Baking

I love baking. (Even more than I love cooking). This is in no small part because I generally bake sweet things rather than savoury and I have a large sweet tooth.

The first time I baked was a long time before the first time I cooked. I think I was around 13 or 14 and I wanted to bake my mother a cake for Mother’s Day. I had no idea what I was doing so I asked my grandmother for help and she talked me through making a vanilla cake – a heart shaped one.

All was well and I thought I’d soon be serving up a pretty heart for my mom. Except, I didn’t set the oven on the right temperature and so my nice, pretty cake was actually a mushy pancake instead. (My mom tried it, by the way). I ended up eating it myself and it didn’t taste bad, it just looked bad.

The second time I baked, I used a box mix to make myself chocolate cupcakes. On a whim, I changed the recipe slightly because I thought the batter was too thick and they were pretty good.

I figured out my chocolate mud pie recipe when I was trying to make a cake and put the batter in the oven for half the time I should have. Re-mixing the half-done batter before popping it back in the oven made it taste so much better!

One of the best things about baking is that all these great things that I love to eat – and that are pretty expensive, are so much cheaper when they’re made at home. I also love the fact that it’s really easy to change recipes so I like them better – which is not possible to do when one is buying ready-made products.

Basically, I love to bake. It’s one of my favorite hobbies and it’s really easy to get into.