baking...

So, if you didn't know it, I love to cook. I love to bake, I love to experiment, I love most of all to eat :). I have been trying out several new recipes (mostly desserts) this week. I have used fresh citrus fruit in honor of the summertime! Sometimes it gets hard to make it all happen when I need to be at the stove constantly whisking a filling or what not and I have a crying baby, but I manage. Emily likes to sit in her bumbo seat and watch me cook. I tell her everything that I am doing in hopes that she will understand (ha, LOL) and share joy of baking with her momma when she gets bigger.

I have been contemplating and thinking alot about starting to bake and cook for people. I would love to have a bakery or even open a restaurant, but I'm not sure that I am up to that at this point in my life. I have ideas to cook good home made meals, stuff like 'lasagna, spaghetti and homemade meatballs, chicken pot-pie, chicken & dumplings' and more, and offer it to families who would like to put some fancy home-cookin' on their tables. I would also love to bake sweets to go along with the meals. Ranging from cookies to layered cakes, I have several recipes I can offer. What do you think...I'd love to see some feedback. I sometimes feel like I am typing this blog to no-one because I seldom get comments. So, if you are in the area and this would be appealing to you or to someone that you know, give me your thoughts...and we will see what happens!

This week, my goal is to bake a new dessert recipe each day that I have never done before. Yesterday it was 'Fresh Orange Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting'. It is a Paula Deen Recipe complete with lots of butter, cream cheese, and sour cream! (You know you can't go wrong there.) It came out great and looked good. I was honestly a little disappointed though when we cut into it that it didn't taste more 'orangey'. It is a delicious, moist cake and the frosting is great, but it only has a slight (very slight) hint of orange. So, if I bake it again, I will have to make some adjustments to the orange content. Jeffery suggested that I make an orange curd filling to go between the layers instead of putting the frosting between layers. It's a good thought!

Today, the trial recipe was 'Lemon Meringue Pie' from my FAVORITE cookbook. It has a veryyy tall mound of meringue. The filling smelled very lemony. I just hope it tastes it and doesn't disappoint like the orange cake. It is out of the oven and cooling at the moment. We will cut it later. I'll let you know how it tastes!

Tonight for supper...Chicken & Dumplings...I better get busy!