Lia,

I am with you about baking.. I'm hopeless at it.. I am a Crock Pot cook and the day they discover how to bake a cake in a Crock Pot is the day I begin baking..

Sorry Nancy, but you can bake a cake in a crockpot. Just Google for recipes and you will be good to go.

Hi Lia,
The best cakes I've ever had were those of my German mother-in-law: butter cream torta, apple cake, kings cake. I can imagine what you are up against! But can they collage? Probably not.

Baking, "they" tell me is an exact science. Well then, no wonder I'm not very good at it...
On my birthday, however, I continue to bake my own Grandmother's 1,2,3,4 cake from scratch...I (alone) absolutely love this recipe. Too bad...It is MY birthday right???

Oh how I remember my grandmothers beautiful walnut Birthday cake for all Birthdays. How she did it on a wood stove is a mastery I will never comprehend...ofcourse, when ever I saw one on my special day I would think, "not another one of those"...today I would give all for just one more "walnut Birthday cake." Thanks Lia for the memory..

Lia,

Sharry has a very good point. You can create beautiful collages and the fantastic bakers probably cannot.

I have been the official historian of my family for more than 50 years.I have taken beautiful pictures of everyone in almost every stage of their life. In recent years, since the Digital age, I have not only been taking the pictures, but printing them in various sizes for everyone and putting the pictures on CD's or Video DVD's for the family's enjoyment at gatherings.

Now, Lia and Sharry, believe it or not, at these gatherings, the person who baked the apple pie gets many more compliments than I receive for my pictures.

Dee, thanks for the tip. I will Google "Crock pot Baking" and see what happens..

Maybe I'll take the Crock Pot cake to the next family party and let THEM take the pictures...

Nancy, I had to laugh at your last statement. You go, gal, find a deviously delicious chocolate cake crock pot recipe and let them drool.

Claudean, my grandmother could bake anything, but it was her pies and angel cake that were the best of all. Can you imagine creating anything on a wood stove? I used to visit a friend's cottage that had a wooden stove and we managed to keep the cottage warm and boil water, but that was it.

Clair Jean, as an electrical engineer and, presently, a researcher, you would thing I'd have no excuse for being such a miserable baker. I simply can not follow recipies.

Sharry, a mother of a friend of mine makes butter cream torta, apple cake, and a cheese cake before going off to mass on Sunday. When the family and house guest (me) come home, we breakfast on strong coffee and cake. This is still a tradition in many southern German towns and villages.

Dee, I think you've opened up an new world for Nancy. She'll have to write a story about her first crock pot cake. Did you hear that, Nancy?

Yes, Lia, I heard!!!!

The cake didn't turn out so well so now I am writing my next story

HOW I MADE ICE CREAM IN MY CROCK POT

Now just a minute about wood stoves. You don't know what you're missing.

For four years, I had only a wood stove in my country house so I had no choice but to learn to cook on it.

First of all, there's a huge cooking flat surface, hot near the woodbox, cool farther away - so all I had to do was shove pots here and there depending on what heat I needed. And when company was there, I could fit eight or ten pots, if necessary, on the cook surface.

As to the oven, it's only a matter of learning how to maintain a steady temperature in the wood box.

My first attempt, a banana bread, ended up burnt on top, raw on the bottom which "fired" me up to master that stove. After all, I figured, mankind has cooked on fire longer than electricity or gas.

Once I got the hang of it, I was baking bread from scratch - white, whole wheat, pumpernickel, sour dough, challah, etc. every weekend - so good I've never been able to duplicate them in modern ovens. It's something about a wood fire that makes the difference - seems to be so with pizza too.

Cakes? Well, I never tried, but I'm wondering if you're good at cake baking in a modern oven, how much better it might be in a wood-fired oven.

Ronni, my Italian mother-in-law just told me a story the other day of the villages communal wood oven. The best bread ever came out of that oven. Yet, as you say, learning to cook or bake is not for the weak of heart.

Nancy, I didn't realise that crock pots "did" cold. We're waiting for that story to be told, for sure.

Lia, I commiserate with you. Baking skills are not my forte. When I made pie crust it usually ended in a temper tantrum because the dough would stick to the rolling pin and I always had to patch it to make it fill the pan.

I apologize for copying your theme, but you have given me inspiration for another story. I shall write it now. Thank you for sharing your story.

After reading the article and comments, I'm smiling. It's so interesting what a question can do for our brains...let me see what can I bake, make, cook or whatever if it comes from my heart..they'll love it. Great post, and great thinking.

My best,
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
www.grammology.com