We’re Expanding
I’ve been thinking about expanding the blog. When I first started, I wasn’t sure how often I wanted to post or if I would stick to posting once a week or add another day with more content. I’m still worried about over-committing, but this whole journey is about challenging myself and growing. So, I’ve decided to add a new monthly post, which may expand in the future. With that in mind, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I will use these new posts to push myself, and I keep coming back to how much I love to bake.
Bake It ‘Til You Make It
Over the years, I’ve created new recipes or transformed old family recipes to give them a fresh twist. For years, I held “Pie Fest” at work, where I would test pie recipes out on my coworkers for several weeks before Thanksgiving. My coworkers loved the pies, and I loved making them. Based on their feedback, I would decide what pies to make for my family’s annual gathering at my Grandmother’s house. I brought all the pies, usually six or more of them, to feed the large crowd. By the time Thanksgiving arrived, I had baked a dozen or more pies. I always enjoyed that time of year, letting myself be creative and try new things.
However, I didn’t always love it when a new recipe failed, and there were plenty of failures. My neurodivergent brain often makes it hard for me to handle frustration and get over the disappointment of not getting a recipe right. That’s one of the reasons why I am introducing a new monthly blog post. I want to get back to something I love, but I also want to learn to deal with my disappointment when things don’t work out. I am sure there will be plenty of times when they won’t.
I Have a Confession
At this point, I need to make a confession. I baked a lot of pies over the years, but I never made the crusts because I’m terrible at it! My best friend is a pro, so she kindly made all the pie crusts for me. I just focused on the fillings. Unless they contained a graham cracker crust, which some did, they were all hers. Thank you, bestie! This also means I am going to have to learn how to make pie crust from scratch some day.
I am going to F*#! it up!
So next week, I will be starting a new Thursday blog called “Don’t F*#! It Up Thursdays!” Now, please know this is all tongue-in-cheek. The truth is, I am going to F*#! it up. But despite that, I am going to challenge myself to learn something new and do something outside my comfort zone. I am going to learn to accept imperfections, and hopefully embrace myself a little more. This new challenge will focus mainly on trying or creating new recipes. I am not a professional baker, and I don’t want to be.
My goal is to make something delicious to share with others, because there is no way I am indulging in all these goodies alone. I also want to learn to laugh at myself by accepting the process, the failures, and sharing the good and the bad with all of you. I hope I can learn to give myself a little more grace and accept imperfection. As I have said before, I am perfectly imperfect, and I welcome that.
I have created a ranking system; no need to worry about any bias. I am extremely hard on myself. All recipes will be ranked by Forks Given (I’m sure you saw what I did there) 😉. If a recipe receives four or more forks, I will share it in Thursday’s post. When things do not go exactly as planned but the recipe works, I will share what I did and any recommended tweaks to perfect it. If not, I will go back to the drawing board at a later date and try again. Once the recipe passes the test, I will share it in a future post or with a link on social media.
You’re Scone-a Love It
The first challenge on the menu (every pun intended) will be scones. I wrote about my love for afternoon tea (see more here), and this seemed like the perfect next step. I have made some basic scones before, but nothing too complicated. For this first attempt, I am going to focus on hybrid-style scones that are a cross between English-style scones and American scones. I am hoping this will result in a moist scone, not too dry or biscuit-like. We will see how things turn out.
I promise to share my successes and my failures; who knows what we will see first. To challenge myself even more, I am going to create my own recipe, because it’s me and I have to complicate things 😀. I’ll share more next Thursday, but until then, here’s to happy baking, reinventing, and probably, most likely, a little failure too!
