Strawberry Short Cake

So I noticed, all of my dishes so far have included baking. Makes me think i'm more of a pastry-chef than a "gourmet food"-chef. I don't mind, but I'd like to comfortably toss shrimp in a pan and flip it and quickly chop parsley and swiftly sprinkle it over something. Don't worry, the next recipe I have my eye on involves chicken, so no sweets there :-)



I discovered the trick to getting your fruits nicely glazed: toss it with its own fruit juice with granulated sugar. Who knew? I really enjoyed how petite this dessert turned out. For me, the cake itself had no defining taste, and the strawberries didn't taste like strawberries. I guess that's what happens after baking sometimes, you sacrifice your taste buds by munching in the creation process so that you don't enjoy your end-product. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed eating it, but there wasn't a *pop* of flavor, or maybe I mixed together the wrong ones...

The strawberries were lovely. I think they're the "models" of fruits, if you get what I mean. Like, all the other fruits want to be like them. Did you know there's a friend called 'ugly-fruit'? That's just cruel. Anyway, I was actually successful at cutting the round cake in half without messing up too bad. I made one big round cake, and I added a twist in the recipe (in the second batch) and made mini-short cakes. When they puffed up in the oven in the cupcake pan, they stole my attention from the start. They were adorable! Not necessarily after I decorated them, but since I buttered the sides of each cupcake-cup holder, the cake puffed up in the middle and I don't know, I guess it's just one of those things

Happy early birthday to Maria (idk-your-last-name), the person I had in originally mind in scoping and making the recipe. Next time, I'll add more vanilla in the cake batch, and maybe some honey. Yeah, definitely. Ah, that means i'll be needing to purchase more of those. I wish I had a Caucasian-person's cabinet. Then i'd have spices and creams that I could use and not have to go out and buy everything for every recipe. I have some leftover ricotta from the quiche and I'm planning to make mini-cheesecakes, yay. I also have leftover Parmesan from the quiche too, and I'll be using that with the chicken. I'm pretty excited. I also plan to make a 'Pineapple Upside-Down Cake' for a friend, and then a simple pasta dish for myself!

I can't wait until I have enough leftover ingredients in my house to experiment on. I feel like a scientist in a lab. I wish I felt this passionate about chemistry or math, that way I'd have a steady career in mind and I could help people medically instead of... by food. My dad is snoring, and it. Is. So. Annoying. I want to smack him in the face with a billboard. I really think I am going to throw my cell phone at his face. I need to work on my temper, I really do. I'd complain more, but this blog is about food, and about making and loving it, so, have you had any cravings lately? (Yes, but no one sees this anyway)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The only downside in making this recipe was the fact that 3 batches used up over half of the honey I just bought from Target, which means less for me and my toast *cries*. On a lighter note, these cookies turned out to be little blobs of pure joy (for me). Every time I made them, the kitchen was drenched in the aromas of honey, vanilla, and cinnamon which lasted longer than any air freshener i've ever used. They were surprisingly very chewy (which my braces-infested-teeth prefer) every time I pulled them out of the oven, even if it was a couple minutes late. The sweetness didn't last very long with every bite, but the chewiness compensated for that, in my opinion. And for those who were able to sample a few, did you guys know they were supposedly healthy? No wonder, right? Haha.

I tweaked the recipe a little, adding a dash of honey here and there and adding vanilla icing and such. These little guys puffed up in the shape I left them on the tray. I could've made them more circular, but the sticky honey really prevented me from patiently sculpting them because the oven was always done preheating before I was done shaping the cookies. It also left a lot of residue on my fingers, which I had no trouble licking off at the end. The batch was incredibly sweet before it was baked, makes me wonder... where did all the sugar go? It's like a relationship, when people break up, where does the love go? Or it's like drinking grape juice. When you pee, where does the purple go? The things in life that make you wonder, gotta love 'em.