Turning the Next Page: Cooking Adventures

It has been a while since I have posted anything, and I think it's about time I get back into the blogging mode. Even though this study abroad experience is for a much different purpose than when I was in Ireland (travel versus actually living), I have had no shortage of new experiences. Since you all already know that I love food (it's not too hard to figure out), I thought I'd share my experiences making food in Germany.

I very much enjoy cooking, but especially baking. I love to see how the batter changes with every ingredient and how it becomes closer and closer to the final product. I have never tried to bake anything extremely complicated at home or here in Germany, so I usually have very few problems. In Germany, however, even the simplest recipes here can be tricky. New country, new challenges.

Since arriving, I have baked a birthday cake, chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake (once as a cake, once as cupcakes) and pumpkin bread (twice). Out of the six times I've baked, only once was the result close to what it would have been in the US. It was about a year-and-a-half ago when I became interested in baking and cooking and since then I have learned much about the culinary arts; usually what I learn is what to do better. In the last two-and-a-half months in Germany, everything I've learned has been what not to do.

Cookies, cakes and quick breads are perhaps the easiest desserts to bake, but as I have recently learned, even the easiest of recipes can easily be messed up. This is how to mess-up a recipe in Germany:

1. The ingredients: What is rapeseed oil anyway? And is it that different than sunflower oil? They both look the same. Why can't I just use the age-old standby, vegetable oil? Oh, that's because they don't have that here, or, at least not to my intermediate-level-German mind's knowledge. Speaking of ingredients they don't have--Can I have some All-Purpose Flour please? Flour in German is categorized by numbers from 400 and above and needless to say, these numbers mean absolutely nothing to me. Grocery shopping usually goes like this:
"Um, excuse me?" I say to a sales-clerk that has no idea what she is getting into by talking to me.
Me: "What do these numbers...uh...mean? "
Sales-clerk: "They are different types of flour."
Me: "OK, well, I am making...I mean, I make a cake [that's correct German grammar translated into English]. Which..um...flour? should I use?"
Sales-clerk: "Uh-huh. OK. 450 is good."
Me: "So, that's, uhh, good for cakes, and cookies...and et cetera? I don't want to make bread"
SC: "Exactly."
Me: "OK, great, thanks. Now, do you have baking powder?"
SL: "Of course we have baking powder."
Me: "OK, right. Well, actually I don't need baking powder. It's only called that in English, but it's something different--It's American baking powder, but it is called something different here. Not baking powder. We use it for...like...cake? I don't actually know how it's different."
SC: "Well we have baking powder."
Me: "Is that all?"
SC: "I'm not sure what you mean..."
Me (flustered and red): "Um, yeah, me either, actually. OK, no problem. Thanks for the help. Oh by the way, do you have brown sugar??"

As you can see, grocery shopping for ingredients here can be an endless cycle of confusion. I did eventually find American baking powder, but like most things, I usually have to have a very long and confused conversation with someone before we come to a conclusion. When I made carrot cake a very similar situation happened. Try looking for creamed cheese in Germany--It will be a scavenger hunt:
First, dairy aisle.
Second, look for cheese.
Third, is it the hard cheese or soft cheese aisle? If it's soft, you're in the wrong aisle (I know that does not make any sense).
Four, check to see what the fat content is.
Five, Oh you found Philadelphia Cream Cheese! Cool! But sorry, it only comes in flavors, and vegetable cream cheese frosting just won't taste good. Go back to step four.
Six, you found something like it? Awesome. Now how much fat content does it actually have? Only 60 percent--sorry no good.
And so on.

At the age of 22, I'm fairly used to grocery stores and what they sell. Moving to another country, though, sets you back by about 15 years. I am that seven year-old again, who, when her mom sends her to find a food, has to go back to the aisle three or four times before finding the right thing. Or I am that strange person who spends way too much time in front of the same display, looking much too engrossed by the bags of flour.

2. The measurements: As Americans, we know that our measuring system is pretty messed up. I have asked myself so many times since arriving in Germany why we are the only country who just could not accept the world-standard of measurements. Did our country's organizers realize what a disservice they were doing to the future of their country's people? Ask any science major and I'm sure they'll have plenty to say about it. Included in this measuring system is how we measure ingredients. I brought along with me from home a liquid measuring cup, but sadly I am lacking dry ingredient cups and spoons. That leaves me to deal with the European strategy for baking--Measuring with a scale. To make this more interesting, my host mother's scale is not digital and was probably produced in the 1970s or 80s. I seriously doubt its accuracy. To bake something here, I have to convert the recipe to the best of my non-science ability (thank goodness for AllRecipes.com and its conversion scale) and then measure as accurately as possible on a scale, whose most accurate measurement is increments of 20 grams. The scale is not too much of a problem until I want to measure only 8 grams of the important ingredients--such as baking powder/soda. The problem with a non-digital scale that only measures in increments of 20 grams is that, when it comes to measuring a very important and exact 8 grams of leavening agent, the scale hardly registers there is anything there at all. To add to the fun, the little packets of the baking soda/powder aren't always marked with how much the contents weigh. Being completely not used to the metric system added to my lackluster equipment make for some very questionable guesswork.

4. The oven Celsius + Crazy oven settings depicted only in pictures (what, may I ask, do just two lines mean??) + non-American pans = More guesswork.

5. Not following the recipe. OK, I'll admit, I can't blame the new grocery stores, measuring system or crazy oven settings for this one. This is just my age-old problem of not completely reading the directions coming back to haunt me. It still doesn't help my cooking cause, though.

So, yes, it is true that most of what I have baked here was either too moist, such as the pumpkin bread whose consistency was somewhere between bread and very solid gelatin; too dry, such as the cookies, which were baked with a close relative of bread flour and raw sugar instead of brown sugar; or just completely different, like the cream cheese frosting, which would more probably be called "incredibly-sugary-yogurt." However, there is also the occasional triumph, such as the carrot cake I made last week: It had the proper amount of ingredients, perfect cake consistency and frosting that was almost as solid as it should be, thanks to the most fat-packed cream cheese I could find. It is always embarrassing for a cook to make something that does not turn out right. It can be even more embarrassing when said cook is trying to prove to her host family that she does know how to cook and does know how to properly combine ingredients. Therefore, the small successes are even better and of course, sweet (get it?). Cooking in general can always be interesting, but I now know that cooking in a new country is not just interesting, but undoubtedly lands itself in the "adventure" category.