hardbody is a term we use at Milk Bar to describe a person who goes above and beyond. […] A hardbody approaches each recipe and task with a sense of humor. A hardbody keeps cool and creative. A hardbody knows there’s always a brilliant recipe waiting to be invented with leftover Ritz couch or overproofed mother dough.”
Christina Tosi, Momofuku Milk Bar
So when my husband, in jest, threw out the suggestion to name this blog Welcome to the ThunderDough, I knew that it just fit. I mean, I workshopped it with a bazillion friends because I have anxiety so no matter how right I am, I always question it, but I knew it fit regardless.
After all, if I was to complete this challenge and compare my recipes to the fantastic ones created by one of the most creative, solid voices in the pastry world at the moment, I’d have to be a Hardbody, and laugh about it when things inevitably wind up messed up. And where else do you send a hardbody, but to the THUNDERDOUGH?
So I hope you’ll join me on this experiment. There will be fails, there will be successes. There will be laughter, there will likely be tears.
Welcome to the ThunderDough 