On Baking, Bread, and The Precious

I've been baking.

On its own, that statement is not a cause for concern. Or rather, not much concern.

I've been baking since I was very little, at first helping my mom out, and then making a total mess out of the kitchen All By Myself. A few years ago, however, I started baking in earnest. This is right around the same time I started knitting again as well as sewing. In all honesty, I think I probably picked up handicrafts again as a tribute to my grandmother who passed away last year and also as a form of procrastination. Regardless, I do a little of everything but baking is one of my new loves.

I have slowly been acquiring gizmos and whatsits over the course of a few years and I have an interesting collection now...I think. Some Williams-Sonoma cookie cutters - the Marvel superheroes faces and the Star Wars vehicles - some pretty nifty food colors, all sorts of muffin tins, a cookie-scoop, and The Precious.

What is The Precious, you ask? Why my good fellow:

Me and The Precious at my birthday last year.

The Precious is the 6 quart capacity, bright red,  KitchenAid Stand Mixer I received for my birthday last year. This year one of my goals is to add the tengwar found on the One Ring to it in order to more properly connote its name, but until I do, that's just what I call it.

C'mon, you knew exactly what I was referring to when I said the tengwar. ...^^it's this.

So of course, upon receiving The Precious the first thing I did was baptize it in mocha and chocolate.

I'm not going to lie, having a stand mixer is a marvelous step up from using a hand mixer and my own brute strength. Paramount among the awesomeness is the ability to leave the mixer running while I melt/whip/add things. It just smooths everything out. ...I love my mixer, okay?

The problem with the Precious is it doesn't really help me with bread. I've decided that baking a decent loaf of bread is right up there with making a passable Apple Pie on "Things I Want to Do" but it's been...difficult. To that end I picked up a copy of 100 Great Breads from the Barnes and Nobles at school when I went to the bookstore to buy socks...long story...

Unfortunately, the man is a master baker and I just started making bread without the Bread Machine so mine came out all lumpy and weird. :| Going to try soda bread until I can make passable loaves.

Anyhoo. Because I made A Commitment to this blog and its general upkeep, I've decided to go ahead and start keeping better track of the things I bake. I won't make any promises as to the state of the pictures I'll take (synching my phone for pictures is enough of a hassle) but I will be doing more upkeep. And as soon as I figure out how, there will be a nifty "Baking" tab at the top of the blog where these posts will be housed.

But for tiding over, here are some pictures of stuff I've baked lately.

(Left to Right) Apple Pie, Vanilla cupcakes w/ chocolate comic book sayings, Kahlua cookie bowl with ice-cream, mocha cupcakes, apple cinnamon muffins, Star Wars cookies and blue milk.