I do a lot of baking at home in Houston. Usually I make at least 1 dessert per week, sometimes more if one of them is simpler. Since Allyson's wedding, I haven't baked anything because I didn't have any time with all the packing and traveling. After about a week here, I decided I was going to have to try to bake something because there's no way I could go 3 and half months without baking. However, I had been here about 3 weeks before I got the guts to try something.
For my first attempt last week, I decided to try something simple. Whenever we go to Google here, even if we type in google.com, it automatically changes it to google.co.uk. That was actually good for me this time because I wanted to find a British recipe so I wouldn't have to worry about converting measurements or figuring out comparable ingredients. The Gingersnap recipe was perfect. It was from allrecipes.co.uk so it was already in metric measurements and I knew I would be able to find all the ingredients at the store. The only thing on there that I wasn't really sure about was treacle. I figured it was something similar to molasses. I could only find black treacle (after asking someone at the store for help and mispronouncing it) so I was a little worried. The other strange ingredient was bicarbonate of soda, which is baking soda.
After about an hour trying to find all the ingredients at the store, I had everything I needed. It took quite some time to get everything measured out. Generally I prefer weighing ingredients to using measuring cups because it's much quicker and more precise. However, I borrowed a scale from the reception desk at our apartments and its not the best. My scale at home is digital and measures to the nearest 0.2 g. This scale is not digital and measures to the nearest 10 ,lol. As I was finishing up my dry ingredients I realized I had forgotten ground cinnamon, ugh. It's so annoying when that happens and it seems to happen to me a lot, no matter how much I read over the recipe, hehe. There are two main grocery chains here, Tesco and Sainsbury's. There's a small Tesco really close to our apartment so I went there first. I hoped it would have it, but struck out. Then I went to the larger Tesco which is about 2 blocks farther. They only had cinnamon sticks. So I ended up walking 3 or 4 more blocks back to the Sainsbury's (I had been there on my first trip for ingredients) and finally found it. I suppose in the end it was worth it because they turned out pretty good.
After a successful first attempt at baking I thought I would try something a little more challenging. Apple Pie! This would be perfect to make today in honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow. The only problem was I didn't have a recipe yet and I've only ever made one pie by myself. After doing some research for recipes, I decided that would be a little ambitious for today, especially since we're going to Paris tomorrow. I'll try that either next week or closer to Christmas. It will probably be a two day project, one day to make the dough and the next day to make the filling and bake it.
I decided to try a recipe I found on Pinterest. Sugar Cookie Bars with icing. I used the icing recipe from a different blog, Peppermint Plum. I will definitely try the cookie recipe from that blog someday but I'll probably wait until I get back to Houston. We don't have a rolling pin here and I need to keep the baking stuff I buy to a minimum since I don't have that much space to bring it back. I went back to Sainsbury's to get more ingredients (I double and then triple checked I had everything this time) and came back to the apartments. Our apartments offers complimentary eggs at this little bar area in the lobby. For the Gingersnaps I only needed one egg and they had plenty. When I was buying my ingredients for today I figured they would have just as many so I didn't bother getting any at the store. Knowing my luck, I should have anticipated that they would be all out. Luckily, after asking at reception, they had 2 left. The recipe called for 4 but my pan was also much smaller than called for so I cut the recipe in half.
Everything came together nicely and the dough tasted good which is usually a good sign. I spread it in the pan and started baking. The recipe said 10 to 15 minutes and that it wouldn't necessarily look done, but if you put a toothpick in the center and it came out clean, it was done. I used a fork instead of a toothpick and after 10 minutes it came out clean so I took it out of the oven. I let it cool completely then iced it. I'm a fan of softer, gooier cookies so I decided to cut myself a piece from the middle. Here's what happened.
I think it would have turned out fine if I had just baked it longer. I did have to convert this recipe from customary measurements to metric but I found a really good website for conversions. It actually allows you to specify the ingredient to allow for different densities. Here it is if anyone ever needs it. I don't think I made any mistakes in converting the ingredients or in halving the recipe. I guess my love for soft, gooey cookies made me take it out too soon because I didn't want it to get brown, hehe. I will definitely do this recipe again! The edges got cooked pretty well so I can taste what it would be like if the whole thing was cooked through and it is delicious.
I will probably try out the apple pie next week because Daniel can't eat chocolate. When I suggested it, he was pretty excited, but I just wasn't able to this week. We had a really good mini apple pie with ice cream at a restaurant awhile back that has inspired me to try my own. Does anyone have any tried and true pie crust recipes that aren't too difficult? I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving meals with their families!
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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