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…)

I just realized the week is almost over, and I never blogged about my baking adventure this week.  I did, however, remember to bake so the important bases are covered.  Since Matt is out of town this week, and I wanted to try and use ingredients we had on hand, I decided to go the easy route and make Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookie Bars.  They are very similar in prep to chocolate chip cookies, but require a few extra ingredients and turned out much thicker and cakier than my cookies ever do.  With Matt being gone, I am also missing our normal camera so, I had to use our old point and shoot.  Please forgive the subpar photos of my food. (more…)

For this week’s baking adventure, I made chocolate chip cookies.  Now before everyone starts protesting that anyone can make chocolate chip cookies and surely I have made them before,  these were not just any chocolate chip cookies.  These were Cooks Illustrated’s Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, which roughly translates to amazingly tasty chocolate chip cookies with a lot of complicated steps added in. Not only that, but I had the added complication of trying to bake while Matt simultaneously made salsa. This means I had a lot less space than normal, and Matt wasn’t as readily available to grab things for me or check my progress.  Both of us trying to use the kitchen at the same time is not something I would enjoy repeating.

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My baking this week was directed much more by ingredients on hand (or not on hand) than a desire to make any particular dish. We were very low on flour and a few other key ingredients.  It also just so happened that I wanted to share my cookies with a group of friends, one of which is gluten intolerant.  So meringue cookies were the perfect solution.

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Last night I got a wild hair and did something I rarely do: I Baked.  To be exact, I baked chocolate chip cookies.  We didn’t have any desserts in the house and since I was home alone, I decided to take it upon myself to remedy the situation.  I am happy to say the cookies turned out wonderful.  They are a perfect golden color, full of chocolate chips, and just the right balance between firm but chewy. I am actually eating one right now, and I must say they are delicious.

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