weekend baking

We've not been blessed with the most springlike of springs in Chicago this year. Rather, one might accuse spring 2011 of being altogether wintry at times. Cold, wet, miserable.

This weekend, however, the sun came out, temperatures, rose, and the air conditioning for our building is still not yet switched on. And so I, of course - wise creature that I am - turn to baking.

I'm still rusty at it, I haven't done enough of it lately, and I'm genuinely not being as consistent with it as I'd like. I also really have to wonder about the oven here - I don't think it bakes very evenly at all, and over time, that bothers me more and more. I'll soldier on for now, of course, and put aside the less-than-pretty efforts for eating at home or discreetly tossing away.

Yesterday morning I was up quite early, a fitful night of sleep behind me and a swim practice ahead. Scones for Smelts was the plan. One batch had golden raisins, candied ginger nibs, and walnuts. The other featured dried cherries (my obsession for a year now) and bittersweet chocolate. I gave extras to Heidi as advance thanks for timing me this coming Tuesday and distributed most of the rest to teammates. I ate one with a decaf latte after practice and saved one for Conrad's coffee today.

There was a team function today I'd intended to go to, but in view of Conrad's work travel last week and then today, I realized I wanted the time at home with him. He had packing to do, though, so I turned back to the kitchen and made two lemon loaves for the team to take with them. Simple quickbread cakes, scented with lemon zest and glazed with a lemon juice and sugar syrup. It was a favourite of mine when I was a kid, and Mum gave me the recipe some years back. I need to make it for Conrad's office one day.



After that I looked at some new biscotti recipes and settled on an almond crunch recipe. These were mostly to go with Conrad to the LA office. An easy enough recipe, but I think I would want the crunch to be less burnt sugar and more sweet/salty toffee or praline. I may swap out that part if I can find a good candy recipe. Still, the cookies looked nice enough, so that was good.



After Conrad left, I decided to do a bit more baking for friends. No photos from that effort - I simply forgot. I did get some chocolate chip cookies in the mail to a couple of people, though. I don't often make chocolate chip, I confess, and this was a new recipe as well. That sounds like an excuse somehow, right? I think they're fine, the cookies, but I might go to other recipes in the future.

The last batch of cookies are not yet complete. Chocolate ginger cookies a friend requested, and the dough needs a good chilling. Tuesday night I'll roll the dough and bake them up. I think that should be fine.

I've eaten a bunch of cookie dough, and we'll call that dessert. A bit more baking to come this week, and with forecasted cooler days and nights again, that should be fine.