The Wait Is Over

Last night Denise confirmed my suspicion. So...SO many of you have been eagerly awaiting pictures of my first non-flat cupcakes. (Ha) Well, you can sleep peacefully tonight knowing that you have seen a true baking success, and I owe it all to leavening agents.

Let me start at the beginning. White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies.

Serin requested these for her husband. These were once my favorite cookies...then somehow I forgot that they existed. As soon as I remembered I was way excited to make them. I got my recipe from The Joy of Cooking and was happy with the results...eventually. I've been doing some research on baking at high altitude and have consistently found cookbooks recommending to bake everything 25 degrees hotter than the recipe calls for. Not so for these cookies! My first batch came out crispy--not that that kept me from eating six of them.

Actually, The Joy of Cooking told me that there are no "hard and fast" rules about baking at high altitude...it just depends on the recipe. Well how lovely. Let me just bake this cake four or five times before the party. Anyway, I digress. The recipe said this would yield about 2 dozen cookies if you use heaping teaspoons. I have no idea what kind of teaspoon those folks were using because I got about four dozen using heaping tablespoons.

Of those *four* batches the last was the best (pictured above...duh). The first batch was burnt, the second was flat, the third was gooey. By the LAST batch I decided to try one of my mom's tricks. I remember her telling me to slowly add enough flour so that the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl when you're mixing. THAT DID IT! The last cookies were perfect! Thanks for not lying to me about that one mom. :)

Would you like me to shut up about the cookies and tell you about the Coconut Cream Cupcakes? Well as I said, my baking soda is to be praised. I once read you should change your baking soda/powder every six months to keep it fresh and active. After I read that I went out and bought new baking soda/powder. That was two years ago. Two years ago. Two years ago I bought new baking power/soda. That is longer than six months. So again with the new baking soda/powder and here are the reaped results.

I don't have much to say about these cupcakes other than the fact that they are de-freakin-licious. I burned the bottom of a few of them which is a shame because the cake is otherwise light and moist. They come away from the wrapper better too. That could be because I sprayed the paper first...maybe? They're topped with buttercream frosting *drool*.

This severed hand would like to prove to you that these cupcakes have hills and not valleys.

That's it! Though I must say that being behind in posting the FIRST WEEK of Baking Month is not a good sign folks. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful suggestions too. I'll try to get to as many of them as I can. Tune in tomorrow to see how baking this goes!