Conquering life 1 loaf at a time

I’ve been stepping up and doing different things that I’ve always held myself back from, for various reasons. It’s a huge undertaking, but I’ve uncovered the mirage of limits that I place on myself. It was a year ago yesterday that I jumped out of a plane for the first time. I’ve now jumped 3 times, and my 4th is scheduled for August.

3 weeks before I jumped, I would have told you that you were crazy if you came up and said that not only do I jump out of planes, but I enjoy it. It is 100% the most spontaneous action I have ever taken, and I’ve pushed and expanded my world ever since.

Sometimes this limitless version of me is scary. Letting go of perceived control is scary. Feeling open and exposed is scary. But as the saying goes, everything worth having is on the other side of fear.

I completely overexaggerated the act of grinding wheat. I had romanticized that it would be this huge undertaking. It’s seriously one of the easiest things I’ve ever done, and tonight I made the best bread I’ve ever made.

Bread is one of my favorite things to bake because even though it took 5 hours from start to finish, it wasn’t constant effort. It was maybe a total of 1 hour of effort, if that.

It wasn’t me

Yesterday I didn’t get around to baking…. but my 12 year old did. While I was working I heard him opening all the cupboards. He then approached me and informed me that we had all of the ingredients for brownies and wanted to make some. He did it all. I was so impressed with his skill in the kitchen.

The final piece. I’m doing my best to leave it to him to finish since it was his creation.

When I was looking at my house I didn’t think that there would be much of an issue with my kitchen because I didn’t (still don’t really) enjoy cooking. But now that I want to get back into baking, I just wish I had a nice island, or at least the space for one.

I’m back?

November of 2018 was my last post. So much has happened since that time. I got a job, rejoined the singles world, bought a new house, survived a pandemic. The person that I am today is so much different from who I was then. I’m healing, and growing, and loving my life. Even with all of the imperfections. I have the best support group a person could ask for, and I’ve been working to increase my relationships with myself and my kids. I’m still imperfectly me, but I’m more comfortable in my skin, and love exploring who I am and what I want from my life going forward.

In my new house I kept making excuses as to why I couldn’t bake, one of them being the lack of large counter spaces. Today I made the decision to end the excuses.

My new space

You know what I’ve been craving the most, cinnamon rolls. The last time I made them was 2018, and I’ve missed them so much. To overcome the obstacle of not enough space to roll out the dough, I made my solution. I cut the dough into 4 smaller rounds, and that was the perfect amount to roll out on my available space. To “spice” things up a bit I made each pan into a different flavor.

• 

Normally I would walk you through the ingredients and the process, but today I think I’ll just leave you with the recipes I used. The flavor sites are where I got the filling/glaze ideas.

Cinnamon Rolls

Upper right – Raspberry filling – https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/raspberry-swirl-sweet-rolls/

Upper left – Cinnamon and sugar

Bottom right – Lemon zesty filling – https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-sticky-lemon-rolls-with-lemon-cream-cheese-glaze-recipes-from-the-kitchn-111307

Bottom left – Chocolate/pistachio/orange zest – https://joythebaker.com/2013/12/bonkers-awesome-pistachio-orange-and-dark-chocolate-cinnamon-rolls/

I really hope that this means I’m back. I didn’t realize how much I missed baking until I was doing it today.

Cinnamon Rolls

Not gonna lie, cinnamon rolls take a lot of time and effort. It was really easy to push off making them time and again.

---

This recipe is from a friend. Today I split the dough and made half into dinner rolls to practice for Thanksgiving. When I don’t half the recipe the cinnamon rolls are massive.

To convert the recipe to accommodate my new diet I used a flax seed meal egg, dairy free butter, and Almond milk.

 

I cooked the rolls just a little too long, I should have pulled them out a minute or two before I did, but they were still good. I will be using this recipe for our thanksgiving.

The cinnamon rolls were awesome. I’ve had 4 so far today. I want to eat another one right now, but my 9 yr old is still awake, and I don’t want him to see me eating it.

Next week: I’m going to make one of my mini muffins for practice. I’m going to bake them and freeze them to see how well they freeze.

Banana Bread muffins

I’ve been working at being more intentional with my actions, and my activities. Some days I do better than others. It’s crazy to me how I can work awesome at something, and then I just stop being awesome. It becomes harder to do this good thing. It’s frustrating, and I’m working on figuring out how I can stop the negative cycle.

---

Banana Bread

This is an old recipe I don’t remember what cook book it’s from. My sister introduced me to this recipe about 15 years ago now. After I made it with her I went out and bought the same cook book solely for this recipe. But I only ever really ended up using the 1 recipe, and the recipe that shared the page. To clear out some cabinet space I just copied the page and gave the book away to someone else who can hopefully get more use out of it.

See all those grease stains, yea, that’s how much I use this recipe.

Instead of a loaf I made mini muffins, and regular muffins when I ran out of mini muffin space. They turned out great. And I’m happy to know that I can still enjoy this recipe even with my change in diet.

Next week I’m going to make another cinnamon roll recipe. This is another one of my staple recipes.

French bread

This week, was a week. We had a couple’s weekend where we went away without the kids. I had the hard lesson that I’m getting old. I can’t stay out until 2 am, and expect to be able to play all day and stay out all night again. I crashed at about 8pm the next night. We went so many places, saw so many things. It was exciting but overwhelming. It was a great weekend and I will forever be thankful to my family for keeping our kids happy and safe so we could go on this trip.

Still I was recovering from the trip on Monday, and I didn’t make a plan the week before for what to cook, so I just kind of blew it off. Well, today ended up being a very rainy cold day in Arizona, so my handsome husband made 2 soups and I found and made a French bread to eat with the soups.

---

Tada! I was impressed with myself. I had no real anxiety, I just found a recipe, cleaned up the space, and voilà, French bread.

Easy Peesy French Bread Recipe – Four Ingredients, ONE Hour, Fool Proof

It was a dense recipe, but I don’t really mind that. I’m still a little shaky around breads. So, it could have been something that I did or didn’t do to it. All I know is that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to bread.

Kids loved it, I loved it, hubby loved it. I’ll definitely make it again.

Next week: Banana bread muffins (I need to go buy bananas now so that I can make these)

Cinnamon rolls

Why is it so hard to be motivated? Last week was all kinds of unmotivated. I started the week off with a sick 5 year old. Then for the rest of the week I fought getting sick, got into a lazy slump of lazy activities while I tried to rest and not get sick, and even today I’m still struggling to get back to being motivated.

Changing habits is rough. It’s not so much the early days of the new change because you have enthusiasm pushing through. It’s the later days when all enthusiasm is gone and your body just wants to naturally revert back to what it knows.

I forced myself to make the cinnamon rolls. I started them way too late. But, I did it. I’m glad I did too.

---

Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Icing

https://www.ohladycakes.com/blog/cinnamon-rolls-with-maple-icing

I messed up. I used a glass pan and did not adjust the baking temp so that the rolls would bake correctly. The tops were golden brown but everything below the top was still doughy. But, the roll that I could eat from the top, was super light and fluffy. I think it’s the best dough I’ve ever made. I was not a fan of the maple frosting. I think that I’ll stick with the usual frosting recipe. I wanted that taste, and the maple flavor, plus it not tasting that great to me made me sad. (side note: it could have been my maple extract, which I think was actually a “flavoring”)

I’m definitely keeping the dough recipe, I think that if I cooked them properly for the pan I used they would have turned out awesome.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin

Some days are harder than others. Today I have had to force myself to do the good things that I had planned. It wasn’t easy, but it’s been worth it.

---

Lemon Poppy Seen Muffin

Bakery Style Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I’m not normally a cooking experimenter (I don’t know if that is a word). But with our new lifestyle change, I’ve had to do just that. For my experimenting in this recipe I used dairy free yogurt and flax seed egg replacers.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting was how thick the batter was. Whenever I think of batter, I always picture something a little fluid, but this recipe, there was enough moisture to make the batter wet, and that’s it.

It’s pretty good. I could have added more lemon zest, but I’m pleased with the outcome. I even had a little extra batter, so I made some mini muffins. I pulled those out a little early, but now I know I can easily make them again in the future.

This was one of my more labor intensive recipes, but I enjoyed them and I’ll be making them again.

Next week: Cinnamon Rolls with a maple glaze

Cowboy Cake

Yesterday was a scary day for me. I took a big step towards a goal that’s been in the making for months. It’s always scary when you have to put yourself out in the world, knowing that there can and will be rejection in the not too distant future. The biggest thing that I trying to remember as I stumble along is that falling does not equal failing. Falling is a chance to help us grow. It helps us to self reflect, and look at our surroundings. It helps to wake us up to the choices that we are making and see where we can improve. Loving yourself means that you are open to the fact that you can change. Loving yourself doesn’t mean never changing, it just means that you are constantly changing to become the best version of yourself.

Okay, on to lighter, yummy things.

---

Cowboy Cake – My mom’s recipe

I made this dairy free and egg free by using Almond milk soured with apple cider vinegar and flax seed meal eggs. Because I added the 1T of vinegar to the milk, I made one of the flax eggs with 1T less of water so that the cake wouldn’t be too moist.

I also wanted to do an experiment with pans to see if the type of pan used changed the texture. I used a gray pan and a glass pan. I much prefer the texture from the gray pan which was interesting to me.

Next week: Lemon Poppy seed muffins

Brown Sugar Muffins

Yesterday being a holiday just got away from me. It’s crazy how fast time can go by. I’m learning more and more the importance of scheduling out time for certain activities, especially as a SAHM. If I don’t carve out time specifically to bake, go to the gym, or spend time with family, then the time quickly gets eaten up by anything else. I’m not even going to count the amount of time that gets eaten up by non important things.

Then we get to today. From the moment I woke up at 6am this morning, my timing was off. It was frustrating to say the least. I pretty much used the whole day to make the muffins. I got out the ingredients this morning, had to wait until early afternoon to mix them together, and then finally baked them late afternoon. And now, at 10:30, I’m finally able to finish typing this up.

---

Now for the muffins, which to be totally honest, they are cupcakes. The recipe that I found was pretty good. They made a very pretty muffin. The only issue was that they tasted like a base. Like the recipe wasn’t finished yet. It just needed a little more, more. I even used the advice of one of the commenters and added cinnamon, and it wasn’t enough. If there was a glaze or a crumble that is a favorite I’d use that. Personally no nuts or fruit for me, because like I’ve said before, I strongly dislike the mixed textures in the bread.

https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/brown-sugar-muffins-290831

Would I make this again, probably not. While they were tasty, and got approval from the kids, they just felt like they weren’t finished. They were a good base, so if you are someone who likes to experiment this would be a good starting point.

Next Week: I’m craving some nostalgia, so I’ll be baking my moms Cowboy Cake.