The Adventures of Sweet Thang, Part 1

So for those who know me personally, they know that I have a serious sweet tooth. They also know that I like to bake. As a child, I remember watching my grandmother bake from scratch, pound cakes and sweet potato pies. My mother also made a serious chocolate cake. I can also remember my grandmother clipping recipes and watching Mr. Food on the Channel 4 news and taking notes. Even though I was pretty young, I have always wished that I had paid close attention to the memorized recipes, especially since both my grandmother and mother have since passed away. Though what I did manage to learn from them is that baking isn’t just edible chemistry, it’s love.

Before I relocated, I would bake for my roommates and friends all the time. And I really enjoyed it. It’s been several months since I’ve baked anything simply because I have no one to bake for. I moved to a new city with very few friends. So as a result, when I bake a cake, I end up eating the entire thing by myself because I don’t want to waste it (which makes perfect sense, right?). Luckily, I have high metabolism and I don’t notice the fact that I’ve eaten an entire cake (usually in a week or less) in the form of pounds. Although my high metabolism is beneficial, I knew that I couldn’t continue eating whole cakes, so I stopped baking.

Well, lately I’ve had this nagging desire to bake something…anything. I’ve been ignoring it for a few weeks now, but tonight I gave into temptation with a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. This is my very first time baking cookies from scratch. I normally buy them out of the freezer section. Needless to say it was pretty challenging. A couple of hours, some blood, light perspiration, almost a couple of tears, and two trips to Wal-Mart later…I emerged with a batch of my “Not Your Average Oatmeal Cookies.”

The perfectionist in me would love to brag about how I effortlessly executed the recipe found in cookbook as if I had developed it myself, but that’s not quite what happened. I managed to get my teaspoon and my tablespoon mixed up and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. As a result two of the ingredients (vanilla extract and baking powder) were a little on the “heavy-handed” side. After I realized what I had done, I almost started to cry and immediately I wanted to call my mother and ask her what to do. But I couldn’t, so I managed to pull myself together, scoop some of the baking powder out…it was too late for the vanilla extract since I had already mixed it in and continued on my little baking adventure. The cookies actually turned out pretty good. Admittedly, they don’t taste like the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from Potbelly’s, but they are pretty tasty.

I enjoyed this experience so much that I decided to bake and perfect a different dessert every month. I'm actually considering it an adventure and like most adventures there are bound to be a few missteps which I will be totally honest about. "Sweet Thang" is my baking personality. I like it not only because I like the song, but it also adds a little sass to something many consider very domestic. Until we meet again...Sweet Thang