Fun with Baking

Over the last couple of months, I have tried my hand at baking various things.  I will admit that absolutely no recipe is my own and I have borrowed quite heavily from those websites that I am listing here.  When I have added, improvised , etc. I have listed the source.

The very first thing that I toyed with over this past summer were cakeballs.  I learned a lot by going to this website:  http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake-balls/

Above is a picture of a cakeball that I made recently for Thanksgiving.  Some recommendations that I have in addition to the ones that you will find on the bakerella website: 1. If you are going to use white chocolate, make sure it is good white chocolate.  I like to use the Ghiradelli white chocolate chips and it makes things rich and creamy.  I have tried using the colored baking chips that you can get at places like Joanns, but they just do not taste as well.  2.  If you are going to make chocolate, make sure that you use a blend of semisweet and milk chocolate chips.  This will give you a nice, rich chocolately color.  3. Make sure that you put vegetable oil in the chocolate.  If you skip this step, the chocolate can be very hard to roll the cakeballs in.

Above is a picture of some Christmas cookies I made recently.  I follow Alton Brown's sugar cookie recipe and a Better Homes and Gardens icing recipe.  They are pasted here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe/index.html  If you follow these directions, the dough is a little dry so I add in one extra tablespoon of milk.  For the icing recipe, I use this website: http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe288.powdered-sugar-icing-i.html    For this recipe, I put just a little more water and a little more vanilla extract (I actually use the french vanilla flavor). I do that just so I can spread it easier.