The many ways that baking is winter therapy. With a delicious ending

When people talk about baking, they often focus on the final product. The tender cookies, the domed muffins, the rich brownies. But the real draw of baking starts long before you roll out the pie crust.

Baking can be many things: an act of creation, connection, control. There’s something comforting about the structure of it: the measuring, the stirring, the transformation of a handful of ingredients into something delicious.

Even if life doesn’t always feel orderly, follow the recipe and things should turn out as planned. It’s like therapy, with a present at the end.

“Baking is how I best connect with the world around me -- making something wonderful and sharing it with others and seeing how much joy they receive from something I made with my own hands,” says chef Joanne Chang, co-owner of Flour Bakery in Boston and an author of baking cookbooks.

"It’s a way to make the world a bit sweeter one cookie, cake, pie at a time.”

When it’s cold outside, there’s something cozy about a warm kitchen and the aroma of something sweet.

But baking can also be catharsis for more volatile feelings: The term “rage baking” was popularized by writer Tangerine Jones, who turned to flour and sugar to channel her anger at the world’s injustices.

Baking can be about maintaining traditions, or possibly curiosity (what is julekake, anyway?).

Hannah Skobe, a doctoral student in astrophysics in Pittsburgh, loves the chemistry aspect of baking — how butter behaves differently at different temperatures, for instance, or why the proteins in egg whites break down when they are over-beaten.

She also finds the process therapeutic, a much-needed break from work.

Ron Ben-Israel, who focuses on elaborate wedding cakes as chef and owner of Ron Ben-Israel Cakes, in New York City, was drawn as a child to “watching as ingredients change through technique” in his mother's kitchen.

"Especially the process of whipping egg whites into meringue fascinated me,” he said.

For him and others, there's an element of nostalgia. A parent’s rugalach recipe, the pie their favorite aunt made every Thanksgiving, the cookies they helped decorate as kids.

Or, it's a way to mark the calendar: a crunchy, buttery crisp in the fall after an apple picking expedition, Irish soda bread on St. Patrick’s Day, a favorite birthday cake that must be made every year.

Alex George of the blog Lily P Crumbs finds something satisfyingly tactile and tangible about baking. Cracking eggs, creaming butter — there’s a lot of sensory pleasure to be had, especially in a screen-centric world. Kneading dough for bread, spreading the icing on cinnamon rolls.

Her readers, she says, “love the process as much as the payoff."

George loves inventing new kinds of baked goods, seeking inspiration whenever she tries a new food: “Savory food is my favorite kind of muse. One incredible French onion soup I had recently inspired my caramelized onion biscuits with French onion soup compound butter.”

Bernard Wong, an avid home baker in New York City, also enjoys delving into new techniques. He has experimented with laminated doughs (think croissants and puff pastry), and has recently played with the East Asian technique — known as tangzhong in China and yudane in Japan — of pouring boiling water over flour to partially cook it, resulting in softer, fluffier breads.

Wong takes pleasure in satisfy a craving for something by making it himself. For instance, he couldn’t find anadama bread, a traditional New England yeast bread, “but I know how to make it.

“It’s economical, I get to control what’s inside of it, and it passes the time when I’m in my apartment and keeps my hands busy,” he said.

He often chooses high-quality ingredients and still saves money compared to buying the finished product. He splurges on expensive chocolate like Callebaut and Valrhona, for instance, and jams as many chips as possible into his cookies.

Even better, confections like these are shareable and can be a way of expressing a sentiment. It might be as simple as “I missed you,” or “I thought you might need something sweet to get through this moment.”

Skobe recently made a banana cake with cream cheese frosting for her co-workers: “I loved seeing all of my friends come to my desk to grab a slice.”

As Chang puts it: “I’m grateful I get to do something that I love so much and that others love so much too."

At its heart, baking feels hopeful. It might be about feeding others, or celebrating, or creating a moment of calm in an otherwise chaotic world, but it’s also about the belief that if you measure the ingredients and follow the steps, something good should come out of it.

Oh, and julekake? It's a Norwegian Christmas cake.

Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, “Dinner Solved!” and “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at Katie@themom100.com.

For more AP food stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/recipes

An Apple Streusel Pie is displayed in New York on Nov. 9, 2018. (Cheyenne M. Cohen via AP)

Brownie batter is poured into a pan in New York on Oct. 7, 2020. (Cheyenne M. Cohen via AP)

A woman applies non-stick spray to a muffin tin in New York on Oct. 23, 2023. (Cheyenne M. Cohen via AP)

This combination of photos shows eggs, left, shortbread dough, center, and a muffin tin being prepped for baking. (Cheyenne M. Cohen via AP)

CARACAS (AP) — Supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado demonstrated Saturday in several cities worldwide to commemorate her Nobel Peace Prize win ahead of the prestigious award ceremony next week.

Dozens of people marched through Madrid, Utrecht, Buenos Aires, Lima and other cities in support of Machado, whose organization wants to use the attention gained by the award to highlight Venezuela ’s democratic aspirations. The organization expected demonstrations in more than 80 cities around the world on Saturday.

The crowd in Lima carried portraits of Machado and demanded a “Free Venezuela.” With the country's yellow, blue and red flag draped over their backs or emblazoned on their caps, demonstrators clutched posters that read, “The Nobel Prize is from Venezuela.”

Venezuelan Verónica Durán, who has lived in Lima for eight years, said Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is celebrated because “it represents all Venezuelans, the fallen and the political prisoners in their fight to recover democracy.”

The gatherings come at a critical point in the country’s protracted crisis as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump builds up a massive military deployment in the Caribbean, threatening repeatedly to strike Venezuelan soil. Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is among those who see the operation as an effort to end his hold on power, and the opposition has only added to this perception by reigniting its promise to soon govern the country.

“We are living through times where our composure, our conviction, and our organization are being tested,” Machado said in a video message shared Tuesday on social media. “Times when our country needs even more dedication because now all these years of struggle, the dignity of the Venezuelan people, have been recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Machado won the award Oct. 10 for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

Machado, 58, won the opposition’s primary election and intended to run against Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo González, who had never run for office before, took her place.

The lead-up to the July 28, 2024, election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. It all increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary.

González sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest.

Meanwhile, Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since Jan. 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in what ended up being an underwhelming protest in Caracas, Venezuela's capital. The following day, Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term.

Associated Press reporter César Barreto in Lima, Perú, contributed.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters at a protest against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, the day before his inauguration for a third term, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)