About our baking!
We will be uploading blog posts about what we bake and the recipes we use!
1/7/2020 0 Comments Final Week Welcome back everyone! It is the final week of genius hour and it has absolutely FLOWN by! It has been such a fun experience. We ended up making 9 desserts in total, which is a good number. The other irregular 3 weeks were miscellaneous. Two of them were used for planning, and the remaining week was a weekend that we did not have time to bake, so we focused on updating our website, and social media. Overall, I feel like we did a good job reaching our goal. We made 3 recipes for each holiday, and we made a cookbook.
Our cookbook is a binder that features all of the recipes that we used in the duration of this project, we also included images of our own results. I think it looks super cute, and I am happy with the results. We finished it this week and we also put together our presentation. We feel that it hits all of the points that we needed to! We are super excited to present! One of the challenges for this project was time management. Sometimes we found ourselves baking last minute or struggling to post a blog. So if we were to do this again, I would make that a priority. Also, we could have kept up to date on our social media. We often forgot to post about the recipes that we had made, and we had to make a lot of late posts. I feel like the addition of the social media aspect was a fun idea and a way to get out friends in the loop and involved! I feel like personally I have learned so much about the art of baking. I feel so much more comfortable in the kitchen. I can sometimes be very ditzy, and I always make simple mistakes, but lately, I have actually found myself catching my mistakes and realizing what I am doing wrong. I have learned a lot more about the measurements and their equivalents, and I have even memorized some of them, which I was surprised about. Thank you for following us along on our baking journey! We had a lot of fun. -Ava
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12/15/2019 0 Comments Fudge Crinkle Cookies![]() Hey everyone! This is the eleventh week of genius hour and this week I decided to make some very tasty crinkle fudge cookies. These are one of my most favorite treats to make and take no time at all. I had to stick with something on the easy side this week because my weekend is full of Christmas parties. I knew that these cookies would be something everyone would enjoy because of the simplicity of them and have decided to share them at my parties. This isn't the first time I have baked these cookies so I knew the basics of how they are made. I've been making these since I was about four years old and have absolutely loved them every time. Usually, my family and I make them every Christmas. It is a great was to have time with your family and I actually got help from my dad when I made these today. I didn't run into any troubles when making these which was good because I didn't have any time for that. Rolling all of the dough into balls is what takes the longest, but with help it can get done in no time. I knew that it only took about 10 minutes for these to bake which was perfect for me to fit in my schedule. To tie in the Christmas theme a little more I decided to add the crushed up peppermint. The cookies are good without peppermint but I think adding it was a great addition. Especially during the holidays! These cookies are so easy and so delicious. They are great for holiday parties or to share with your family if you need a quick Christmas sweet. Check out the recipe and tune in next week for the last week of genius hour. - Cassidy 12/8/2019 1 Comment Cheesecake![]() Welcome back everyone! This week, I made a very festive dessert! Cheesecake! Personally, cheesecake it one of my all time favorite desserts. They are very versatile, and everything tastes good with them- cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and more. The classic topping is cherries, but I didn't have those. I wanted to find a substitute that would also be delicious- blueberries. It tasted different, but it ended up really good. I have always wanted to know how to make cheesecake. You bake it, and it is a cake, but it is moist and is a very unique baked good. You wouldn't think that would work out and it is extremely different from any other cake or pie. I really liked making my own crust, and it was pretty fun. At first, it was too crumbly. So, I decided to find a different crust recipe. The recipe I had been using was one from the cookbook I used for the last dessert and I briefly mentioned it in the last blog. I like it so much because it is simple and practical. Most of the ingredients they list are ones a typical household would carry. Also, I feel like it was designed for beginners, like me, because they make the directions simple and easy. 11/26/2019 0 Comments Updates on our recipe book and project Hey everyone! It's the ninth week into genius hour and we won't be baking this week because we will both be busy for the Thanksgiving holiday. Instead of baking we are going to continue working on our final product, our recipe book. We have added in our two Halloween recipes we liked the best which were the graveyard brownies and the bat cupcakes. In addition to those treats, we now have to add our two favorite Thanksgiving desserts. We decided to choose the chewy peanut butter squares and the pumpkin pound cake. They were both two very delicious and fun sweets to make.
We will print out the two recipes and add them after the Halloween recipes. We are trying to think of good ways to design the book in order to separate the seasonal recipes well. We haven't yet come up with a cover page for our book but we have some cute ideas in mind. 11/24/2019 0 Comments Chewy Peanut Butter Squares
11/17/2019 0 Comments Apple Pie![]() Welcome back guys! This week I have made apple pie. Apple pie is a classic and timeless recipe and I couldn't resist making if for our new Thanksgiving season. I really liked how it it turned out- and it was pretty simple and quick. I would highly recommend this recipe for anyone who enjoys baking and would like to have a delicious dessert on hand. Apple pies are perfect for any occasion, dinner with friends, seasonal parties, bake sales! They are super versatile. I have always wanted to do the lattice on a pie, so I thought I would try it out! It wasn't included in the recipe, but I thought it would look a lot prettier and aesthetically pleasing. I think it did! Next time, I think I should put to egg wash on the crust before I sliced it into the lattice strips. That way, it wouldn't drip down into the pie itself. Also, if I were to bake this again, I would cut the lattice strips wider, that would make them less flimsy and would provide more coverage for the pie. I am taste testing a slice as I write this and I would say it's pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of the crust but that could just be the brand that I bought. I can note that for next time of course. Other than that, I really like it! I am really learning a lot and I am starting to enjoy baking, it's not so much of a hassle now and I look forward to it! 11/8/2019 2 Comments Pecan Pie Cupcakes![]() Hey everyone! This was the sixth week of genius hour which means we are halfway through the project!! Over these six weeks I feel like my baking has improved and I have gotten more confident with it. Originally, it was Ava's turn to bake this weekend, but I will be out of town next weekend so Ava and I decided to switch. This week I baked pecan pie cupcakes which were probably my favorite treat I have made so far. I baked these because I felt like they fit in really well with the Thanksgiving theme, and they are so yummy! Just like last week, I got some help from my grandma again. Pecan pie cupcakes were one of her most popular desserts when she owned her bakery. She made them almost everyday, but I never once helped her so I had no idea how to make them. I started out by crushing up all the nuts and mixing them with the brown sugar and flour. Thankfully, I didn't make as much of a mess with the flour like I did when making the pumpkin pound cake. I was thinking that I was going to get to use a mixer again to add in the eggs and butter, but my grandma said that it would be better if I did it by hand. It took some time, but she was right because it mixed great. I spooned all of the mixture into the pan and made a little mess, but nothing to big. After I took them out of the oven I was hoping that they tasted as good as they smelled. They did! I was so happy with how they turned out and shared them with my family and friends. Pecan pie cupcakes are a delicious and easy dessert for Thanksgiving and I definitely recommend them! Tune in next week for Ava's Thanksgiving treat. - Cassidy 11/3/2019 0 Comments Pumpkin Pound Cake![]() Hey everyone! This was this 5th week of genius hour. This week I decided to bake a pumpkin pound cake with a caramel glaze on top. This was definitely more challenging than the brownies I made last time I baked, but it overall turned out really well. I was able to spend good quality time with my grandma, and share it with friends and family. I decided to bake pumpkin pound cake this week because it is something that not only I enjoy, but my family too. Pumpkin reminds me a lot of thanksgiving and can be used in many ways. This wasn't the first time I baked a pound cake. My grandma used to own a bakery and I would always help her out. Chocolate pound cake was my favorite thing to bake and I actually used to have the recipe memorized. It had been a while since I had made a pound cake so I figured that I should probably get some help from my grandma. I started by mixing all of the dry ingredients together. This was probably the easiest part, but also kind of messy. I next had to add butter, sugar, eggs, and then the bowl of dry ingredients, into a mixer. I hadn't used a mixer in so long, so it was fun learning how to use one again. After it was all mixed together I chose to add in some pecans. One of the hardest parts is pouring it all into the pound cake pan. It is hard to make sure that it is all leveled and that there will be no holes, but with the help of my grandma it turned out great. While waiting on the cake to finish baking, I made the caramel glaze. It took a little while to make, but tasted so good. It went perfectly with the pumpkin taste. I got all of the glaze poured on top and finally finished. I am happy that it turned out good and that everyone liked it. I will be making this again for the holidays I'm sure. It was a longer process, but definitely worth it. I recommend making this for your family if you want a delicious treat for Thanksgiving. Make sure to check out the recipe and tune in for Ava's baking next week! - Cassidy 10/23/2019 1 Comment Ideas for Recipe Book![]() As you Hey everyone! This is the 4th week of genius hour! We have decided to take a break from baking this weekend because we both have busy weekends. Instead, we wanted to go ahead and start planning our recipe book, and how we would arrange it. We are hoping to print out our favorite recipes from each season and put them all together in a book. So, this week we are choosing are top two Halloween treats to add to our collection. We have been looking on Pinterest quite a lot lately to find ideas. We found some examples that we would like to base our recipe pages off of. We are going to print our recipes with colors and pictures. This will include our own results and tips/tricks that we personally learned along the way. We have come to the conclusion that our favorite recipes from the past month were the Graveyard Brownies and the Bat Cupcakes. Therefore, these will be a part of our recipe book. As you can see from the image above, we really liked this layout and we are hoping ours will turn out to be something like this. We will continue this schedule next month of 3 weeks of baking then the last week planning. Next month, we will start baking our Thanksgiving recipes and we are super excited! While baking we will be thinking about what our top two recipes will be for Thanksgiving treats. Thanks for tuning in! See you next week with our first Thanksgiving dessert! -Ava and Cassidy 10/20/2019 0 Comments Spooky Sugar Cookies![]() Hey guys! I'm back and this for this third week of genius hour, I have chosen to bake ghost cookies. Sugar cookies are a basic recipe for any occasion and I think everyone should learn how to make them- including myself. They are very customizable so that's why it is perfect for our Halloween themed desserts. Since the first thing that I baked was from a box, this time I decided to try and make my dough from scratch. It was my first time doing this. At first, it seemed daunting, and I wanted to avoid it, but actually it was fairly simple. The only thing I was worried about was consistency. The last dessert I baked were the bat cupcakes, and I had some difficulty with the icing because I made it too thin. I think this happened because I over mixed it. With this new project, my focus was to make sure that my dough was not too dry because then the cookies would be crumbly. As I was mixing it up, I noticed that it was already cracking, so I decided to add some milk. I think this was a good solution, it solved the problem and didn't affect the final result of my cookies. For both this recipe and my previous one, I had to crack eggs. The first time I did it, I got some of the shell into the mixture and I ended up having to fish it out. This time, I found myself much more comfortable with this task and I actually didn't get any in! I was super excited because as I was looking for the ghost cookie cutters, I actually found some pumpkins and cats. I thought it would be super cute to add some in just to differentiate the pattern. My mom wanted to help and we had a good time decorating to cookies. I actually think that I'm starting to like baking more than I used to! Some of the foods classes that I took it middle school sort of took the fun out of it for me, and I never felt like doing it anymore. Now that Cassidy and I are doing this project, I am enjoying spending time with my family and friends while learning to bake together. -Ava |
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