I don’t often buy recipe books or magazines (though I do subscribe to Cooking Light). I get most of my recipes and ideas for concocting my own fare by watching Food Network and surfing the Internet. Last year, though, I couldn’t pass up Martha Stewart’s Holiday Cookies special publication. I found myself having to improvise immensely.
I had already heard that many of Martha’s recipes weren’t for the novice cook – that assumptions are made that you can “read” the mind of the writer. It’s true. Hsiao-Ching Chou wrote about her dilemma’s while trying to follow creative recipes from the publication, and I agree wholeheartedly. Martha’s offerings tend to use rare tools and hard-to-find grocery items. It makes what seems like it should be funa and creative baking a nightmare of a chore.
I finally narrowed down my cookie gifts to include only one of the magazine’s ideas – passing up some of the more intuitive golden brown delicacies – the gingerbread snowflake. Mine, of course, looks nothing like the cover (I hunted for months for a proper cookie cutter and came up empty handed). People loved them just the same.
Even with this single recipe I had to substitute the icing and the sanding sugar for my own ideas using an egg-based Royal Icing and decorative sugar crystals. Still, they were very tasty.
Would I buy another of Martha’s baking or cooking publications? Yes, but mostly for the ideas. I have more often than not found myself having to substitute something – whether it be ingredients, shapes or formations, or even cooking times. I do find it a shame, though, for even not-so-novice cooks. Martha is supposed to be a teacher of creativity and deliciousness, her goal being to instill these things into everyday households. Difficult, sometimes vague instructions, and recipes that use hard-to-find ingredients make the task virtually impossible.