Great video for holiday baking

Beginning Bakers slide show!

Easy-peezy Biscuits

Energized from my run this morning, I whipped up some love-ly biscuits (pun intended). They were so easy (box mix and milk) that I don't think this can really be considered baking. The mixing was easy enough, but the trouble came when I had to roll them out. The batter was way to sticky, so I added loads of flour----- and ended up with flour-covered biscuits. They were still tasty, though, especially with some butter or jam. Enjoy the photos!

CARROT CAKE!

Today I had the honor of baking what could be the best-ever carrot cake recipe. It was the perfect ending to a surprise Grandma's-birthday dinner. Here's the recipe; I recommend it to all! Oh, and pictures should be coming soon...

Homemade thin mints... always a good idea

Roomies and I embarked on a mission to outwit those money-swindling Girl Scouts (no hard feelings, I was one of them for a time) and make our OWN thin mints. First a side note: let me establish that thin mints are the best Girl Scout cookie. I too like Samoas and Tag-a-longs (though there are way too few in a box), but all that chocolate chip and Do-Si-Do business is a waste of time; if you are buying Girl Scout cookies, you are buying thin mints.
Moving on.... So, the recipe seemed surprisingly easy. The only additional ingredients we needed were peppermint extract (of which I'm sure I will never be able to use up, as this recipe only called for 3/4 of a teaspoon) and dark chocolate. We just mixed the dough, rolled it into logs and popped them into the freezer for an hour. Then we sliced, baked and dipped them into the dark chocolate.
They came out delicious and a little richer than regular thin mints, which has made them last a little longer in a four-girl household. Our only mistake was cutting the cookies a little too thick, which left them with less crunch than the green-boxed variety. Oh, and the recipe can be found here (along with other Girl Scout cookie recipes). Good luck with yours!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate frosting

A few weekends ago, I was helping my mom prepare for a family dinner when I offered to make the cake. She pulled out an old family recipe and set me to work, approving the amount of batter, the taste of my frosting and the done-ness of the cake. It was in that last step that things went wrong.
See, when the timer for the cake went off, I removed the pan from the oven and stuck a toothpick in it--- a toothpick that came out almost clean. Instead of trusting my instinct and sticking it back in, I asked my mom about whether she thought it was done. "Yeah, it's good," she announced after scanning the toothpick and looking at the cake on the counter.
A few hours later, however, as she started to slice and dice it, we discovered that the entire middle was mushy. Let's just consider this a lesson in not being lazy. Next time, I'll spend a few more minutes in the kitchen so that we can actually enjoy more cake.

My first entry!

Hello out there, all you blog-reading cyber space people! Welcome to my blog and my very first post (I know, surprising for a journalism senior). It may have taken me a while, but I've made it--- creating my very first blog on a topic near-and-dear to my heart: baking!
I suppose my fascination with baking started when I was young, though I've only recently begun to cultivate it. My mom has been slipping in a hint there and a secret tip there every time I've helped her make a batch of brownies or chocolate chip cookies. I suppose my love of chocolate, my spare time during Sunday afternoons in the summer and all those tips have added up to one thing: a love of baking. Though I don't get around to it as often as I would like, I love any excuse to make baking a priority. For my mom's birthday last weekend I made her a cranberry ricotta cheesecake that she loves (though I have quite a few of my own alterations: a store-bought graham cracker crust and canned cranberry sauce taste just as good), and my sister received a strawberry and vanilla creme cake for her birthday in July (pictured up top).
One thing that makes me completely different, I think, when it comes to baking is that I:

• Sometimes like things quick and easy
• Sometimes like things to be challenging and long
• Sometimes like a back-of-the-box recipe
• Sometimes like my grandmother's 50-year-old scribbled recipe

What's most important to me about the final product is also sometimes different. Often I just want something tasty (and probably chocolate), while other times I am working to master a new recipe or give a family member what they've really been craving. The only thing that stays constant in my baking is me!

So welcome and I hope you enjoy my adventures in baking!

p.s.- Did you guess the motivation behind the title of this blog? Only a fabulous biking movie, Breaking Away, from 1979 with a young (and hot) Dennis Quaid :).