Baking is a Hobby

So I know half of the fun of experimental baking is not writing down the recipe you made up, or basing it off of a recipe in the first place, but once you make something good...I don't want to forget it haha. I absolutely love to bake...and cook...but more bake than cook :) Here in Peru, well at least in my family's house, we don't have measuring cups, so every experience in the kitchen is that of experiment. I've started baking quite a bit recently. Last week, I made some scones, based off a recipe, but I didn't like how they made them...so I modified it to fit my taste. This is the original recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/strawberry-yogurt-scones/detail.aspx . A great recipe to start out with because it's very simple, and fairly healthy for scones. Plus, you can always make it healthier by using substitutes like egg beaters and fat free yogurt :) Also, you should note that there is no baking soda in Peru, only baking powder, so I have to use twice as much baking powder to make it turn out the same way. Well for this recipe, I didn't like using strawberry yogurt, so instead, I used vanilla yogurt with about 6 fresh strawberries cut up into little pieces, and one orange, also sliced up. After mixing up the batter (with my hands of course!) I test-tasted it and decided it wasn't sweet enough. There wasn't any sugar in the original recipe, so I added about a fourth of a cup of sugar, and a dash of vanilla extract. Then it tasted good! So I put them in the oven, and while they were in the oven, I blended up the rest of the strawberries with another orange to make a sauce, which I poured over the scones before serving them....okay, so it might have tasted a little more like strawberry shortcake than a scone, but they were good! :)

Tonight, my family still hadn't given me any sign that they were going to feed me supper at 10:30, so I popped into the kitchen and decided to experiment with the ingredients that I could find. I ended up making a sort of mix between bread pudding and pieces of french toast. First I took one orange and cut it into small pieces, then I tore two slices of bread into small pieces and added it to the orange. Next came one egg, two tablespoons of sugar, a fourth a cup of milk, and three dashes of vanilla extract (if you can't tell, I love to use vanilla extract in baking--also almond, but I don't know if that exists here). After mixing it all up, I put it in the saucepan on the stove until I was pretty sure the egg was all the way cooked. Then I topped it off with some maple syrup and dug in--delicious :)