Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
I would like to convey three truths to you. These are the three things you must hold in your mind and completely, fully understand if we are to go further together in this, a blog post about a baking show:
- The new Food Network show Baked in Vermont is entertaining and informative, soothing and charming. It’s good.
- Baked in Vermont is hosted by Gesine Prado, a lawyer-turned-producer-turned-baker-turned–baking-instructor. She is legit. She seems down-to-earth, smart, and accomplished. She’s able to explain not only how to bake a gooey triple chocolate cookie from scratch, but she’s also able to give you backstory on the cookie’s inspiration, along with insider tricks to make your everyday baking better.
- Baked in Vermont host Gesine Prado is also, according to People and Wikipedia, SANDRA BULLOCK‘S SISTER.
Got that? Okay.
Baked in Vermont is a brand new Food Network show that slipped onto the channel right before the holiday rush. The first season is only 6 episodes long, and while the show is set to air on Saturdays, you may have caught an episode on repeat during the week or streaming on the Food Network app. That’s kind of how I stumbled upon it. My mother and I were channel surfing during the holidays, Baked in Vermont was on, and we both found ourselves transfixed by the earnest baking show.
What I immediately dug about the show was that it was full of real tips for real baking. There are cake shows a-plenty, but they seem to circle around professional bakeries and high-stress competitions. These shows produce pastries that are easy on the eyes, but that are nigh on impossible to replicate in the home kitchen. So, in a programming slate full of outlandish delicacies and fancy fondant, where can the amateur home baker go for legit advice? Where can you get easy, delicious, home-spun recipes that are big on flavor, and not designed to be the spitting image of a…kiwi? How important is sifting flour? What’s the deal with candy thermometers? What’s the best way to scoop your cookie dough out? If, like me, you’re more interested in getting your hands dirty and perfecting the basics, the Holiday Baking Championship is going to be scant on real advice. (Have you ever seen them discuss different kinds of flour or how to use a brotform?) Baked In Vermont, however, will get you sorted.
The show is set at Prado’s homebase in Vermont. Yes, she really does run a baking school out of her house (and is a King Arthur Flour instructor to boot). Because of this, the recipes on Baked in Vermont hew close to, say, The Great British Baking Show style of pastries. That is, they look homey, rustic, and actually good. But the real draw for me was Prado herself. She’s got an easy, laid-back, unassuming approach to hosting. Many cooking hosts try to be aspirational to the point of intimidation, but Prado seems to understand that she is working with smart bakers in training. Her audience knows their way around a basic muffin recipe, but wants to up their game a bit. If anything, Gesine Prado’s approach reminded me most of Ina Garten’s. Both women clearly have comfortable lives and access to the highest grade ingredients, but they understand that there are easy shortcuts and clever tricks that any home cook working at any level can use to enhance their dishes — and they are eager to share these.
Oh, and yeah, Prado is Sandra Bullock’s sister. Which is honestly something that I only found out because I wanted to google her recipes and it popped up in her bio. The fact that Prado is so charming without all that razzle dazzle only impressed me more. Trisha Yearwood might need to drop some reference to her country stardom into every recipe, like it’s a dash of salt, but Prado just bakes.
