In the Mood to Bake

I have never been artsy or crafty. I have a lot of fun trying, but being creative is not something that comes naturally to me.

In high school, my favorite class (besides English, of course) was chemistry. I LOVED it! I loved doing conversions, learning about all the elements, and balancing equations. Why? Because EVERYTHING in chemistry has an exact method or formula to follow. Unlike art and creativity, I was GOOD at it.

So this is why I think I love to bake. I've always been told that cooking is an art, while baking is a science. I have a lot more trouble cooking than I do baking, because I lack to ability to improvise. If something doesn't look/taste right, I have NO IDEA what to do to fix it, and I'm too scared to try! While I'm getting better at it as I go, it doesn't naturally come easy to me.

Baking on the other hand, is my forte. I NEED a map to guide me when I'm in the kitchen. I like to follow recipes letter by letter. And that is why I like to bake. Every once in awhile, I get in the mood to bake until I can't bake anymore. The mood hit last night. At 10:00.

Luke was at a football game, and all of a sudden, I just HAD to bake something. I had a bunch of apples, so I decided to bake apple crisp.It turned out pretty well! (Although I think I left in the oven just a tad bit too long). You can find a recipe similar to the one I used HERE. I think apple crisp is the perfect fall treat. The only thing better would be apple dumplings. I haven't been brave enough to try these yet, but maybe in the next few weeks :-)

This morning I baked some cinnamon rolls. Umm, they were Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls. So I guess I can't take credit for them, but they were delicious! And the house is still filled with the smell, four hours later. I'm trying to make cinnamon rolls a Saturday morning breakfast tradition, at least a couple Saturdays a month. Maybe someday I will learn to bake them from scratch :-)

And later I plan on baking some chocolate chip cookies. We're going to end up with more food than we can handle here. That's why I'm glad my grandma lives right downstairs :-) I'll just bring some down to her.

Finally, I can't wait to try out the fall cookie cutters I shared about the other day. I want to go all out. Last night I found this great tutorial about how to decorate sugar cookies with Royal Icing. So in a few Saturdays, I think I'm going to turn my kitchen into a bakery and make whole day of it :-) I'm going to have to go shopping for some supplies, and probably move the big table into the kitchen so I have a bigger work area (I have zero counter space in my kitchen pretty much). I think it will be fun! Maybe I can get Luke to get in on the action too :-)

Well I'm going to get back to watching the Ohio State game with Luke. They are winning 14-0 at the end of the first quarter! When i'm done with this, I'm planning on working on knitting my scarf for the rest of the game.