Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share the baking projects I did last month.

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In case you’re new, I took up baking as a hobby (I mean, beyond making box cakes) after watching The Great British Baking Show in December 2019. Then, during the quarantine due to the pandemic, I started to ramp up my hobby (I was furloughed and eventually let go so I have had a ton of time on my hands). Now, I share all the bakes that I make!

Also, I’m writing this on November 3rd, which is our Election Day in the US. It’s so weird to think that by the time this goes live, we might know the results of the election. Fingers crossed for a Biden-Harris win!

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Peanut Butter Cookies

About the recipe

We have so much peanut butter so I thought I’d make some peanut butter cookies! I picked a recipe from a site called The Conscious Plant Kitchen, because I didn’t have eggs I believe it was, so I needed something that wouldn’t need eggs. It was super easy and straight forward, which was much appreciated!

The results

I did leave the cookies in too long! I think the recipe made them bigger so it recommended 10-12 minutes. But when I checked at 10 it was much too late already! I think for the size I did, it only needed around 8. Oops! I would check on these more next time!

Chai Vanilla Cookies

About the recipe

So I came across a TikTok video of a girl making Taylor Swift’s favorite chai vanilla cookies. Apparently Taylor shared her cookies on her Tumblr so I wanted to make them too. I started with following the TikTok but I needed clarification on something (I think the amount of sugar or something?) and so I looked up the recipe on Pinterest. But then I noticed it had a different discrepancy from the video and then I quickly realized that all the recipes were all slightly different. So I found an article that directly quoted Taylor’s Tumblr post and finally got the actual recipe to follow. The recipe was easy to follow, but I do recommend starting with the actual recipe instead of digging through all the modified ones.

The results

Here they are! I didn’t smush them down enough so they don’t look like Taylor’s but they were pretty good. I also skipped the icing, which is Taylor’s actual invention (she just altered another recipe mostly for the actual cookies), because my parents complain when I make anything and add icing or frosting. I did like them without the icing but I do want to try them with the icing someday too.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

About the recipe

I wanted some pumpkin spice somethings so I found a muffin recipe from a site called Sizzling Eats. The recipe called for giant muffins, but I don’t have giant muffin tins and didn’t want giant muffins anyway, so I just did regular size and checked on them more often.

The results

I do think I should have filled them up a bit more but they were good! I did do the sugar topping and it was really good. I loved the muffins!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

About the recipe

Sooooo, this was the almost disaster! I was going to make two different bakes, one was a bread recipe and the other was pumpkin spice cupcakes but a different recipe. I started mixing for the bread because I was going to leave the dough to rise while making the cupcakes but I couldn’t get the yeast to work at all! I’m not sure if it was the water temperature or I didn’t use enough sugar or what, but it ended up being yeast water and not actual yeast. I actually didn’t know what it was supposed to look like (I just followed the directions so I wasn’t sure if it was right or not at that point) so I was about to keep going but then realized that my mom hadn’t bought any flour even though I’d asked her to buy more the week before. Oops! At that point I’d already mixed up the butter and sugar so I didn’t want to waste it but I didn’t want to waste more time and go to the store either.

Instead, I decided to look up a flour free recipe for the pumpkin spice cupcakes and found one on a site called Kiddo + Soul. I still didn’t have the right ingredients though, as it called for 1 cup of almond flour and 1/2 cup of coconut flour, but I only had 1/2 a cup of almond flour and a ton of coconut flour. So I instead added 1/2 cup of almond flour, 3/4 cup of coconut flour, and 1/4 cup of tapioca flour that I also had. The mixture looked absolutely revolting, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to actually make them. Instead of making all 12, I started with 6 cupcakes because I figured if they were bad I’d just throw them out. If they were good, I’d make the rest.

The results

So here’s the results! I actually hated these. I thought they tasted terrible and I was going to throw out the rest of the mixture. But I was on a zoom call with my sister so I was waiting to clean up after talking with her. During that time my mom came home and tried the cupcakes and said she loved it??? So she had me make the other six for her and then my dad, who she said would also enjoy them. Sure enough, my dad also liked them and then my mom made me set aside two for the Day of the Dead Ofrenda we set up. I couldn’t believe it because I swear, I thought they were so gross! But they liked them so I guess crisis averted?

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So those were my bakes for October! I still don’t know how to make yeast work though so please help.

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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