OF A GOLDEN AGE

Oh, no! Mark L. Schiller, president of the Duncan Hines grocery division:

“When we talk to people who bake with mixes, they consider themselves every bit the scratch baker as someone who doesn’t use a mix,” Mr. Schiller said. “We have hundreds and hundreds of professional bakers and professional bakeries that use Duncan Hines.”

This casts the $2.50 bakery cupcake in a new light, I reckon.

I love to bake, and the funny thing about a cake mix is how little time it really does save — maybe five to ten minutes of measuring and stirring. Maybe. This weekend I found a wealth of spring-themed Funfetti cake mix and frosting on sale at my favorite Jewel, so I bought enough to bring cupcakes for my about fifty coworkers. By far the most laborious part is scooping batter into cupcake cups, baking them, cooling them, then frosting, and I even used a pastry bag to speed up the frosting. My wee oven can only handle about 12 cupcakes at a time.

But I think Mr. Schiller is wrong — people who bake mixes are NOT “scratch bakers” any more than people who can heat up a frozen skillet meal are home cooks. It’s a different game altogether.

To say I even “veganized” this recipe from BabyZone is a joke because all that meant was swapping one egg for an Ener-G egg. I also used yellow squash instead of zucchini, and left the skin on because why not?

1 Ener-G egg (1.5 tsp powder to 2 tbsp water)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 cups uncooked oats (not the quick kind)
1 cup finely grated yellow squash (skin on)

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix Ener-G egg separately then beat in oil and sugars. I used a rubber spatula rather than an electric mixer.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Mix this into the wet stuff. At this point it will likely not even remotely resemble any kind of dough but do not be discouraged.

Add the oats and yellow squash and try to mix it if you want but I used my hands.

Drop it by tablespoons onto a baking sheet lined with nonstick foil or parchment paper. Bake for 12 minutes (check for done at 10). When you pull them out, they should seem still a little bit soft but be a nice golden brown.

Results are chewy and light. The flavor is subtle, they aren’t overly sweet, and two people in my office who typically dislike oatmeal cookies say that these are good. And as usual, no one suspects they’re vegan.

You could totally add raisins if you wanted, just set them to soak in rum or flavored liqueur of your choice while you make the dough. Add them in last and mix gently.

The total number of calories the way I made it was 2,301 and the recipe turned out 27 cookies, so each one had 85 calories. With the squash, oatmeal, and whole wheat flour, there are a ton of vitamins and minerals and also a lot of fiber, though of course you’d never guess it eating them.

A few weeks ago my friend and former high-shool teacher Kelly wrote an intense, wonderful account of her favorite cookie recipe and its influence on her relationship with her future husband. Here is my favorite part:

Men my age tended to be freshly divorced, pudgy, cap-wearing, and goateed.

Then today my best ladyfriend Emily wrote about a similarly beloved cookie recipe and, since she is a bigtime international politics dork, took it in a make-cookies-not-war direction:

These cookies will win hearts and minds. You could subdue the nastiest of people, prevent unrest, and end wars with these cookies.

Kelly’s cookie of choice is Nigella Lawson’s spin on death by chocolate. Emily’s is a chocolate-coffee variety from Gourmet. Both, apparently, bring people together. The moral is that you should go forth, make cookies, live long, and prosper.

I finally found my cookie sheet: it was in the freezer.

• I can’t tell a lie, I got a little misty during Conan O’Brien’s final New York show.

• Diana asked how my vegan whoopie pies turned out. Answer: Awesome. I filled half with peanut butter frosting and half with pink raspberry cream cheese frosting.

• And speaking of clocks, this one is real cool.

• Chicago News Bench published a really interesting perspective on the Nigerian Kitchen disaster I posted yesterday, because its author actually ran into and talked to a guy who seems to own the place.

• Hilarious incongruous item for the day: A restaurant called Yia Yia’s Euro Bistro located in . . . Wichita, Kansas. Their website’s front page has this startling revelation: “Across the ocean, there is a continent called Europe.” Close thine treacherous mouth, round-earther!

• After last week’s successful cupcakes, this week I’m making chocolate whoopie pies with cream cheese filling. The first round is in the oven now, results TBA.

• Relatedly, Online Alarm Clock is a great egg timer for those who have none (me).

• Since Nathan’s new roommate has a microwave, Nathan agreed to let me borrow his microwave on a long-term loan, which means — yes, it’s true — I’ve finally caught up with the 1970s.

• After downloading the files a number of months ago, I finally upgraded my copy of WordPress, and the new interface is super foxy. Highly recommended.

Talking with friends last night I realized that the vegan cupcakes I made the other day are made of all shelf-stable ingredients that, especially once baked, will take a long time to go bad or stale if kept in an airtight container.

In which your faithful servant bakes and bakes. I reckon the people at work think I have some insane domestic bent. Pictures from my cell phone, please note the dolphin, shark, turtle, and fish sprinkles:

Food life does not offer many options or much flexibility to the lactose intolerant. I’d go vegan if I could get enough protein into my absurdly fragile digestive system (plus, soy triggers migraines, gross), so I stick with poultry, which finishes a distant third in acres of flora required. This means I read a lot of vegan blogs (if you visit my blog proper, scan the link list), so today on an inkling I made Kittee‘s vegan risotto.

To call it vegan risotto is something of a misnomer, because the process mirrors “regular” risotto and requires nothing more special than vegetable broth in place of chicken. I sauteed carrots and garlic, added rice to the cooking oil, then added broth a little at a time and kept stirring. After a while I added chopped mini yellow bell peppers and crimini mushrooms cut into fourths. The whole deal took about a half hour and it turned out really beautifully, and all the vegetables have nutritional value to balance out the starchiness vacuousness of the rice.

In cooking news from the opposite end of the spectrum, over the weekend I made chocolate chunk muffins via this rich, indulgent recipe at Epicurious. I made them dairy-free except for the minute amount of milk in the semi-sweet chocolate, and you could likely swap that out for something else. Also, I learned a handy substitute for whole milk: 3 parts nondairy milk (or skim milk even) to 1 part oil, blended together.

As a direct result of spending my formative years in a cultural desert (even that misleading website makes me want to hurl), I now read, think about, and watch shows about food quite a bit. And now that I live on my own and have shed a lot of the collegiate junk from my diet — though not all, by any means — I eat more fresh and less pre-prepared.

Grocery Guy recently linked to this New York Times piece (published four days before my graduation, serendipitously) on stocking your kitchen. Mark Bittman humbles boomer foodies eager to drop thousands on kitchen tools. In the article he also gives this glorious list of unnecessaries:

“YOU can live without these 10 kitchen items:

“BREAD MACHINE You can buy mediocre bread easily enough, or make the real thing without much practice.

“MICROWAVE If you do a lot of reheating or fast (and damaging) defrosting, you may want one. But essential? No. And think about that counter space!

“STAND MIXER Unless you’re a baking fanatic, it takes up too much room to justify it. A good whisk or a crummy handheld mixer will do fine.

“BONING/FILLETING KNIVES Really? You’re a butcher now? Or a fishmonger? If so, go ahead, by all means. But I haven’t used my boning knife in years. (It’s pretty, though.)

“WOK Counterproductive without a good wok station equipped with a high-B.T.U. burner. (There’s a nice setup at Bowery Restaurant Supply for $1,400 if you have the cash and the space.)

“STOCKPOT The pot you use for boiling pasta will suffice, until you start making gallons of stock at a time.

“PRESSURE COOKER It’s useful, but do you need one? No.

“ANYTHING MADE OF COPPER More trouble than it’s worth, unless you have a pine-paneled wall you want to decorate.

“RICE COOKER Yes, if you eat rice twice daily. Otherwise, no.

“COUNTERTOP CONVECTION OVEN, ROTISSERIE, OR ‘ROASTER’ Only if you’re a sucker for late-night cooking infomercials.”