Photo by Meaghan Coltrain
For weeks, my Facebook wall has looked like I was scrolling through the Magnolia Bakery or King Arthur website, with pictures of pies, chunky cookies, brownies, buttercream iced cakes, and bubbly sourdough starters. My Instagram's filled with such hashtags as #coronabaking, #procrastibaking, #stressbaking, #comfortbaking, #quarantinecookies, and #isolationloaf.
Everyone I know has collectively agreed to pursue a newfound love of baking. But why?
A cursory theory would be that people are simply bored in their isolation or hungry for sweets and carbs, but baking is not an impulsive, arbitrary act. Baking is wholly intentional. From the first moment that those double chocolate chunk cookies pop into your mind to the moment when you pull them hot from the oven, you've been realizing a series of precise, deliberate steps.
Anyone who's baked anything from a peanut butter cookie to a loaf of sourdough will tell you that baking is a soothing, comforting act. The simple act of baking is not only pleasurable, but it makes you feel purposeful and creative. In that way, baking can be seen as a kind of self-care.
“Baking is a mindful task, which focuses your attention on the here and now, and that can help relieve stress,” says clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Pamela Nickels. (She also happens to be my mom and the best baker I know). “Right now, many people feel anxiety stemming from a sense of powerlessness over an uncertain future. It’s helpful to take part in tasks like baking that have a tangible beginning, middle, and end, and offer an opportunity for growth. And completing a task can not only offer a sense of accomplishment but agency as well.”
Photo by Beth Sorrell
Photo by Beth Sorrell
For Beth Sorrell, a clinical scientist at Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital, returning to baking was instinctive. “I realized after 9/11 that baking was very therapeutic for me,” she says.
Even while continuing to work full-time, Sorrell has been baking items such as crusty, golden whole wheat boules and chocolate-peanut butter-Nutella brownies with sea salt, multiple times a week. Doing so helps her mitigate stress.
“I really enjoy preparing my mise en place and everything I’m going to need to make my recipe," she says. "I find the control and certainty in what I’m doing very comforting. Even though baking is exact, I still improvise a little bit with flavors, but I am careful when I do. Right now, if I were to screw something up, I can’t just run to the store to buy more ingredients to fix it.”
Meaghan Coltrain, executive pastry chef for Niche Food Group, believes that baking is comforting during stressful times because so many people connect emotions to food. “I think memories directly align with feeling comforted by baking family recipes, childhood favorites, and even guilty pleasures.”
As you might imagine, Coltrain has been baking quite a bit during quarantine. “Most recently, I baked a new banana bread recipe that turned out like a dream,” she says. Other items include dark chocolate cake, pear ginger pie, lemon cream cake, and homemade pizza.
Baking with her daughters has also been important to Coltrain throughout the quarantine. “With my daughters, Delilah and Ruby, we not only bake, but we dive into ingredients and how they work together," she says. "Delilah likes to look at baking like a science experiment.” Coltrain suggests that “when you bake with your kids, let them be curious into how baking works.”
Not only does baking provide comfort and an opportunity to shift one's focus to a pleasant distraction with a predictable outcome, but it also fosters a sense of community.
“I always have the intention of sharing my pastries when I bake,” says Agi Groff, who, with her husband, Aaron, owns Sucrose bakery in St. Charles. “I never bake cookies or a pie or pound cake and imagine I’m going to be the only one to enjoy it," she says. "I bake because it is going to make other people happy.”
Groff has been baking clafoutis during the quarantine as well as such items as muffins and pancakes with her daughter, Alina. “Baking is pleasurable not only because of the process but because it is an opportunity to share something delicious with someone else," she says. "It is an opportunity to bring someone both a happy experience now and create a happy memory for them in the future.”
