What I've Been Up To (After the Marathon) (Part I)

Baking. Lots and lots of baking. Within the last ten days...

Birthday cake for G's birthday party. Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, covered with fresh blueberries and strawberries. Utter and complete hit with my guys. Me, I'm not wild about buttercream frosting, I may need to do more experimenting if I'm going to keep baking them cakes.

Cowboys Cookies for Monday Night Supper, to fulfill a pledge towards my Chicago Lights marathon fundraising. These are a favorite in our house: oatmeal cookies with pecans, coconut, and chocolate chips. I make some without chocolate chips for G, who's not fond of chocolate. Though he keeps trying it, bless his heart, since he doesn't like feeling left out.

I wasn't planning to bake again until Thanksgiving, but we all happened to be home on G's birthday, and he asked for cake. What? You just had cake! But that was for the party and now it was his birthday and he wanted cake (and we'd eaten nearly all of the first at the party). And it was early afternoon and I had nothing pressing to do and so I looked through my pantry and looked through my cookbooks, and I improvised a gingerbread cake with lemon glaze. The flavors were a little strong to start with, although G liked it just fine which was all that really mattered, but in subsequent days they mellowed and I think we may have a new holiday favorite. I've made a note for next time to be sure to bake it a day ahead of when I want it, to give the flavors a change to settle.

Then it was Thanksgiving and I made pumpkin pie. And we all enjoyed it, and then enjoyed having it for breakfast, and then again the next day. And then it was gone and we all felt we hadn't gotten enough pie, so on Saturday I made another one. Because, why not? And also, was I really going to make another pumpkin pie later this year, when there are now Christmas treats to be made? I didn't think so. Better to just make that pie now.

And then it was Sunday and I had a brownie recipe I wanted to try out (since I haven't found a completely satisfying plant-based one yet) and a colleague at work to bake for (another marathon pledge). That one, alas, was an epic fail. Well, maybe not epic - it tasted good enough - but it didn't hold together well enough to even consider presenting outside of the house. It will work very nicely at home for brownie sundaes at some point though, so I froze a portion of it and we'll nibble on some this week. And I didn't sacrifice really good chocolate or cocoa on it (just because I didn't have any of the fine stuff in the house) so I'm okay if we end up tossing whatever's left at the end of the week...

...Since clearly I'll be baking again next weekend. I've already made my schedule for December...

With sugar and spice and everything nice,
Annie