I Love Baking

If you know much about me, you probably know that I love to bake.  A big part of why I like to bake is that I like to eat, especially sweets.  The second reason I like baking is that it is something that is easily controlled.  If you follow the directions, you are usually rewarded with something delicious and/or beautiful-looking.  But another big element to baking (for me) is the social component.  People like to eat and feeding them is a way to meet their basic needs or "treat" them to something special.  The actual process of baking can be very social too.  Some of my earliest memories were "helping" my Grandma Prochaska bake.  Below is a picture of me baking with her when I was about 2 years old. 

My Grandma taught me all sorts of things about baking: how to measure flour (make sure its level), sifting your dry ingredients, and how to grease a pan (shortening and then a light dusting a flour) so that your cakes always come out of the pan easily. 

I don't remember how old I was, but at one point, she gave me my first recipe box.  I loved it.  And inside the box, she taped this picture of her & I baking together.  At the time, I'm pretty sure I was too young to realize much I would treasure this after she left this world and all I had left with her were the memories of time that we shared together.  In this day and age, I'm sure recipe boxes are considered antiquated, but I love this one.  And I still add new recipes to it.  I love seeing recipes in her handwriting, my mom's and mine from when I was a young teen.

Growing up as a child, birthdays in our house consisted of my mom allowing us to pick out a new design/flavor each year that she would make for us.  And I have lots of special treats that are associated with different family celebrations.  Now, I also enjoy baking more challenging things or completely new types of food.  Recently, I've gotten into working with yeast and making different kinds of breads.  These are just a few of the reasons that I still love to bake. 

So, needless to say, when I have the chance, I love to bake with the kids.  Today while the big boys were at school and the baby was napping.  Aaron & I had the chance to bake one of our family's favorite things: chocolate chip cookies.

There's pretty much nothing challenging about baking chocolate chip cookies, but I've yet to met someone who doesn't like them.  And, its nice making something that I don't have to look at directions or measurements (since they're all in my head).  After we got all the ingredients in and mixing, we snapped a quick picture of the two of us.

After it was done being mixed, it was time for the best part.  Tasting the dough.  And cookie dough tastes even better when its still on the beaters.

Then I put Aaron to work squeezing the dough onto the trays.  He made it through 2 full trays before he complained about his hand being sore from the hard work.

Then time to watch the cookies bake.

And I'm realizing now, I forgot to get shots of the cookies being enjoyed, but believe me, they were.  I waited until after my 8 mile run, but then my first stop was a cookie (yes, before I even showered).  You just can't beat chocolate chip cookies.

And, while there are lots of new recipes popping up for choc chip cookies, we stick with a pretty traditional one from my French Aunt, "Nestle Toll House" (if you've never seen that episode of Friends where Monica tries to replicates Phoebe's cookies, you have no idea what I'm talking about).  So, yes, we follow the recipe on the back of the yellow chocolate chip bag, with a few modifications.  We increase it to 2-3 tsp of vanilla, 3-3 1/4 cups of flour and 3 cups of chocolate chips---yes, more chocolate always improves a recipe, right?  And, we always, always use room temperature butter. 

Now if you made it through to the bottom of this and you aren't craving choc chip cookies yet, something is wrong with you.