Opinion | How Hong Kong caught the home baking bug, and a white-bread city became sourdough central

Every time I turn on my TV, there’s yet another cake competition to create the most elaborate, gravity-defying gateau with the most unusual frosting flavour.

Muffins fresh out of the oven. Home baking has taken off in Hong Kong in recent years. Photo: Shutterstock

Online, the algorithms have determined I have an interest in food and cooking, so my feed is filled with baking content for recipes and hacks with hyperbole ranging from “the world’s best ever cake” to “so easy you won’t believe it” to promises of pastries that will “change my life”.

To be frank, that’s never going to happen.

A home baker applies the finishing touches to a cake. Photo: Shutterstock

Firstly, I’m not a baker. I don’t have an oven in Hong Kong – my kitchen is a little small for that, so baking is automatically out, although there are YouTubers who want to convince me I can still make awesome bread using my air fryer. We’ll see.

Secondly, I cook but I don’t have the patience to bake. I’ll whack this into the pan, toss that with the sauce, but it’s too annoying to measure out every ingredient exactly.

My girlfriend, however, is the opposite. She enjoys the meticulous mixing of flour and butter, the precision of spreading frosting, and finely presenting her cakes like a fussy couturier.

I think it’s great that people are now so interested in baking. I remember a time – as late as the 1990s – when it was really difficult to find loaves here, other than really soft buns, dinner rolls and white sandwich bread.

There’s nothing wrong with these things from the local bakeries, whose real specialities are pineapple buns, egg tarts and curry beef puffs. But Hongkongers generally had little exposure to the diversity of breads that could be available.
Traditional Hong Kong bakeries such as Honolulu Coffee Shop, in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai neighbourhood (above), turn out goods such as egg tarts and pineapple buns. Photo: Felix Wong
if I had hummus at home, I would have to just enjoy it with supermarket soft tortillas or go to an Indian restaurant and ask for a takeaway order of naan bread – “yes, just naan, nothing else. Thank you.”

For dessert pastries, richer folks would visit the fancy hotels for elaborate European cakes and French patisserie, but the average family relied on Maxim’s for their Swiss rolls and fresh cream sponge cakes.

A new wave of bakers has been inspired by pretty desserts, from cupcakes and macarons to the Cronut. Photo: Shutterstock

That’s what I thought glamorous cake-making was for the longest time.

In this way, it’s quite remarkable how baking is a popular obsession now for so many people. The flour revolution started with a growing interest in pretty desserts. From cupcakes and macarons to eclairs, as well as the Cronut, each had its day as a trending fad.

Studios and classes are now everywhere, including in malls, to teach kids and parents how to make their own cakey desserts and banana bread.

Baking sourdough bread became a popular pastime during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: Shutterstock
The artisanal lure of sourdough was a Covid-19 pandemic passion for many. Pre-pandemic, I bet many hobbyists didn’t even know how fermentation even worked.
Ironically, as more people bake, there are more contrarians going carb-free or wanting gluten-free products. I guess you know what this means, right? The rest of us must take up the slack and eat more fresh baguettes and chocolate cakes.

Oh Marie Antoinette, how we too must suffer in pain.

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