I love subbing and scratch baking, and I make everything by hand - no electric mixers or bread machines for me. Unfortunately, I do a lot less baking than I'd like to, because I live alone and can't possibly eat everything I want to make. My freezer is already stuffed. So are most of my friends. Baked goods - any and all. Since I was very young, everyone in my dad's family has gotten together each year at Easter and Thanksgiving for a reunion of sorts. Since I was twelve, I've made a cherry cheesecake for each of these occasions. I don't even like cherry cheesecake anymore (so I suppose it shouldn't be called a favorite tradition) but they've come to expect it, and I'd feel horrible letting everyone down. Any time people eat seconds - or, even better, thirds - I'm pretty happy. Same goes whenever I'm told, even casually, that I should open up a shop. Even being asked for a recipe is great; I think my finest moment was at my sister's graduation party (which I helped cater) this summer, when my aunt, a professional chocolatier, asked me what I'd put in one of my pastries. Vernon. (I tend to name things I'm attached to.) Vernon was a horrid mishap - my attempt, upon finding myself in a kitchen without proper baking dishes, to bake a bundt cake recipe in a regular springform pan. It tasted wonderful, luckily - but... let's just say it came out a bundt cake anyway.