My baking obsession continues…

Since I discovered how easy it was to make bread I got the confidence to try other recipes – particularly sweet ones….! I have made chocolate muffins, spicy cocoa cookies with maple syrup, chewy molasses ginger cookies (to die for), oatcakes with cumin seeds and chilli, focaccia bread with olives, and pizza dough (plain and wholemeal)!

My brother-in-law keeps jokingly referring to ‘nest-building’ and ‘hormones’ by way of explanation (I will get my own back, don’t worry), but seriously, I am not sure why I am feeling this urge to bake. I wondered if it was partly a creative outlet or if it’s more about relaxation since when I am following a recipe I have to focus on what I am doing so I tend not to dwell on other things like work!

Speedy chocolate muffins

Veggie pizza with wholemeal dough

Spicy cocoa cookies - suitable for vegans!

The problem is, I am making so much yummy stuff that we are eating rather a lot! Particularly the cookies are more-ish. I got the recipe from a US blogger http://honestfare.com so I’ve had to adapt them, e.g. because they use ‘cups’ as a measure, or look up some of the ingredients that are hard to get or unheard of over here (turbinado sugar, for example, was new to me - the closet UK equivalent is Demerara sugar, if you’re interested). I had trouble finding blackstrap molasses in Stirling and discovered that black treacle is more or less the same thing – I hadn’t realised! I like the fact that if you don’t fancy one of the ingredients you can just leave it out or substitute it (like the cloves I left out of the chewy cookies, and the cumin seeds I added to the oatcakes rather than fennel seeds).

Oatcakes with cumin and chilli



Focaccia with olives and sea salt

Chewy molasses ginger cookies- they are a bit flat and rectangular because they spread more than anticipated in the oven and I had to cut them into cookies! Next time they'll be round - I still have half the dough in the freezer!

I’ve found some good recipes on the BBC website and now am sticking to that, the blog and known names like Delia having picked up a nasty computer virus from one of the amateur recipe sites I had visited. I am going to start looking for some more savoury recipes to try to avoid the ‘muffin top’ look from too many cakes!