Adventures in Baking

Can you guess what I am doing today??

I haven't made any real food in my kitchen yet because I am gearing up for some major baking today because it has been TOO long since I have played Betty Crocker!

I went to the grocery store this morning to pick up all the ingredients and it was like a treasure hunt! The kinds of things that you easily locate and plop in the cart are hard to find when you are looking for the item names in German! I translated the ingredient names and both baking soda and baking powder translate to the same word, Backpulver, even though they are very different and cause different results when added to baked goods. Luckily, I made friends with another American woman who gave me the rundown on some of the differences between American ingredients and their German counterparts.

I never would have looked for this, but vanilla comes in little vials like perfume samples.

Apparently it is very potent, so you can just add a very little bit.

The Backpulver, which is baking powder, comes in little packets like yeast. Baking Soda is called Natron and comes in a box, but it still looks very different than it does in the U.S.

I was really happy to find M&M's because I want to make this recipe for Monster Cookies from Ashlee's A Year in the Kitchen blog. She is awesome and the desserts she makes always look amazing! These cookies use peanut butter, M&M's, chocolate chips, raisins, and oatmeal in the dough in addition to all the other typical stuff.

A little bit of everything for a delicious bundle of cookie joy! Mmmmm. Can't wait!

I am also thinking of making a batch of oldie but goodie chocolate chip cookies too. Surprisingly chocolate chips are actually quite hard to come by when you live in Germany unless you have access to a military base or you hunt down a store that sells American products (which are really expensive...and I have heard about stores like that, but have yet to actually see one). My friend went to England over fall break so she picked up these babies for me...

dark chocolate bits of gloriousness

I absolutely love baking and if I weren't a teacher, I think I would want to have a little shop or business that would allow me to bake all day and make adorable, fun little treats. How fun would that be?

What is your favorite thing to bake?