Sunday, October 19, 2003

Baker Baker

I'm not much of a baker. I have one or two bread recipes I really enjoy, but my favorite takes all day, and I just don't have 'all day' any more. Besides, I can't find my favorite bread book (Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book)!

But for the past three weekends, Kelly has been pulling me in to the world of baking. It started one Sunday when I was resting downstairs after digging around in the garage and breathing too much dust and dander. She'd asked Jean if they could bake something, but Jean was studying. I think Kelly knew I wasn't a baker, but she's eight years old, and the world if full of possibility.

So we hauled out her Easy Bake Oven, dug through a few recipe books, and ended up making some kind of crispy chocolate chip sheet cookie. Two cookies were made in the Easy Bake, and the rest in the conventional oven. They turned out great, and I'm almost through the lot (two weeks later).

Last weekend, we decided to make a cake. I looked through The Best Recipe, and we found a chocolate cake to make from scratch. We also made a vanilla butter creme frosting from scratch, which, by the way, is mostly butter.

This recipe took a lot of time, and a lot of effort. When we were done, Kelly had a mini-two layer cake made in her Easy Bake, and I had a regular-sized two layer cake made in the oven. It was delicious, and I admit to eating two pieces in the last week. Kelly's been eating the rest, and Jean is putting a ban on cakes like this one. Not that we'd make another, given all the fuss and bother.

This Sunday, we decided to make something different, and tried out a croissant recipe. The recipe was confusing, ambiguous in several places. Still, we forged ahead, and managed to bake the suckers. The Easy Bake did not play a role this time, as a risen croissant could not be pushed out of the narrow slot in the side of the oven. I told Kelly if she tried, she'd have a petrified croissant forever in her Easy Bake.

These creatures don't really taste like croissants to me, and their texture is more 'baking powder biscuit' than flaky pastry. But they taste goooood! They are evil, filled with much butter, and I think we will be skipping such foods entirely for a few weeks. Jean suggests muffins, so maybe that's next. I couldn't convince Kelly to learn how to make Eggplant Parmegian, for some reason.

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