A New Love

I've always known I love to cook.  And until a week ago, I thought that was it for my culinary affection.  I would always tell people that I loved to cook, but I didn't care for baking.  Well, I was flat out wrong!

Since getting my KitchenAid, I've discovered I rather like baking!. I even get an itch sometimes to bake something...anything.  And not because I want something sweet to eat, or bread to serve with dinner.  But just because I love the process, and the smell, and the prettiness that comes out of the oven.  I love it!

Last week, I woke up on Monday morning and thought I'd give sugar cookies a try.  Claire and Sophie had been asking for days to make cookies, and what kind of Mom would I be to deny them?  Now, I have tried sugar cookies in the past.  Twice, to be precise.  And both times were monumental failures!  I swore I'd never do them again.  But...that was before I owned a KitchenAid.  And before I had built up some confidence in baking.  

I used the OBB recipe for the cookies, of course.  For the first time in my life, my dough turned out PERFECT!  I was so excited!  All credit goes to my wonderful KitchenAid, who I think I might name "Mixie".  I know...it's lame.  But what would you name it? :)  Anyway, once the dough was ready, the girls helped me cut out some cute cookies, and we baked them up.  The house smelled delicious!  The kids were SO excited!

  The cookies turned out perfectly!  I was ecstatic!  So...I decided to go for broke. :)

On the Our Best Bites blog, they have pictures of these adorably decorated sugar cookies.  They used their "glace icing", which I had all the ingredients for.  The girls and I got fancy and started our attempt at not only edible and delicious sugar cookies, but beautiful ones as well....

I had a blast decorating, and you can see that Claire and Sophie did as well.  Sophie mostly ate her icing, but that's cool, too. :)  Admittedly, my decorating skills need some practice.  And I've decided I need to get some piping equipment.  But, for a first timer, I was pleased with my fancy cookies!

So pleased, in fact, that I was almost on a high for the rest of the day!  And it was during this high that I planned my next baking adventure.  I had been dying to try the "Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Frosting" recipe off of OBB, but have never had the guts or the occasion.  Well, the sugar cookies added the guts, and the missionaries and friends coming for dinner provided the occasion!

This undertaking did not go as smoothly as the cookies did.  I have never made a cake from scratch before, so I was a little nervous.  I decided to make the cake the day before the dinner so I wouldn't get stressed, and make the frosting the day of.  Things went well with the cake right up until I needed to take the cakes out of the pans.  And...you guessed it.  They stuck.  AGH!  I was so bummed!  They broke and split, and there was a decent amount of cake left in one of the pans.  I didn't know what to do!  But I decided to go ahead the next day and make the frosting and just see if I could engineer the cake together enough to frost and serve it.  *Side Note: I know what I did wrong with the cakes.  I took them out of the oven and left them to "cool" on the stove top!  Yeah, the stove top to the oven that had been at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Duh.

Anyway, the frosting didn't quite work like I think it was supposed to, either.  I know what I did wrong there, too, so hopefully the next time I can get the nice whipped texture I was going for.  But at any rate, the frosting was rich and smooth and wonderful, so I went ahead and tried to assemble my layered cake.  It only took a little bit of effort, and I was able to get it built and frosted!  I stuck it immediately in the fridge, hoping it would harden a bit and keep intact until after dinner.  It did, and when it came time to serve it, it turned out beautifully!

Not only was it beautiful.  It was delicious!  Definitely one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever had.  I will for sure make this one again!  And as for my relationship with baking?  I think we're just getting started... ;)