Baking

Well, true to my word (if I hadn't written it in the blog I never would have done it, I swear) I set myself up this morning to make some Cranberry Shortbread Bars. It seemed like a very simple recipe at first glance, and I had all the ingredients already minus the unsalted butter and cranberries. A quick walk to the store solved that.

So um. Yeah, I baked.

Then I took this lousy picture as proof.

I baked cranberry shortbread bars, which is a thing that I have eaten before and I loved them so much I ate a billion of them. So I deliberately picked something that I knew I would want to eat. Then I pre-heated the oven, made the sauce and started the crust. Meanwhile, the oven beeped and I started to panic and rush things. The butter was still really cold so I microwaved it and accidentally melted it all. Then I freaked out a bit, wondering if that would ruin the whole thing (I hate when I ruin food. It's terrible, and it's usually a mess.) and then I realized that not one single measuring cup in my house has the number engraved on it so I was judging by eye and the only one I was really sure about was the one cup one. Then I "crumbled" the stuff on top, which wasn't actually as crumbly as I probably wanted it to be and the reason was probably the melted butter. Then I popped it in the oven and waited, while remembering that my stupid oven mitts have a hole in them so that the pan can burn directly through to the sensitive flesh in between the thumb and forefinger and that I probably should knit some new ones. Wait, damn. Um. Sew some new ones?

Then I surveyed the counter, and saw that all I had succeeded in doing was making a big mess that I didn't want to clean up, and licking a huge spoon covered in way more butter than is healthy. Also, now I know just how much butter is IN all those delicious baked goods and I quite rather wish I'd kept that fact a secret from myself.

At any rate, the raw ingredients are now a food.

A food that doesn't look like a food.
Oh, and I added powdered sugar on top because I thought it looked like mountains and mountains need snow. Also because powdered sugar is delicious.

The mess is cleaned up, and I sent the majority of the bars to my sister's house where there are plenty of tiny mouths to gobble it up. I put my piece in the fridge, because I want to eat it cold. And...
Next time I bake something, it won't be something sweet. I realized that the reason I don't bake sweet things often is because I don't really like sweet things.

I'm not entirely sure if I enjoyed baking or not. I did like when Vyvyan woke up and came into the kitchen and said "mama, baking." That was cute. Also, he really liked eating them. But I really didn't like cleaning up (again with the no dishwasher thing) and I don't like that the food I made was basically butter and flour and not healthy at all unless you count the frozen cranberries which were also bathed in sugar.

But I guess on the whole it was a positive experience because I already decided what I'm going to try next! Sweet Potato Rolls. Yum!