New Year’s Resolution: Bake More

I know it’s a little late to be writing about New Year’s resolutions, but it’s been on my mind for awhile now. A good friend of mine has a collaging party every year at the beginning of the new year. She calls it “Collage Your Intentions.” We take a bunch of magazines and put together a collage on poster board that visually indicates what our intentions are for the next year, for the future, for whenever. The date doesn’t have to be specific. Something might grab you in a way that you didn’t realize before.

A lot of my collage this year had to do with food, cooking, and my kitchen. I’ve got some ideas about revamping my kitchen in my apartment to make it something more communal and inviting. That’s gonna take some $$ but I’m getting there. (tax return anyone?)

But part of my collage was about baking. I don’t really like baking. It’s somewhat of a science and I just don’t get it. I love cooking because you can play around with the ingredients and, most importantly, fix it in the middle if it goes awry.

But baking? You have to be so precise. It’s chemistry. Granted, I was really into chemistry and science for 5 or 6 years but quickly changed to art and the humanities when I realized the bio lab was the last place I wanted to be. So now I’m collaging about baking?

Yep. This year I’m going to bake more. And I have been. (It’s time for a non-curry post, don’t you think?)

It all started Super Bowl Sunday. I decided I wanted to make a cake with buttercream frosting. The cake was a disaster – dense and more like cornbread than cake. The frosting? What a complete mess. I know I’ve successfully made buttercream frosting before but this was unlike anything I’d made. It was all curdled and gross. And the worst part? I had no idea how to fix it.

So the next day I made cupcakes. Mmmmm….chocolate cupcakes. And they were good! I got the recipe from epicurious.com Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream. They were really delicious. But the frosting? I messed it up again. It was a totally different recipe but I still couldn’t do it. I’ll try again another time.

I am able to make pie though. I made pie crust last night so I can make blueberry pie tonight to take over to a friend’s house for dinner. The Joy of Cooking is a life saver. Especially when it comes to describing how to make pastry. We’ll see how it goes tonight.

Wow. I just added my first “Baking” tag. I wonder where this will go…