"When people talk about baking, they often focus on the final product. The tender cookies, the domed muffins, the rich brownies. But the real draw of baking starts long before you roll out the pie crust. Baking can be many things: an act of creation, connection, control. There's something comforting about the structure of it: the measuring, the stirring, the transformation of a handful of ingredients into something delicious."
"Even if life doesn't always feel orderly, follow the recipe and things should turn out as planned. It's like therapy, with a present at the end. "Baking is how I best connect with the world around me - making something wonderful and sharing it with others and seeing how much joy they receive from something I made with my own hands," says chef Joanne Chang, co-owner of Flour Bakery in Boston and an author of baking cookbooks. "It's a way to make the world a bit sweeter one cookie, cake, pie at a time.""
Baking transforms simple pantry staples into comforting food through precise, repeatable techniques. The structured process provides predictability and a sense of control that can soothe anxiety. Baking functions as creative expression, social connection, and cultural tradition by producing shareable treats that generate joy. The activity can be explicitly therapeutic or cathartic, including practices like "rage baking" to channel anger. Baking also engages intellectual curiosity about ingredient behavior and technique, rewarding observation and experimentation. Practitioners value both the sensory comforts of warmth and aroma and the satisfaction of mastering technique.
Read at Boston Herald
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