These days, I don’t bake as much as I used to. I just can’t afford the sugar and calories anymore. At least while I was a graduate student living in a graduate dorm, I could always pass out my baking to all the hungry students and not eat them all myself.
These days, I’m being more careful to only bake when I have an occasion to bring them somewhere or when I have people over. Otherwise, being a stay-at-home mom, these baked goods somehow find their way into my hands and quickly into the safest place possible (my tummy! ^_^).
So even though I love to bake, I’ve resigned myself to doing it occasionally rather than as often as I would like. Last night though, I really wanted to bake even though I had no reason to (seriously, do we ever really need a reason?) nor any occasion for it!
Recently, someone asked me why I post so many of my recipes in Metric measures (you know who you are!) instead of cups and Imperial measures. I said, "Well, I’m from Malaysia and we measured all our cooking and baking in grams." To which she responded, "You’re in the US now, so get with it!" Ok, well, there are other reasons I do so.
You know how something isn’t in your consciousness at all and then one day, you discover it, and suddenly they seem to be everywhere? That’s how it was for me and Red Velvet cupcakes. The first time I ever heard of red velvet cupcakes was when a friend recently told me about the most amazing red velvet cupcakes she had in Chicago. It still didn’t really register in my mind then because I had not really had any opportunity to try them.
Then on my birthday, my friend Jessica brought me a red velvet cupcake from Sugar Butter Flour (no, not the blogger), a local bakery that she had just discovered and loved. I took one bite of the cupcake… and the next thing I knew, all that was left were crumbs on the table. That cupcake was amazingly good. I started going back to Sugar, Butter, Flour often, just to get my red velvet cupcake fix.
I’ve been trying to recall when I had scones for the first time. For some reason, I don’t recall being very fond of scones while living in Malaysia (which is strange being that we were a British colony at one time and scones should be something I’m familiar with). And when I got to the US, the scones I got at most eateries/bakeries didn’t leave me wanting more—they were always very big, dry and tasted like sawdust in the mouth. I guess I just preferred cakes and cookies then.
Then one day, I read an article in my Fine Cooking magazine on a multi-purpose baking mix and one of the things you could do with it was make scones. I tried it and it was lovely and more cake-like. I made it for several parties and gatherings and it got very good reviews. But this is not the recipe I’m going to share today…that will be another post. Why? Because, believe it or not, I found an EVEN BETTER recipe.
