oatmeal rasin cookies
i have been baking more this week than i think i ever have in the past and in doing so have learned more lessons than i ever imagined i needed to! and because of my lack of updating i thought i would go ahead and combine it all here now...just because that's the kind of mood i'm in!
roasting the sesame seeds for benne wafers
lesson 1: always plan on more time than you think...mainly for prep, the baking times are normally right. case in point: benne wafers...something that i thought would take maybe 30 minutes tops, took up to an hour in prep alone between roasting the seeds for 10+ minutes, sifting the dry mixture twice, and blending it all together. then there was placing the dough into a ziploc bag (to use as a pastry bag) and the bag busting while in the middle of squeezing...that was fun, really.
first attempt at benne wafers
lesson 2: benne wafers are fun to watch bake, at least for me they are. if they are small enough in size (1/4teaspoon was called for in the first recipe i tried) they bake up in about 5 minutes and all the fun happens in the last couple minutes...the dough gets all bubbly and flattens out, it really was neat to watch.
homemade brownies, attempt #1
lesson 3: brownies are hard to make from scratch...at least they are for me. my first attempt at making brownies hasn't ended in a good way. they may look lovely in the picture above, but hidden under that glossy cover of chocolate lays uncooked, mushy batter...something that i wouldn't figure out until i cut into said brownies. even after baking for more than an hour!
lesson 4: metal pans may be more conductive to baking after all.
the scraped off cooked parts of brownie
lesson 5: brownies can be recooked the next day and may still not get completely baked! in my second attempt at brownies, i removed the harder cooked pieces of brownie from the uncooked, mushy batter and placed the mushy batter into another dish to bake. i popped those into the oven for another 30 minutes and didn't even try tasting them until this morning. yes, i had brownies as part of my breakfast...and i'm still not sure they got baked completely through. oh well, i'll try again at some point but i'll be using a much bigger, metal pan!
the finished 2nd attempt/rebaked brownies
lesson 6: you can make muffins from a quick bread recipe. i turned banana bread into banana mini and regular muffins yesterday...there was enough batter for a pan of mini's and 9 regular sized ones. stephen now has something for breakfast, i used up the bananas from our charlotte trip, tried a new recipe, and learned something all in one baking session!
mini banana muffins (minus 1 for sampling purposes)
lesson 7: my flat, rectangular air bake sheet is the best cookie sheet for baking. the oatmeal raisin cookies i baked on it were the best of the batch as well as the benne wafers. the stoneware, flat baker just doesn't seem to bake as well.
lesson 8: i am going through way more eggs and stick butter than i ever imagined i would or could...i went through half a dozen eggs and a pound of butter all in one day of baking and cooking! i've now started buying at least a pound of butter everytime i go to the store and i bought one of those flat 2 1/2 dozen egg boxes the last time i was at the grocery store just so i have enough in the house!
my little baking corner
lesson 9 & 10: i need a bigger baking/cooking space and a little wine helps make any baking session that much more enjoyable...but i only drink after 5pm. the above picture was taken while making the brownies mentioned before, when it was after 7pm and my patience were worn through thanks to my children.
maybe lesson 11 should be that i'm not a very patient person...but i kind of already knew that so it's not really a lesson. i'm still unsure about my benne wafers, they seem too soft when i'm pretty sure they are supposed to be crispy. and the brownies may have to be trashed since i don't really think that baking them any more would do any good. oh well, it's all a part of the great learning experience that this project is turning out to be.
and a final note before i go...because of the fact that i don't want to gain any more weight this week, i'm only going to be sewing for the next few days and attempting to start a workout routine yet again! i'll get back to baking next week when i finally attempt to make an angel food cake from scratch!
come on back soon...there's lots more sharing to come!
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