Hi!
This past week I was in a heavy baking mood.
I tend to get in moods with projects although I don’t think I’ve ever done this much baking in this short amount of time! It was something I had a lot of fun on!
I’m going to share what I made, the link to the recipes, some of my thoughts on making each one and a little bit about why I like baking. Everything I did this week was a new recipe to me.
I’ve said “this week” but it actually started on last Sunday and it went the whole next week and part of this week.
On Sunday I made… Apple Fritter Bread! This was a new type of dessert for me- I don’t do that much with apples or bread. It wasn’t a yeast bread so it was pretty simple. You had a brown sugar and cinnamon mixture, then an apple mixture with some granulated sugar and cinnamon, and the batter. It turned out great!
I would have liked if the apples to bread ratio was a little heavier on the apple side- it felt like bread with a few apples throughout. You could still taste that cinnamon/brown sugar layer though! The glaze on top was great too and with that, the apple and brown sugar/cinnamon layers on top made it look like an apple fritter! I wonder if it would have been better to do the layers three times instead of twice? I did also break part of the bread getting it out of the pan so I would have to try a little harder next time. ?
My mom found this recipe on Facebook, here is the link to their website.
Next, I made homemade blueberry muffins! I was wanting to make them anyway but I ended up making them for when my mom had some friends over for a meeting. Everyone loved them!! I’m very happy with how they turned out. I was excited to try out a recipe from this lady’s website, called Sally’s Baking Addiction. I’ve loved looking at her recipes because she’s a professional food photographer and everything looks beautiful!!! And her ideas are very fun and appealing, I’d love to make a lot of her recipes.
I filled up the batter in the pan a bit higher than normal because I thought she said that would make them even bigger and have a bakery style to them. Later I saw that she actually had said to fill them up to the top so if I had done that it would have made them big! I filled a few at the end higher and they turned out so huge. ?
I loved the brown sugar, cinnamon and walnut crumble on top! Between that, those tart blueberries and the good tasting muffin batter they felt very decadent. And the recipe called for either sour cream or Greek yogurt, which I added sour cream and that made them very moist, soft and spongy. Here’s the recipe in case you want to try it out! (P.S. You should)
Again, from Sally’s Baking Addiction, I made double chocolate zucchini bread! Zucchini bread was not necessarily on my list to make but again, with those amazing photos I was hooked! And the chocolate helped too. ?
This turned out amazing. You could literally not even tell there was over a cup and a half of zucchini in there. This was very rich and decadent. Not the kind of “healthy” bread you could smuggle into eating for breakfast, this was a dessert. ? The recipe said you didn’t need to blot the zucchini but it did make the batter pretty wet (I might have had to dry the outside of it more). The highlights were the little bit of espresso powder, the chocolate chips (which she put in the notes NOT to skip) and the Greek yogurt. Again, it was either Greek yogurt or sour cream which helped the texture a lot. I also added some dark chocolate chips in the mix. I definitely hope to make again! Here’s the recipe.
Next, I tried one from my new Delish dessert book I got for my birthday. Inside-Out Red Velvet cookies! It was a red velvet flavored cookie with a cream cheese mixture in the middle! I loved the idea!
They were pretty easy, the assembly was a little tricky especially at the beginning because it was sticky. But it got less sticky as you went along. It was still not the easiest and not something to quickly whip up. I bet after it was sticky, if I assembled the whole cookie in my hand that would have made it better. However, I just started reading the page on their website and there’s some helpful things on there so I should have read it ahead of time! It also felt like a cookie with a little chocolate flavor and then- BOOM, cream cheese. It would have been nice if it was more jointed or the cream cheese mixture had a little extra flavor. I haven’t had a red velvet anything or cream cheese frosting in a while so maybe that’s what cream cheese frosting is. ? They just weren’t my favorite flavors, which might be my personal opinion, and not my favorite outcome.
But they were very fun to make! Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try them out.
Finally, lastly I made an angel food cake for my grandpa when we were celebrating our grandpa and grandma’s birthday. It was from a box, although I made up a quick, easy little glaze for the top too. It has been years since I’ve done an angel food cake, I think I’ve only done a couple with my mom. I was surprised to see how different the batter was! It was like a marshmallow almost. I did not get it to “very stiff peaks” for the first step like the box said so I probably should have done that. ?
It was fun! Easy with the box. ? It seems like a homemade one has not too many different ingredients although it looks like it takes a TON of eggs whites. I think around 12 egg whites! ? It took some getting used to with the pan and figuring out when the cake was done but I think I would be a lot better at it next time. Here’s the box mix we used.
I love baking because I love all the management. Managing what I’m doing, what needs to be done, keeping the area clean, cleaning dishes, the next thing on the list, the next step, next part of the project. I love managing projects. I love in baking how you can be very detail oriented and thorough. But I also love how you can be creative too. You are more detailed oriented at times and more creative at other times.
- What’s something you liked about it (and why)?
I loved trying new recipes -and new kinds of desserts for me- and the fact that those were things I just wanted to try!
- What’s something you disliked about it (and why)?
I don’t always like all the assembly and measuring. It goes slow, and something I notice with baking is that I’m always looking ahead, always looking to get through it. But I like doing it so it’s confusing and I‘m not sure which part I like exactly. I like the management, I think.
- What was your biggest takeaway or lesson?
Maybe just continuing to learn what part of it that I like. It’s not necessarily the cooking that I like. It’s not just the baking that I like. I do enjoy baking. But I love the management part of it.
- What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience?
I think the majority of these treats I hope to make again! But I’m excited to do some more recipes from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I’m drawn to her recipe’s vibe and it goes together with the vibe of cooking and baking things that I’m drawn too as well.
I hope you enjoyed! I didn’t get pictures of most of the things, I should try and get pictures of things I make going forward. Thanks for reading!
Lucy