I thought I would do a scrapbook with photos and all but I think blog entries will be much cooler, cheaper and better for the environment...right?
In December of 2005 we got the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook in at Williams Sonoma. As I was looking through it one night I was so amazed with all of the beautiful photos and I started wishing I knew how to bake. I have always had issues with baking. I think my mind is so scattered sometimes that I forget to read and follow all of the directions and because baking is so exact I have always had disastrous results. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to learn to follow directions and pay attention to details.
I bought the book at the end of December with the intention of baking every recipe in the book in during the year 2006. I was going to bake every recipe in the book using the exact ingredients it called for.......no substitutions. I would use expensive liquors, exotic fresh fruits and the proper pans and equipment needed for each recipe. I would not care about the cost or how difficult the ingredient was to find or how much weight I gained. I was so excited to make 2006 the year I learned to bake.
At the begining of 2006 the three of us gathered at my parents home to begin our adventure in baking. I think we started with baking powder biscuits and cream cheese and chive biscuits. As the biscuits baked I starting looking through the book again and actually counted the recipes. When I got to 173 recipes I realized in order finish my goal in one year I would need to bake at least 3 things everyweek. This was not going to happen. I did not have the time or room for extra pounds for baking and eating that many baked goods each week. I also wanted to keep the baking fun and not make it rushed or stressful so I decided to adjust the goal and we would bake whenever we felt like it.
We have finished about 25 of the recipes. We have learned a lot so far. We have used vanilla beans, fresh grated ginger and many other fun ingredients. Jake and Kaycie always like to smell and sample the ingredients before we mix them in. They always have a comment about the ingredients. Jakes opinions are always very sophisticated he will say things like "this flavor is very complex it is slightly sweet with a peppery aftertaste". Kaycie is more straight forward she will either say "Yuck" or "Mumm MaMa Like"......humm. Most of our baking experiments have turned out great. I think we would all say our biggest success was baking the cake on the front cover of the book that we made for Marks birthday. Our biggest disaster was making chocolate cupcakes at the cabin. We stayed the weekend at the cabin and baked the cupcakes on Sunday and by that time I think Jake and Kaycie had enough "brother/sister" time and they were fighting the whole time we were baking. While trying to keep them from killing each other we forgot to add the water to the batter. Diaster.
I am not sure when we will finish I am hoping for sometime next year. We are having fun and learning a lot.
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