Baking by Feel is (finally) here
so let's get baked (or, you know, baking)
Y’all: my lil baby book is finally out in the world - happy birthday, Baking by Feel! I’m so excited for you to choose your own baking adventures based on whatever you’re feeling today (reminder: there are no good or bad feelings!) If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can grab one by clicking the button below:
Join me for a celebratory virtual bake-along this Sunday 10/30 at 2:00pmCT - we’ll be making my Pumpkin Pie Bars recipe together and talking about the feeling of embarrassment! Full book tour/events list here.
And: I made you some playlists to set the mood for each chapter, check em out here: happy, sad, mad, anxious, hopeful
a new recipe, fresh out of the oven:
Spiced Candied Pecans
¼ cup (50g) light brown sugar
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large egg white
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon water
3 cups (340g) pecan halves
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, kosher salt, black pepper, ginger, coriander, and cayenne.
In a large bowl, vigorously whisk the egg white, vanilla, and water together until foamy (about 15 seconds). Add the spice mixture and whisk until thoroughly combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the pecans so that they’re evenly coated with the mixture.
Arrange the pecans in a single layer on one of your prepared baking sheets. Bake at 300 degrees F for 30 minutes, turning the pecans over with a metal spatula after 10 minutes and 20 minutes.
When the pecans come out of the oven, transfer them to your second parchment paper lined baking sheet and arrange in a single layer to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
sunday secrets from the cutting room floor:
“I’ve got the guy, the house, the kids, the job and am wondering, ‘now what?’”
“As a recently engaged woman, I can already feel my solo identity being chipped away at”
“My (now) ex cheated on me 3 weeks ago and I’m now feeling oddly attracted to his friend”
“Made it all the way through medical school and hate being a doctor”
“I have recently become invisibly disabled. I’m struggling how it’s effecting my sex life & body image”
“Just found out my summer love has a girlfriend”
“Sometimes I regret getting my dogs”
“Getting my PhD and proud to be fem in stem but also want to marry rich & never work :/”
“I came out as ace to my mom today”
“I think I’m addicted to my vibrator”
weekly abortion affirmation:
I support you and trust you. You know what’s best for you, and other people’s opinions are irrelevant.
my current fave pic of Otie:
some rambling feelings about writing a book about feelings:
Not to be dramatic, but it feels like I’m living one of my younger selves’ wildest dreams. So why don’t I feel it? When I opened the heavy box unceremoniously dropped on my stoop, I didn’t love them. We didn’t *bond*. The moment fell flat. It felt like the morning after your birthday.
But then, as the many hours spent wrestling with myself in therapy taught me, I turned my focus to my younger selves.
5-year-old me inspired a love of baked goods in all future me-s. She smelled the deep (molasses-y, as she found out later) fragrance of the brown sugar. And heard that brown sugar drop into the bowl with a gentle thud. She tasted the gritty sweetness of licking cookie dough directly off a metal beater. She also developed a healthy (manageable!) fear of a hot oven.
Next, there’s early elementary school me who loved visiting her local library (shoutout to the Jefferson City Library staff circa 2001). That version of me liked to spend her weekday mornings cozied up under the pasteled ceilinged, child-scaled indoor pergola, reading books about treehouses and magic. No, wait - it’s the Magic Tree House series. That version of me was a solid Ravenclaw. I was going to become an academic (light academia, the kind with autumn leaves). That smaller me assumed (picture her rolling her eyes) I would be a published author (good guess, mini Becca!).
Then there’s 12-year-old me. Looking at books. Specifically: looking at books in an intensely air-conditioned and aggressively (yet, also nicely) fragranced Borders. The circa 2005 version of me wanted to be somebody. She was confident. She knew she could do it (it being whatever it is her grown up self would ultimately choose to do).
23-year-old me desperately wanted to be seen (for herself - as she actually was). She wanted to be able to put her weight on things, but most of the time she couldn’t.
29-year-old me was tired. She spent the past couple of years turning over often sharp and sometimes painful stones, learning that intellectualizing feelings is not the same thing as feeling those feelings, and reshaping her very thought patterns. She did some really heavy lifting.
Hi, it’s Present me. I’m looking at the picture of 7-year-old me I keep nestled among the detritus magnetized to my fridge. This version of me (she happens to be the academia-loving elementary schooler) inspires a warm, glowing, unconditional self-compassion that I typically deny myself. I’m so excited for her. And (finally, tentatively, begrudgingly) I’m so excited for me.
xoxo,
your fave becca