I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

A while back I started a baking adventure. My plan was to pick one recipe from Cooks Illustrated, test it out, and blog about the results each week.  I really enjoy desserts and wanted to learn to make my own.  I’ve been doing it since August, and I have made a LOT of baked goods.  Some of them have turned out amazingly well, and some of them have turned out quite poorly, but it has been fun along the way.  I have learned a lot and gotten to the point where I look forward to baking each week.

Unfortunately, I have gotten really behind on the blogging portion of my challenge, so I have made a number of yummy items that no one ever got to see.  So I thought it would be fun to go through and list those items. (more…)

This week’s baking adventure went a lot better than the brownies from last week.  I made Cook’s Illustrated’s Perfect Pound Cake, and it really did turn out nearly perfect.  The flavor, crumb, and crust all turned out as they should.  Needless to say I was very excited.  I’ve never made pound cake before, so I don’t know how it typically rates on the difficulty scale, but I thought it was pretty easy.  I took the finished cake to Loops of Love on Tuesday, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.  It was a lot of fun to be able to share something I made with all my friends.

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I decided to start my baking adventure with a peach cake from the July/August 2011 Cooks Illustrated.  Peaches are in season right now, and we have a couple local sources so it seemed like a good place to start.  For a first dish this turned out to be a little bit more complicated and time consuming than I had hoped, but I have to say I am pleased with how the cake turned out.
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If you happen to be reading this while standing, let me advise you that now is a good time to sit down.  I have an announcement to make that many of you may find hard to believe …  I am baking.  In fact, it has become my newest project. (more…)