Will I ever bake again?

It has been a long hot summer. A summer that I spent on having whooping cough and that's not fun, I felt like I had been run over by a train. But (finally) I am starting to feel better. I miss the baking but it's been too hot... I did bake Will's "Cheeto cake". That, of course, was a hit. He wants me to make one without icing for his girlfriend (she's diabetic). I have managed a few thrown together dinners. Luckily for me, Craig doesn't seem to mind eating lots and lots of sandwiches. But today the weather cooled off. And I thought "hey maybe tomorrow's that day" The day for what, you ask? The day to make a Sunday dinner, the day to make bread sough (man I miss that). I think a nice roast beef with veggies and some yeast rolls will do just fine. I'll use one of my favorite bread recipes - Bernard Clayton Jr's potato bread recipe. It always turns out perfect. I have only used a few of the recipes in his book. I may like to experience with cakes and brownies, but with bread, I pretty much stick to the recipe - unless I don't;) I need to explore the book a bit more so I can make other goodies. Maybe I'll do more bread experiments in the fall, when it is cooler. Baking bread is a great experience because I believe if I can bake bread, I can do anything if I put my mind to it. And sometimes I just need to knead the bread, it's very relaxing

making vanilla extract

Yes, I have gone completely nuts and decided to make my own vanilla extract. Not so I can drink the rum or vodka, although it's a great idea. It's just I use a _lot_ of vanilla while baking - 2 teaspoons here, a tablespoon there and you go through a small bottle of vanilla very quickly. I don't know if it's really a savings to make your own, but it certainly seems cheaper than buying it.
I purchased my vanilla beans (Madagascar) from Olive Nation. I get no kickbacks from them for mentioning Olive Nationand the only only experience I have with buying vanilla beans happened at a grocery store. But Olive Nation was fast and fresh- best of all free shipping. The beans arrived vacuum sealed, a very cool thing. In the grocery store, they are generally in bottles, loose.
The first difference I noticed was the smell. The wonderful smell of vanilla hits you as soon as you open the pouch. The beans seem softer, more supple, so that seemed good, too.
I choose Bacardi rum to use to make the vanilla. I had it in the house already (rum cakes) and thought, hey, why not. I got 3 small jars, measured a cup of rum for each jar and placed the vanilla beans in it. I just did it maybe 30 minutes ago, so obviously I have no clue how it will turn out - for that I have to wait until close to the end of February. But it definitely is an intriguing kitchen task. I found the full instructions on this web site, http://www.noveleats.com/how-to/make-your-own-vanilla-extractHow to make vanilla extract
Again, no kickbacks from these folks. I will keep you posted on how it works. I'm thinking about buying some vodka to test that recipe out, but first I'll try the rum. Should be fun.

_Enjoy_

hey, I'm still here (I think)

I got no excuse for not writing in so long. I could say I was busy (and I was) but still it's a long of water under the bridge, so to speak.
I still am making brownies, I didn't make any this week, it's just way too hot. Plus I plan to put the energy into baking my "baby's" birthday cake, the famous Cheeto cake.
I did make blondies from the King Arthur cookbook. I used just chocolate chips. That worked out pretty well. My sons suggested I add peanut butter chips. I used those mini peanut butter chips as well as chocolate chips. The peanut butter chips did not stand up to the chocolate and you couldn't tell they were in the blondie.
So far, the faves of my sons are the brownies with peanut butter chips (and no additional chips), brownies with orange extract flavoring and the frozen mini marshmallow brownies.


I keep a bag of the mini marshmallows  in the freezer. Sometimes I take the  frozen mini marshmallows and mix them in with the brownie batter. It creates a little pocket of marshmallow goodness in the brownie. Sometimes I put them on top and they dot the brownies. It's pretty cool, even if I say so myself.

I did make some brownies with cream cheese in them. I loved it, but I like cream cheese. My sons didn't seem to notice any difference. But generally they don't notice anything different. Which, I guess, is good because I could sneak ground up pickled beets in the brownies - but I'm not going to because I also eat the brownies.

For Father's Day, I baked my beloved a chiffon case. For some reason, it was easier than I thought it would be. But I can't say I remember making a chiffon cake before. It might be possible I'm thinking of angel food cake. And what gives? "Back in the day" you hung the tube upside down on a glass bottle while it was cooling, something like a soda bottle. But mostly everything comes in plastic now, so there's no way you can do that. I might have to find an old soda bottle just for that purpose. Probably there's a gadget that I could buy and use for that purpose. I'll have to look into that.

_enjoy_