Sweet Treats and Things to Eat

I didn't mean to talk about that so much, but it happens. What can you do?

If there's one thing the Internet loves more than cats, it's ridiculous baked goods. Along with reading a cooking blog or two, I have seen treats upon treats all over the web that make me drool. Pinterest is basically food porn. Like chocolate chip cookie dough truffles:

or maybe Reese's cheesecake brownies:

Or perhaps chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars?

Guh. I die. Can you tell I love cookie dough/cheesecake/peanut butter? Because those are my favorite desserts.

Along with the Pinterest food deliciousness, I've been reading all about Cake Week. It happened this week, and what happened was a group of bloggers each made a different type of cake. Honestly, I'm not a cake person. Sure, there are some delicious cakes, but it's not at the top of my dessert list. I will chow down on the batter like a madman however. Any type of batter? I will lick the bowl clean. That's probably the reason I love cookie dough so much.

So I don't like baked goods, I like un-baked goods? Oh dear. Probably not good for my health.

On the actual baking side of things, I'm not much of the cake or brownie maker. I can make a pretty swell chocolate chip cookie, or more likely dough. There is one baked good that I do love, and it's baking bread.
As you may recall, I bought a bread baking book earlier this summer that I lovingly call the Bread Bible. Since then, I've baked 21 different loaves of bread from the book, not including the ones that I've repeated. I've had some ups and downs with my breads, like not baking long enough or baking too long. I've had many that didn't rise very well. Actually, the breads I've tried baking in my oven here have been having the most issues... Then again, I think my oven turns off in the middle of baking. I'm not sure if I can confirm this, but the little light turns off on the outside that says, "Oven on". So that might be happening.
Anyways, one of the breads that I've been baking that I find delight in are sweet breads, or quick breads. Alright, these don't really count as real breads. It's like when you justify having a muffin for breakfast. Stop lying to yourself, that's cake without the frosting.

I baked some strawberry bread this week because I though UFO was having another bake sale. Turns out they're not until next week. Perhaps I'll make the strawberry bread into breakfast bread instead. Strawberry and peanut butter? Odd but good combo.
So here's some of what I can bake:

Eat your heart out Pinterest.

Oh, what am I saying? My bread looks sad. However, it does taste like fresh strawberries, even though they were frozen. Perhaps I need a better place to model my food? My kitchen is very sad and has icky lighting.

Well, I'll keep working on the bread baking thing. I do have more than 300 recipes left in that book.

What's your favorite dessert? What's your dessert making specialty?

Imitating the Foodie Bloggers

Sometimes, I wish I was a foodie blogger.

Or had any theme, really. Other than college kid writing? I dunno. Still, foodie blogger is the type of blogger I wish I could be the most. Food bloggers seem to have all of the fun, and they make the tastiest looking things. For instance, Mimi over at Gingersnaps just wrote about the FoodBuzz Fest, and everything sounded amazing.

But here's the thing: I am not very good at cooking. As I've mentioned multiple times. However, I'd like to think of myself as an okay baker. I'm slowly learning the art of this baking thing, don't worry about it. I've been baking bread out of what I'm calling my Bread Bible since I bought it this summer, and yesterday I thought I would make something out of it for the pledge potluck happening tomorrow.

Which leads me to point two of why I'm not in the position of being able to be a food blogger... My food isn't pretty. The best quality that all of my food baked goods has that it smells amazing. (If I do say so myself, hur hur hur.) When I baked pumpkin bread on Halloween, I received complaints about the bread smelling good. Trust me, it was a good thing in said situation. For the last two days, I've smelt like butter. You'd be surprised, but it's fantastic. I just kept smelling myself.

So what did I make today? See for yourself...

Croissants! Yes, I realize they are not super pretty but hell I'm going to take them as my dish tomorrow. That's another thing that makes me nervous about my baking- no one has ever really eaten my baking before. Sure, they've had my cookies, but no one else has partaken in the consumption of my bread. My dad never ate any, even though I would offer it. Then again, when I made him granola for Christmas last year because he likes food to munch on, he didn't eat any of it. I don't know.

I'll admit, the croissants are a little... toasted on the bottom. I didn't even keep them in the over for as long as the recipe said, it was a lot less time. I freakin' watched them. However, I taste tested one and... OH MY GOODNESS. This is why rolling three sticks of butter into flour is a good thing. (True story.)

So I'll take my little batch of french baked goods...

...And serve them to people. Wish me luck!

In case you were wondering, my phone camera still hasn't been working. That means all of these pictures were taken with my web cam. Yet another reason why I could not be a foodie blogger.

Oh, and the Cascade Half is in January. Plenty of time for training, so I'll try a little experimenting with the running.

Are you nervous about cooking for others? What are you the best at cooking/baking? Truth be told, my specialty is chocolate chip cookie dough. The trick is adding two eggs, doubling your chance of salmonella if consuming raw. And it tastes way better raw.