recycled words.

while i (clearly) love cooking, i've never been a huge baker.  i think i made a cake once for scott, back in our first year of marriage - he was just reminiscing about it this weekend - but it was from a box.  i made bread and banana bread a few times, but it just made me cranky.  i knew there was potential for me to love baking, particularly for the fresh baked breads, but it just wasn't happening.  i think this is all about to change, though.

my parents got "us" (me) a stand mixer as an early anniversary gift, and i'm smitten.  i just used it for the first time this last weekend to make those homemade hamburger buns, and it was such a joyous experience - no more wresting with the hand mixer, muscling it through stiff doughs, splattering all over the kitchen, getting massive shoulder knots and snapping at scott ... just dump in the ingredients and let it merrily go to town!  (so really, the stand mixer is a gift to both of us - makes me a cheerful baker and therefore scott a happily un-snapped at husband, and he gets to enjoy the fruits of my labors.)

my next project for the stand mixer is sugar cookies and frosting.  i'm helping throw a baby shower for a girl from church this weekend, and volunteered to make gingerbread man-shaped sugar cookies that we'll decorate with frosting onesies.  the idea originally came from abba's bachelorette party 5+ years ago, when we decorated sugar cookies with icing lingerie.  i've since done it for maura's baby shower with frosting onesies, and for christmas parties with ornaments - very versatile and yummy craft!  in the past, i've always used tubes of premade sugar cookie dough and canisters of frosting because i couldn't bear the thought of trying to make it with my mixer, but this time i'm going all out with from-scratch sugar cookies AND frosting!  the results will hopefully be delicious.

in case you're reading this asking yourself, "um, didn't she just write a post about doing a no-dessert july?"  well, yes.  i think i'm going to have to rename the month "no-daily-desserts july", because going an entire month without eating sweets is super hard!  the other girl planning the baby shower with me is having a cake made - white cake with raspberry filling and whipped cream frosting.  i seriously don't think i can be in the room with that thing for the entire afternoon and not have any.  *sigh.  being conscious of what desserts i'm eating and when is probably a good habit to get into, at least ... and i can still shoot for a dessert-free last half of july, right?  (if you're now telling yourself that i have very little willpower, you're probably right.)