Beginner Baker

Sometimes instead of baking I make a full dinner for my wife and I. :)

Made an apple pie this weekend. Did not make the dough from scratch as I normally would try. The hardest part of this was peeling the apples. Everything else was very easy and straight forward.

I learned the hard way why you need to have fresh active dry yeast. I attempted some olive bread but used some older yeast I had in my fridge. No rise at all!!

If you are baking fresh bread you must get high quality yeast. Don’t skimp on this .

Another weekend and another bake!

These dark chocolate cherry muffins turned out divine. Straight out of Paul Hollywood baking book.

After the 3rd attempt of making muffins I finally figured out the amount to put in for the bake so they aren’t too small or too big. Take a look at the second pic.

Another recommendation I would make is get a giant bar of chocolate and break it into rough pieces instead of using chocolate chips. Looks better and is always a lovely surprise when you bite in to one of the larger chunks.

Wife approves so I call that a win.

A sneak peak and what is going to be made today. Come back for the final product!

The rise of the sourdough. Bum bum bum bum bum bum

Alert alert!!! Very yummy treat that has no added sugar!!!

Yesterday I decided to use the two old bananas that I forgot to eat. I looked around in our pantry and saw I had almond flour. I thought to myself that almond flour banana bread could taste good…I was right…it’s delicious.

Ingredients are almond flour, banana, egg, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and honey.

I added some dark chocolate chips just because 😉

The texture was amazing and the taste was fantastic. A really good healthy dessert option for my household.

Epic fail alert!!!!

Attempted to make flourless chocolate cake…only greased the pan but it still stuck to the bottom.

Important lesson learned…always use parchment paper when you can.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. What’s better than fudge?!

I decided to make fudge for myself and our families. Two different types made two different ways. There is a dark chocolate with caramel fudge made with sweetened condensed milk and a second milk chocolate with walnuts made with marshmallow puff and condensed milk.

The puff made the fudge a little lighter while the one without it made it more dense.

Highly recommed

Ugly pies that fit my beginning baker status. Let’s just say it was a rough bake. Paul Hollywood would not approve

Rainy day so felt like baking some classic banana bread. If you want a fall treat I highly recommend any easy bread recipe as such! You can add any extras such as nuts or chocolate chips to give it that extra yum.

I like my buns warm, toasted and all sourdough!

Linzer cookies were the request from a follower and linzer cookies are what I made. First mistake was that they are massive!!! The recipe called for 12 and I only made 6.

I used a red solo cup to cut the cookies and then a bottle cap top to cut the inner. They truly look like beginner baker style cookies!

However, even though they may be rough around the edges they did taste good. The rosé jam was subtle enough and went well with the powdered sugar on top. The cookies maintained their moisture even after 2 days in the fridge.

I will be making these again.

Cherry pie was on the menu tonight. I must confess I did cheat. We used canned cherry pie filling.

The backstory on this pie was a date idea provided to my wife during her wedding shower. Instead of gifts she requested date ideas and making a cherry pie was one of them.

The pie crust consisted of flour, water, salt and shortening. Extremely easy to make. The filling was canned and I decided to add some sugar to extract some extra sweetness. We egg washed the top and did some fancy lattice work.

I’m not much of a fruit dessert guy, as you may have noticed from all the chocolate, but this pie was tasty. Next fruit pie I make will be entirely from scratch!

Next on the menu as requested is linzer cookies. So be on the lookout for that bake!

I think I will be trying a cherry pie for the first time this weekend!

What else would you want to see?

I decided to surprise my wife with one of her favorite desserts! Chocolate cupcakes topped with her favorite peanut butter icing. I have made the icing once before and it was a hit!

Icing is created by 1 cup of peanut butter, 3 tablespoons of butter milk, and 1 cup of confections sugar. Mixed till light and fluffy.

Chocolate cupcakes were the basic cupcakes from scratch. However, I messed up since I didn’t fill them evenly…The sizes were very different but that is why I am just a beginner.

The surprise is an Oreo cookie base! I got inspiration from a baking episode I saw and since we love Oreos I just had to try it.

My wife gifted me a piping kit and this was my first time using it. I don’t think it was good but I also don’t think it was bad. I am looking forward to honing my skills on the next cake bake!

It’s all about how pretty it is because we all know a bunch of sugar topped with peanut butter sugar is going to taste delicious.

Follow along for more bakes!

Created some homemade fried chicken tonight. First time and it turned out crispy, moist and absolutely delicious.

Wedding was beautiful and now I can say I’m officially married to an amazing woman.

Also no more wedding diet!!!!

First day back to baking and I decided to make the classic sourdough. I can pretty much make this in my sleep and it tastes fantastic.

Stay tuned every week for a new bake!

Hello my loyal followers, you may wonder why I haven’t baked in awhile…The reason is I am doing my best to trim for my wedding that is approaching fast!

What I have been doing instead is cooking these delicious meals.

Only 1 month left and then the baking will resume!

Who likes licking the mixer blades when done? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️

Per my fiancé’s request I attempted to make a sourdough brioche bread. I must say it might be my most successful loaf to date.

Baking sourdough bread is great but it can be dull. So, I spiced it up!

Throw in some eggs, milk, sugar, salt and more flour plus the sourdough leaven and you’ve got yourself some of the most delicious bread.

The only down side is it takes 2 days from the initially feeding of sourdough starter to a fresh loaf out of the oven.

Ball of dough. Any guesses what I’m making??? I will give you a hint, it’s a type of bread from French origin.

Made some beautiful pancakes today using my sourdough starter discard!

Anyone out there interested in me making a sugar free dessert?

Another gluten free bake this weekend. I am a lover of chocolate and this flourless chocolate cake is perfect for us cake lovers. Simple and easy. All it took was 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips, 3 eggs, cocoa powder, butter, salt, and vanilla extract.

Quick and easy batter in the oven for 25 minutes.

The wonderful topping is 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream.

This is to die for!

Gluten Free bake. So my fiancé and I decide that the month of January we were going to be gluten free. However we both love our treats. This made me think...what can I bake that’s gluten free.

Cookies!

I found an almond chocolate cookie recipe that called for no sugar. It used maple syrup as the replacement of sugar. Simple and easy.

Thing to note is that these cookies do not rise like normal. They have to be shaped and molded before going into the oven. They bake quickly and look delicious.

I highly recommend this recipe for anyone interested in a gluten free dessert.

Today we are going to try our hand at some gluten free chocolate chip cookies! Post to follow soon!

It will be my first attempt so wish me luck. Haha.