Back to baking

I sat on writing this post a handful of days. Surprises. Always well-intended. I had meant to surprise both Conrad's sister Karen and TK with shipments of cookies baked on the weekend. Two small wrenches in the cogs: I clicked the box to notify Karen that she had a shipment, and I sent the cookies to TK's work. Which sounds like it should be fine, but a day after delivery, no one had alerted him that the cookies were there. A nudge from me spoiled the surprise but got him cookies.

Anyway, I've been in a baking mood lately. As Jeph commented to me today, it's fun and freeing not to have to do it out of some holiday obligation. I do like the holiday baking, I swear, but it also burned me out a little.

Sunday afternoon I got busy in the kitchen. Up first, an old standby, a favourite: buttermilk ginger cake. I diverge some from the recipe, but I think it works well. No, but don't ask me, take the word of one of Conrad's colleagues - I had sent the cake in with him to work on Monday: "Be sure to tell Peter how divine his cake is. Wedding dress be damned. I’m going to take a second piece."

Unlike, say, Luis and scones, that woman is welcome to my baking ALL the time.

:-)

As for the cookies, well, I had thought it would be appropriate to send TK some cookies from the cookbook he got me for Christmas. Not many cookies recipes in it, however, and I wasn't inclined to make tuiles. Instead, I opted for the chocolate chocolate chip recipe. Different than the chocolate chip recipes I've done before, but word back from Baltimore is that the cookies are good.

The other batch was of peanut crisps. I love these cookies immensely because they hit the salt/sweet bingo in my mouth. An easy recipe, too, this one from Martha's book.

Scones for Smelts will continue this weekend before a two-week hiatus for the Olympics. I'll also likely get some more cookies shipped off to hold friends over while I'm gone - TK, how many of the cookies have you eaten already, I wonder...