Baking is the best thing ever, today.

pattycakes!
Originally uploaded by less like math

I've always been sort of fickle with my hobbies. And when I say always, I do actually mean for my entire life. Or at least as much of it as I can remember. As a little kid I would get whole-heartedly INTO one thing or another (playing teacher, dumpster diving, swimming, having cats) and it would be absolutely everything to me for about a week. Then on to something else. Collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards, Barbies, Christianity, whatever. I consider it to be one of my more endearing/frustrating qualities.

As an adult I tend to do the same thing. One week all I care about in the world is drawing pictures, the next week it's taking pictures, the next week it's reading as many books as possible, the next week it's reading about diseases on the internet. You get the idea. In fact, if you know me at all you don't even need that description. You're probably all too familiar with this business. It keeps things interesting but it also tends to make me into an unreliable collaborator and it frustrates my vague plan to someday parlay one my personal passions into a career.

That said, this week I remembered that I love to bake. When Summer and I were living together we baked a lot. She was a good baking muse and she tends to be a little more consistent with her pastimes than I do. But since I've branched out on my own I haven't really done that much baking, barring the obligatory holiday and special occasion stuff. While visiting my parents last weekend it was brought to my attention by my mom and my new beau that although my baking is often discussed he has never experienced it and my mom hadn't experienced it in quite some time. This lit the proverbial fire under my ass and ever since getting back to Austin all I seem to want to do is bake. The dreary weather we've been having also fuels that desire pretty well.

So far this week I've made the cupcakes you see up there and the cookies you see down there. The cupcakes start with my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and have dark chocolate truffles in the center and cream cheese frosting with fresh slices of sugared plums on top. The plums + the dark chocolate ended up equaling pretty much complete gustatory perfection. The cookies are a variation on my christmas cookie recipe. I got the recipe from a master bakestress named Mia in Victoria, B.C. The christmas version are bite sized coffee flavored shortbread cookies with espresso infused dark chocolate on top. Since I have a pact with myself to only make those cookies for christmas (it's important to have arbitrary rules) I had to sort of freestyle them this time. I sweetened the shortbread recipe up some and then made a cinnamon vanilla cream cheese frosting for the tops. The resulting cookie tastes something like a really fattycaked out snickerdoodle. A snickerdoodle infused with shame. Delicious shame.



My next endeavor will be the little darlings you see below. I had one at Rio Rita awhile back and told Summer about them. She made them and they were a huge hit with everyone who ate one. This did not include me.......I'm just saying. *ahem* Anyway, I'm excited to take a crack at them. It's basically just a yellow cake with the fruit part of the orange mixed into the batter and then poured back into the hollowed out orange peel. Word on the street is that it's actually a campfire recipe, which is unassailably cool. I, however, will be baking them in a regular oven under a roof.


So......if you're into eating baked goods now is a good time to hang out with me. And if you have fun recipes pass them along.

BAKING!!!! Hell YES!!!!