Baking!

As I mentioned in my last post, baking is also a new interest of mine. I've always been somewhat into it, of course, but I was recently trying to pinpoint when I became so much more interested in it.

I remember that for my co-birthday party just over a year ago (August 2008), I was going to use a cake mix for the cupcakes. One of my friends (who is an excellent baker and cook) exclaimed "Step away from the cupcakes!" when she heard that, and brought three different flavors that she made herself, if memory serves.

So I wasn't big into baking as recently as 14 months ago. Yet 8 months ago, for the Oscars, I baked my heart out. Not only did I make nutella-filled sugar cookies:

but I also made an elaborate maple cake for a friend's birthday:

Clearly the turning point was between August and February. I think I can pinpoint it, actually. I bought a KitchenAid mixer in November (fantastic deal on a reconditioned one) and I've done more and more baking since then. I was already reading food blogs before then (one of those blogs alerted me to the deal!), but it was just too much work to do some of those recipes.

Once I had my mixer, first I wanted to break it in. Then I wanted to justify its purchase. Now I just enjoy the baking! I almost always foist the majority of my product onto others - mostly my coworkers - but no one's complained too loudly yet!

So, as I go on with this blog, I'll be sure to link to recipes I've tried and will post photos of the results. I have a few projects I did in the past that I can post about, and now that I've worked out the photo issues, I'll get right on it.