As Anna Olson introduces Back to Baking, an enticing collection of “200 timeless recipes to bake, share, and enjoy,” she reveals the creative process of writing a cookbook.
Something about Anna Olson as a Pastry Chef
Of Slavic origin, Anna Olson was born in Georgia (USA) and grew up in Ontario (Canada). Kindly assertive, yet self-defined as shy, she could be one of your friends although few of them might be TV hosts or authors, but some might be chefs.
Olson became a pastry chef because baking was a stress release, she says. The more stressed she was, the more she baked. After baking her way through Political Sciences and Law, she became a broker until a doomed day in the stock market sent her home with the irrepressible urge to handle kitchen tools and baking ingredients. As she weighed, whisked and whipped, she had a ha-ha moment, as Oprah would say.
In Back to Baking Olson offers original recipes in spite of six previously published books. As she talks about it, you quickly realize that writing a cookbook is not much about pen and paper. It is about inventing new combinations of flavors, re-testing and re-adjusting recipes, and a laborious process of scribbling and editing. A process that must be done with integrity, and be driven by passion, especially for 200 recipes developed over a period of ten years.
Back to Baking: The Book
Olson explains that writing such a book is about choosing a theme, creating an outline, and keeping in mind that the project must appeal to home bakers while meeting the business vision of her publisher. Then the pastry chef can let inspiration flow. When all is done, holding the book for the first time is an intense gratification.
The book cover itself is an eye-pleaser with its tranquil background of a pastel blue sky peaking through a white window-frame, and the nostalgic touch of Olson’s lilac blouse, as if to link to the “Back” within the title. She also holds an apparently inoffensive spatula, as if to hint that “A kitchen is not a democracy,” her comment to Taste magazine. In the end, it is all about the dash of conquest in her smile and its subliminal message: Baking is a piece of cake.
As expected, the first pages are dedicated to the unavoidable introduction, yet these are attention catchers with their cluster of small banners, in pastel colors: Dairy-FREE, egg-FREE, gluten-FREE, LOW-fat, LOW-sugar, and foundation RECIPE. The message is clear: All recipes consider diet restrictions and preferences. Furthermore, the book is a guide for all levels of skills, including the first-batch-of-brownies-baker.
Olson shares new baking techniques and judicious tips to make life in the kitchen much easier. Like all pastry chefs she insists that precise measurements are essential in baking. She even recommends checking the accuracy of your scale, and the volume of your measuring cups. She also indicates that to freeze or not to freeze baked goods depends on their sugar content: Sugar gets wet even when refrigerated.
The Story of the Recipes: The Battle of the Yield and the Bane of the Baking Time
Although Anna Olson is the host of the TV show Fresh on the Food Network, you wonder how she operates in the privacy of her own kitchen. Yet, you quickly get the idea that like any creative process, baking is a matter of focus.
And the discussion continues in the reminiscing mode of such a day: "So, today shall I create a cake, muffins, or a tiramisu? Playing the part, she chooses one and recites a basic recipe with eight egg yolks, two cups of cream, and chocolate. As the interest of her audience rises like a soufflé, she recalls the brainstorming steps that will somehow entice her readers “back to baking.”
A further step is about the choice of texture: Will it be sticky or creamy? And, should vanilla enhance its taste? How about incorporating fruit? Cranberries? Ah, beware, because cranberries float...so, fruit compote might be a better ingredient. As the inflections of her voice go up and down and her hands twirl in and out, her face expresses how she feels about what she says.
Olson explains that her recipes often improved from questions she received from her own baking mishaps. Indeed, the process is not over because now comes the battle of the yield. “Between 12 and18 cookies” is no acceptable entry in a cookbook. Furthermore, there is the unavoidable bane of the baking time. Ah, ovens can have their own issues, which greatly complicate the fate of a recipe. For this reason, clues let the user know that even an apparently overly thin batter might be just right.
Women as Professional Chefs
Anna Olson learned culinary arts in Vail, Colorado, at the Johnson and Wales University, and practiced for 15 years at restaurants in the United States. At the time, line cooks had to make desserts. Since she already had her own collection of recipes, Olson took the opportunity to do what she liked while getting away from the notorious kitchen conflicts.
In 1995, she returned to Ontario to work at the Inn on the Twenty, where she met and got married to her future business partner, Executive Chef Michael Olson.
As a pastry chef, she learned the hard way. First, physically, as bowls hold up to 60 quarts, and pastry-work starts early morning. Then, psychologically, as culinary arts operate in an industry in which women need to be extremely resilient and driven. Besides, Olson herself learned that “eighty per cent of being a pastry chef is to save a disaster from happening.” From this, it becomes evident that a good cookbook is essential to the home baker.
Source
- KidSafe Project Society fundraiser : Anna Olson on “Writing about Food: Speaking of Taste Buds.” Vancouver UBC campus. 2011.
- Taste magazine (BC Liquorstores). Celebrity Chef: Anna Olson. Winter 2010.
Marie-Claude Arnott - Marie-Claude Arnott writes about topics that interest her, from experience and with passion.
