From Choux Paste to Christmas

by Elizabeth Kelly

Have you ever noticed that the more you need to successfully cook something, the less likely you are to succeed? You plan, you prep, you read and re-read your recipe, you even check on-line for other recipes to get a good idea of how long it will take, and still, you end up with something you are not sure you even recognize.

I have been taking a baking class. While I have baked many things over many years, took a cake decorating courses, filled my cookie tin countless times for my kids, I haven't baked much recently. I thought it was time to get back into it. Plus, I wanted to expand my baking knowledge.

I did learn, and along the way I made some amazing Date and Walnut Muffins, added fresh herbs to the tea biscuit recipe for a tasty alternative to the traditional, and surprised myself with custards.

Then it was cookie week. I can't remember not baking cookies, nor having any directions as to how to assemble them. It was something shown to me by my mother and grandmothers. Here I could shine, and not struggle too much - or so I thought.

Even as I was making them, I was listing the mistakes. I hoped I was wrong, that I would pull it together in the end and they would work out. It didn't. I actually failed at cookies. My shame is such that I can't even talk about it. I just want put the embarrassing incident behind me and move on to Choux Paste. There I would redeem myself.

I tried 4 times before I was successful at making choux paste; almost 2 dozen eggs, more than a pound of butter, and I don't know how much flour. I washed and dried the dishes between each failure and kept going. It seemed the more I tried to succeed, the less successful I was.

With every attempt, memories of cooking Christmas dinner came floating through my mind. It amused me that I equated choux paste - eclairs and cream puffs, to Christmas dinner, but I did. That determination to succeed. Every year I was going to get it right, dinner cooked perfectly, on time, the perfect cook and hostess, turning out a wonderful meal. Every year the disappointment that I hadn't, that something went wrong and we are barely eating before it's time for everyone to go home.

I did succeed in making some passable eclairs, just as I always succeed in making Christmas dinner, and as with Christmas Dinner they were good even if I had to wait a bit longer than I thought to eat them.