It is the thought that counts

This past week the blog has been dormant because I was in Bozeman Montana with my family and some of our great friends. While we were there it was our friend's birthday. What do you do when it is someone's birthday? You make them a cake. I have found over the past three months that cakes can be made in the most unusual of places and on a whim. You do not need measuring cups and often do not even need all the creature comforts of your own full stocked kitchen. You simply need to be able to adjust on the fly. Preparing things ahead of time is usually a good idea to. For this particular cake I mixed up all of the dry ingredients in a gallon ziploc bag before we left for the trip. I also chose to mix most of the wet ingredients in a small tupperware before we left so I had left to mix once we got to our hotel. As I have mentioned before, parchment paper is great for assuring that your cakes release from their pans, so I made sure to pre-cut my parchment paper and pack that in one of my bags. All I had to do at the hotel was simply mix the wet and dry ingredients together and dump the batter into the prepared pans. It was, well, cake!! Sure it did not look the best when I was done because I was rushed with the baking of the cake and my frosting that I had made at home was a little thick, but it was delicious. A homemade cake is a homemade cake. Not all cakes that you make will be masterpieces. I always tell people, if it tastes good, people will forget about the asthetic imperfections. Everyone should have a cake on their birthday. If you plan ahead, you can make a cake anywhere from a bachelor pad studio apt that is lacking in measuring cups, to a hotel room in Montana. It truly is the thought that counts.

It is the little things.

I like cookies. I like all kinds of cookies. My favorite cookie is the monster cookie with all of the oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and M&M's. Since I have such a sweet tooth I began to bake at a very young age. I really enjoyed the fact that I could make myself treats and not have to wait for my mom to make them. It was far more satisfying to eat a chocolate chip cookie while watching Dennis the Menace than simply eating chocolate chips. As a youngster I knew that cookie and baking provided you with some wiggle room to be creative, so one day while making monster cookies (in grade school) I decided to "spice things up a bit." I looked into the cupboard for something that would give the cookies a little extra kick. That something extra was peppermint extract. I had no idea the power of an extract so I just dumped. Needless to say the entire batch was ruined. It took a friend and I weeks to eat it all because no one else would eat them. From that experience I learned that you can stray from the recipe to enhance your cooking/baking, but you need to have an idea of what you are working with.

The recipe for these peanut butter wafers called for them to be rolled in crushed peanuts. Although I enjoy peanuts, I find that there are a number of other actual nuts that are far superior to the peanut. I decided to add some almonds and pecans to the peanuts that I placed in the food processor in order to bring some other flavors and more texture to the exterior of the wafers/cookies. (I really do not understand the need to call these wafers since they are a cookie, but I did not name the recipe.) In addition, what goes amazingly well with peanut butter...CHOCOLATE!! I decided to melt some chocolate and peanut butter chips together and drizzle them over the top of the cookies to add some yummy goodness and a little decorative flare. There was not real pattern to the drizzle. Back and forth and sided to side seemed to produce the best results. In the end I had taken a recipe that was good and just kicked it up a few notches.



So the next time that you are looking at a recipe that seems a little boring, think about what you might be able to add that would enhance flavors and make the overall end product better. Again, you might end up with an extract explosion, but you also might hit a home run. Happy baking.