Baking, I Love You
If you’ve been keeping up with my Instagram stories, you will know that for the past month, I have been OBSESSED with baking. I have been churning out cakes, muffins, scones, cupcakes, and breads left and right, and I have been looking for any excuse to try out a new recipe.
People who know me are not at all shocked that I've once again thrown my entire heart into some new creative venture, but this whole baking thing truly surprised me. The two baking attempts I had made in high school had gone terribly wrong (I made a terribly tasting pie with a gross crust and unsuccessfully tried to make cake pops), and from there on, I decided baking was not for me. I chalked it up to my lack of patience to measure ingredients carefully while following extremely detailed instructions. Those two baking fails reminded me of my lack of patience in high school chemistry where my lab partner and I would rather joke around and have fun in the lab than carefully measure out ingredients with intense focus. While everyone else was concentrating on making sure their experiments turned out perfectly, my lab partner and I would be competing to see who could make the other laugh harder. At the end of experiments, my chemistry teacher required us to calculate our percent error. Whenever my partner and I would calculate ours, we would share a look and start to giggle. We had someone managed to get a ridiculously high percent error, while everyone else around us had gotten something reasonable. We would then scramble to rework our math to make it seem like our experiment had gone well, trying to will an acceptable percent error into existence. There's the well known phrase that "cooking is an art, but baking is a science," and because of my chemistry class experience, I figured that baking is a science I would never conquer.
Many years have passed since I took that high school chemistry class, and I have wholeheartedly changed my view on baking. After watching a million episodes of The Great British Baking Show and many hours of scrolling on Pinterest pinning pretty cakes (here's my baking Pinterest board if you’re interested), I decided I have it in me to become a baker. My boyfriend's mom Sally gave me a frosting tip set for Christmas, and I was going to put it to good use. I also hit up Kroger, Goodwill, and Dollar Tree for more baking supplies. Goodwill often has amazing, mostly new kitchen supplies donated by college kids who were given to much to take to college by overzealous parents. Dollar Tree has plenty of basics, and I got my measuring cups, cupcake holder, cake container, and spatula from here.
The first bake I tried making from scratch was a three layer chocolate cake. The chocolate cake recipe I used was from The Stay At Home Chef and the frosting recipe I used was from Hip2Save. I was so happy with how it turned out. My first attempt at baking something totally from scratch was a success! This was the confidence booster I needed to forget about all my bad baking experiences from high school and to dive all in.
Chocolate buttercream frosting!
Putting the frosting on the first layer of the cake
Voila! My first three-layered cake is complete
Next, I decided I was going to make vanilla chai cupcakes. I had eaten a super yummy chai cupcake from Baked & Wired in Georgetown last summer, and I knew I had to recreate it. Luckily, my dad had brought me a bunch of chai from his trip to India last year, and I wanted to put them to good use. For the cupcake recipe, I used one I found from The Whole Bite blog. For the chai buttercream frosting, I used a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. These cupcakes were SOOO good. I'm not usually a cupcake person and would rather eat a normal slice of cake anyday, but I could eat 100 of these.
For my third bake, I decided I was going to make something bold. I was going to make a bright blue, three layer funfetti cake! I had made funfetti from the box many times, but now I was going to do it on my own. I used a recipe I found from the blog Love & Olive Oil. It turned out beautifully! However, I learned that I should coat my sprinkles with flour before dumping them into the batter. If you don't, all your sprinkles will sink to the bottom of each cake layer, and even if it tastes great, you know Mary Berry does not approve.
After my three successful attempts at baking desserts, I wanted to bake something a little bit more breakfast friendly. I set my heart on making strawberry scones! The recipe I used from JoCooks blog said to cut the butter in and knead the dough with yours hands, but I really did not feel like doing that. I wondered if I could get away with using my hand mixer. I should have known this would be my downfall, and sadly, they turned out stiff and fat. However, this only inspired me to try again. My second attempt at scones erased any memory of failed scones. They were pretty and light and very yummy.
After that, I knew I could bake anything I set my sights on, even if it meant trying again after a less than perfect first attempt. I have now also made Valentine's Day sugar cookies, coffee cake muffins with a vanilla glaze, oatmeal raisin cookies (my boyfriend's favorite), Chinese sponge cakes for Chinese New Year, and a carrot cake!
Drizzled heart sugar cookies
Fully glazed sugar cookies
Cinnamon & brown sugar crumble coffee cake muffins
Chinese sponge cakes
Oatmeal raisin cookies for Clay
Carrot cake
Years of eating sweet treats has prepared me to take my rightful reign of the kitchen. I am extremely happy to spend an entire evening carefully measuring out flour and mixing egg whites, and I love seeing what I can push myself to create. Baking is so fun and relaxing, and I make it even more enjoyable by listening to Michelle Obama read me her newest book Becoming on Audible.com or bopping to Ariana Grande's latest album.
Look forward to seeing whatever I bake next on my Instagram stories!