Intimidation overcome

[Kouign Aman]

Yogurt.

I'm not scared of bread, or icecream, or souffles, or stock. But yogurt?

Making yogurt totally intimidated me. I put it off for years, even after acquiring a garage-sale yogurt maker (glass cups w heater, basically).

Made it once with and once without the special gadget. Still seemed too hard. And then the third batch and it all clicked. Now its weekly, and done on autopilot, and its hard to remember feeling intimidated by it.

What was it for you?

[JAZ]

Pasta and poached eggs. Pasta because it seemed like such a huge project; poached eggs because they seemed impossible.

[Dakki]

Baking, sharpening.

[SobaAddict70]

For me, it would have to be cooking and breaking down a lobster or crab.

It was always the thing you'd read about in cookbooks but seemed daunting in reality.

[BadRabbit]

With me, it was definitely bread. Mostly it was because of all the work that went into a product that could not be fixed if something was done wrong. There is nothing worse than spending days making something only for it to be inedible or even just blah. Now it doesn't intimidate me so much (though I do ocassionally end up with a sub par product that I spent days on).

Edited May 13, 2011 by BadRabbit (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

For me, rolled fondant icing. It scared the pants off me until I bit the bullet and made my first batch - now I don't use anything else to decorate specialty cakes.

[Zeemanb]

BBQ...prepping the meat and the smoker and eventually working my way up to a 14-16 hour cook with any measure of success seemed insurmountable. Now I'd feel embarassed if people found out how easy it was to shame any 'q you're going to find in a restaurant.

[rickster]

Strudel dough, including the stretching. Easier than making and rolling pie dough, in my opinion

[Mark Muller]

Souffle, of any type. I don't know that I was intimidated by them, but when I finally got around to trying to make one, it was a revelation how easy they are. Any idiot with a mixer (or just a strong wrist) can make a souffle.

[nickrey]

Knife sharpening. Thought I was too clumsy, did a course run by a local Japanese knife supplier and found it was easier than I'd thought.

[IndyRob]

Butter. You need a churn, right? And spend hours churning for all you're worth?

Nah, pour some cream in the KitchenAid and put the spurs to it.

[Pierogi]

Mayonnaise. Never had success until I tried it in a small, 3-cup KitchenAid processor. Now I can make it with my eyes closed.

And yeast doughs, bread, pizza, sweet doughs, brioche.

[robirdstx]

Gravy (without lumps). So basic, but such a mystery when I was a new bride and knew nothing about cooking.

[annabelle]

Canning. I was certain I would poison all of my family and friends. I decided to approach it like a research project (my MO since grad school with pretty much everything) and now my garage is lined with pretty jars that look like a jewelry store. Strangely, I was never afraid of puff pastry, yogurt, bread baking or pretty much anything else.

[pastrygirl]

Tempering chocolate. Did my best to avoid it for years, then finally decided it was ridiculous that I was so scared of it.

[Boilerfood]

Bread, lots of work, lots of precision, not a lot of room for error. The SO had to call my pride into play during Thanksgiving last year to get me to pull the trigger. Now I do it on cruise control.

[Alex]

The sauté pan flippy thing.

[JeanneCake]

I'm embarrassed to admit this because it was so silly: making caramel. I was terrified of doing it for years because I was convinced I'd burn the house down (because I would make the caramel too dark and then it would start to smoke and catch fire. I didn't say this was logical thinking but there you are.) The first time I actually tried it and it worked, I called a friend in California who knew I was scared of making it - and as luck would have it, they had just experienced a small earthquake!

Now I make caramel two or three times a week because our best selling tart right now is a chocolate caramel tart....

[Trev]

Paella. I thought it was some sort of clinical wizardry timing thing. Now I can make it for upwards of 50 people without worrying at all.

[Mjx]

Lighting a match or a lighter.

Not kidding: When I went off to uni., I'd somehow managed to get along for seventeen years without ever having to light match, and suddenly, I was living in a flat that had an old stove with burners that needed to be lit each time you turned them on. After hunger drove me to attempt this, I let it go for about a month (shaking hand + flinging the lit match from you as soon as it light does not make for a lit burner) before trying again. I think it was at least several months before I could firmly strike a match without my hands shaking. Only my desire to experiment with cooking meat (vegetarian family, so I'd never done that before, either) made me persist.

Nothing else has seriously intimidated me, unless I've had to deliver results for someone else (which still makes me anxious).

[Lora]

For this former vegetarian - cooking meat. Then yesterday I found myself fluently sauteing multiple animals and improvising a pan sauce and saying, "huh - guess I got it now!"