It doesn’t take a genius to realize that I haven’t been baking as much this March. Instead, I’ve been focusing on some of my other hobbies, mainly crochet.
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Category: Life
Sophie Update and March Baking Outlook
It’s hard to believe that we are over a week into March! This month has been flying by and it wasn’t until I sat down to write this post that I realized I hadn’t baked anything yet this month. I’ve been so consumed with crocheting and getting things done on Fridays that the baking has sort of taken a backseat.
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Crochet Diary – Sophie’s Universe Announcement
In addition to baking, cooking, and learning about herbs, I have another hobby that I do quite often. But it isn’t really one that I talk about too much. I love to crochet! I typically enjoy making blankets and scarfs over hats and other clothing items, but I’ve been crocheting for years.
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A Valentine’s Day Bake
Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate. Or, Happy Singles Appreciation Day, if you celebrate that. This year, I wanted to bake something special for Valentine’s Day that wasn’t the traditional chocolate-based recipe.
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What I Cooked Last Weekend
If you happened to see my post from Saturday, you’ll know that my area of the country was hit by our first major winter-storm of the season. In fact, it was the first really major storm in the last couple of years. Parts of the state I live in experienced blizzard conditions. Though we had a lot of snow at my house, we didn’t lose power, have the blizzard conditions (according to meteorologists) and overall fared pretty well. The fact that it fell on a Saturday was also nice. In the end, it basically meant I was snowed in on Saturday which gave me plenty of time to hang out in the kitchen.
I did bake, though not from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. I also tried my hand at some more vegan recipes. Here a rundown of my time in the kitchen last week.
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A Blizzard in New England
Today, we are experiencing blizzard conditions. Or at least we might be. It doesn’t look like much, but the wind is blowing the snow all around. This is truly the first major snowstorm of the season, so I guess I can’t be too upset.
At least it’s happening on a Saturday and I don’t have go anywhere. I plan to spend the day watching tv, making soup, doing laundry, and eating way too much left-over birthday cake.
A Quick Foray into Vegan Baking
Long-time readers of the blog will remember that every now and then I get on a “plant-based kick.” As I continue to read more and more about the health, ecological, and economical benefits of removing animal-based products from one’s diet, I keep getting the urge to do so. But one of the things that would be quite difficult for me to give up would be baking and making desserts. So, I am “testing the waters” so to speak.
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A Break from Baking
Over the weekend, there was not much baking going on. In fact, I didn’t bake anything. However, on Sunday evening I decided to use up the egg yolks I had leftover from the failed Caramel Meringue Buttercream recipe to make lemon curd. I haven’t done anything with the curd yet. To be honest, I didn’t even taste it after it chilled.
This weekend, I will be visiting NYC with my partner. We’re stopping Brooklyn to visit some of his friends before we make the trek up to the Bronx to see the Botanical Gardens’ train show. We will be having brunch and I’ve been asked to bring some cookies for us to share. So, I’m combing through recipes on Sally’s Baking Addiction to decide what I’ll bring.
Stay tuned next week for how the weekend turned out and what cookies I decided to make!
Baking with Grandma
Every year, my grandmother makes dozens and dozens of cookies for the holidays. Last year, she made roughly 144 dozen cookies. They’re not all for the family — don’t worry, we aren’t swimming in cookies from one Christmas Day to the other. She gives them away to friends, the places of work for her children and grandchildren, her old clients, etc. Everyone really loves them and look forward to receiving their package each year.
Her process is a long one that begins long before the week leading up to Christmas. Most of the ingredients are purchased by the end of September. The month of October begins with making doughs that can be frozen before the cookies are made. Around mid-October she takes a week off from the Christmas baking to make Halloween sugar cookies. These don’t number anywhere near the amount she makes for Christmas.
Once the Halloween cookies are made the real work begins. Each day, about 5 or six days a week, she bakes one or two different kinds of cookies. Once baked and embellished they get boxed by type and sit in a freezer until mid-December when she start to assemble the packages. Eventually, they are shipped off to the happy recipients.
Usually, she is able to and enjoys baking alone. However, this is one cookie that for the last few years, I’ve helped her bake. Her “filled cookies” are very labor intensive and require many steps. I have to help with the rolling and the filling. Once they are on the trays, the baking process is no different from any other type of cookie. Last week, I had a day off from work. So, Grandma and I planned to carve out a couple hours to tackle the “filled cookies.”
This year was a bit easier since the dough was already made so we just had to roll it out, cut into squares, fill with the jelly or nut mixture, roll up the dough into a small log, and bake them off. Since we’ve doing this for a few years, we have the system down to a science and I was only there a little over an hour.
I do have pictures below, but I forgot to take one of the cookies once they were baked. I’ve been helping my grandmother in the kitchen on and off for many years. When I was a child, we actually lived right across the street from her for a time. After school and weekends, I would go over there and help her with whatever she was doing in the kitchen. Whether it be baking something, making candy for the holidays, make lunch or dinner, etc. I guess I can credit my interest and love of baking to her.
Friday Night Cooking Plans
To be honest, I can’t even remember the last time I cooked for my family on a Friday night and blogged about it. During the colder months, I was doing it pretty consistently. There was good reason: I was (slowly) making my way through Ina Garten’s recipes. As life started to return to “normal” when the warm weather came, I started doing more and was spending less time at home, thus I was cooking less.
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