Fueled By Flapjacks: The Joy Of Baking

Fueled By Flapjacks

Monday, February 19, 2007

The Joy Of Baking

If I had to pick a fragrance for my weekend, it would be a scent so sweet and saccharine you would just want to melt into it. This was the aroma that filled my kitchen as I spent hours baking for the 4th non-annual Silken Rose (aka Crystal's birthday party).

It was hard work but really enjoyable. I find baking really soothing. I was really in the moment and would have avoided the clock entirely if I didn't have a deadline. There is a great pleasure in taking raw ingredients and building them up to something deliciously edible.

Chocolate cupcakes fresh out of the oven, pre-frosting.

Vanilla cupcakes fresh from the oven, pre-frosting

My most ambitious, yet most rewarding task was the creation of cupcakes. I was making 2 sets of 12 cupcakes - vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream frosting. They were easy to make, but very time consuming. I won't even consider how many calories are in the little bundles of joy, but considering they mostly consisted of butter and sugar it would be alot! The cupcakes were definitely my favourite thing to make. They smelled divine. I breathed them in almost giddy with delight as I waited for my babies to grow up into big cupcakes (I didn't break the news to them that they were about to be eaten).

Vanilla cupcake with pink vanilla frosting and marshmallow flower with M&M centre.

Chocolate cupcak with chocolate frosting, after-dinner mint sticks and chocolate chips

I also made Weight Watches Cappuchino brownies, which I would say were more mocha brownies because they included dark chocolate and cocoa. They weren't as diet as the recipe however because I didn't use reduced fat butter. These brownies also contained Weight Watchers Berry Flakes. They are pretty simple to prepare and much faster than cupcakes. Once baked, I cut them into small slices and lightly powdered icing sugar over them. I liked them but I would have preferred them with more chocolate and more coffee. Some people claimed the coffee was too strong, but I could barely taste it, probably because I have acquired the taste for coffee more than some. I will probably just make rich decadent brownies next time.

I licked a lot of bowls and did a lot of dishes in the course of this weekend. How my stomach has coped with this assault, I do not know. I did have a bit of a belly ache last night. There is only so much sugar and dairy a person's body should ingest in the space of two days and I am quite sure I surpassed it.

I also made plain scones (served with plum jam and peach vanilla preserve) and sandwiches with various combinations of chicken, beef, cheddar cheese, aioli, tomato and bbq sauce. I brought home a few leftovers of these, which Ma toasted in the oven for dinner and damn are they good toasted. They are like twice as tasty! It is the magic of toasting!

I don't have pictures of the sandwiches yet or the rest of the scrumptious Silken Rose spread, but I'm pretty sure Linda took pictures of it so I'll get her to forward them to me.

The Silken Rose Cafe also served mince savories, beef sausage rolls, feta and spinach pastries, bread with dips, mini bacon and egg quiches and chocolate birthday cake. A wide assortment of teas, coffees, hot chocolates and cold drinks were also on offer for our patrons.

The night before the Silken Rose was Linda's farewell get together because she is leaving us and running off to Deering, New Hampshire! :( Satiated with baked good batter, I devoured corn chips with salsa and a plate of cheese and crackers. My body was craving savory food, so I was helplessly bound to stuff as much of it in as I could. Remember what I said about moderation? I also ate a few eclairs - some of the large home-made variety filled with fresh cream and freshly melted chocolate. Others of the miniature store bought variety filled with a delectable bavarian cream. It doesn't take long for my body to revert back to sugar consumption mode.

Linda also prepared one of our favourite desserts - ambrosia! Oh yes, another big bowl. A lush, creamy dessert made from yoghurt and whipped cream, marshmallows, chocolate buttons and blueberries. Not a dessert for the faint hearted. There is a reason it's name means "food of the gods", because you have to be super-human to consume large quantities of it.

Labels: dessert, snacks

posted by Lauren @ 3:14 PM

1 Comments:

At 9:18 AM, Linda Jane said…

Lauren, once again well done on such a superb effort. Your baking was awesome :-)