My First Attempt

So I've decided to start documenting the things I make, maybe to motivate me to change it up a bit or maybe to work on my presentation skills. My friend told me I have to include "normal" foods as well as baked goods, so we will see how this goes. My mom is the one that inspired me to bake. I can remember her in the kitchen baking tasty treats for our family as a kid and I look forward to my favorite home-cooked meals when I go home. I guess moving out and being on my own, I realized I have to work on my domestication skills. I kinda got hooked on baking...Now, I call Mom and ask her to share her secret recipes and figure out what ingredients she uses. Little did I know that most of what she does is on the fly and she RARELY follows a recipe. At times, it is hard for me to duplicate what she makes, but it made me realize that baking is an art and you gotta figure it out for yourself. Hence, I have started reading, experimenting, and learning on my own.

I'm not a big cake eater (literally or figuratively), but I do bake cakes for friends' birthday celebrations. My sister is helping me come up with 5 flavors for them to chose from. This week, I did a yellow layered cake with strawberries and a buttercream frosting. Although I did not use as much sugar as the recipe called for, I got some feedback that it was a bit too sweet. I think it was the combo of strawberry preserves in between the layers, fresh strawberries, and rich frosting. Now I know...

In addition to the cake, I made my big bro some cranberry pistachio granola. Made with oats, flax seed, honey, maple syrup, dried cranberries and roasted pistachios. He's not a big nut fan, so it was hard for me to come up with something that doesn't have nuts (or that I could resist adding nuts to). He does like pistachios however. I like this recipe because the granola is salty, crunchy and a little sweet. Once again, I did not add the extra sugar. The honey and maple syrup combo is plenty.

I also experimented with a peanut butter banana bread and apple cake. I HEART PEANUT BUTTER. and APPLES! Bananas...welp let's just say the texture and smell sound be hidden at ALL TIMES. Got these ideas from a Cooking Light mag and altered them just a bit to make it a little more figure friendly: less butter and sugar, whole wheat flower, oats and flax seed. Cakes are difficult to mess with and still get a decent texture, but I managed to sneak in a few changes. Caramelizing the apples was a task and def need to get better at doing that...it was a first time making a sugar syrup and hopefully next time it will look a bit better/more caramel colored. Still tasted good (I think)

Off to plan next week's treats! :)