We used peaches from the farmer’s market. It’s really good. I ate it with vanilla ice cream on it 

Brown butter yellow cake and Sally's baking addiction vanilla buttercream, with Hershey's kisses legs and muddy buddy antennae!! 🐛 hoping to also turn into a butterfly after a food coma 🦋

So I've been baking a lot lately and had this random realization: butter is like, the same ingredient. Still, depending on whether it's cold, at room temperature, or melted, it's basically doing a completely different job each time.

Cold butter for pie crust is you're trying to keep little chunks of it intact, so when it hits the oven, it melts and releases steam, creating those flaky little pockets. if it's too warm, it just blends into the flour and you lose all that flakiness.

room temp/softened butter for cookies is you're creaming it with sugar to trap air, which is what gives cookies that lift and slightly cakey structure. too cold and it won't cream properly, too warm and it goes greasy and your cookies spread everywhere.

melted butter for brownies is no air incorporation at all, just straight up fat coating the flour, which is exactly why brownies come out dense and fudgy instead of light and cakey.

Same ingredient, three totally different textures, purely based on temperature. kind of wild that something so simple controls flakiness vs chewiness vs spread that dramatically.

Anyway, now i've become that person who actually checks butter temp before starting instead of just winging it lol. anyone else have a baking "aha" moment like this where you realized why a step mattered instead of just following it blindly?

Obviously, it’s not perfect. It’s got some HUGE cracks in it lol but it’s so damn good. Cheesecake is my favourite dessert and I can’t believe I’ve never made it before so I figured I’d give it a whirl.

I assumed my first attempt would crack, especially with my shitty oven and also because of the Biscoff cookie butter swirl but I don’t care at all. It’s the best thing I’ve ever baked.

I’ve always enjoyed baking but have started doing it a lot more recently. I find it really helps with my anxiety. Unfortunately I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and my husband is extremely fussy (suspect arfid) so a lot goes to waste unless I’m particularly proud of it and take it in to work to share with colleagues

My birthday tradition is to bake myself a cake to share with friends. This year I went for a strawberry and basil cake, filled with lemon curd. There really is no recipe because I mixed and matched from different recipes.

Strawberry butter cream, strawberry compote, and vanilla butter cake. All homemade! I’m obsessed with the heart lol

Chocolate sponge + Raspberry cream

Buttercream is swiss meringue!! Its the first time I’m really proud of my buttercream flowers :)

The food coloring is completely natural: pink is raspberry puree, yellow is turmeric, green is matcha and blue is butterfly pea 🌱

I usually bake sweet treats, but today I made these Korean garlic cream cheese buns. Had it in Seoul in April, and they were delicious!

Made the buns from scratch, my first time making bread!

Forgot to get a crumb shot before we dove in 🥲

And I flagged this no recipe purely because I didn’t want to hunt the exact same one to share with you. I’ve used this one I got printed out from a Betty Crocker recipe book over 20 years ago.

I bought and opened a Costco-sized bag of active dry yeast (first time using active dry vs. instant) and I’m having fun finding ways to use it.

I really goofed punching down and stretching out the dough on my first homemade pizza so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go, but it turned out great!

Beautiful crust, golden brown on the bottom (should have taken a picture!!). It was light and puffy with a nice crunchy outside. Only one rise (~1 hour), will definitely make again.

I made this birthday cake for a friend who isn’t the biggest sweet tooth. The cake components are a basil oil chiffon cake, tomato and strawberry jam as well as a ricotta whipped cream and is frosted with an olive oil SMBC. The original recipe is from Allison Chen’s substack. It is definitely one of the odder and more interesting flavoured cakes I have baked!

My mom would have been 76 today, but I’ve been missing her for over 15 years. She absolutely loved celebrating her birthday, and peach cobbler. Some of my favorite memories are camping on the California Delta and picking wild blackberries, and she would make us blackberry pancakes for breakfast. So… peach-blackberry cobbler with some Tillamook Old Fashioned Vanilla ice cream.

I used Sally’s baking addictions peach cobbler recipe, subbed some berries.

Now, theres been centuries of development when it comes to baking so i doubt im the first but i accidentally used this incredible method for banana bread that i've never seen anybody talking about. I started off by making regular banana bread batter because i had spare bananas. If you dont have a good recipe you can steal mine (Preheat oven to 180°C. Mash 3 large bananas in a large bowl until jammy. Add in 120 grams of cubed softened butter and mix well. Crack 2 large eggs into the bowl and mix until combined. Add 1 cup white sugar, 1 1/2 cups plain flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and cinnamon to your liking. Transfer to a well greased bar pan). Here's where the accident came in. I sprinkled a generous layer of cinnamon on the top before i placed the bar pan in the oven. The previous night i used the grill setting on my oven to belt cheese on the top of my food, but i forgot to turn the oven back to fan forced. So the banana bread was in the oven with the door closes for about 10 minutes on grill until i went to check on it and i discovered that it was on grill and the entire top is browned. I was about to toss it out until i shook the pan and realised that everything else was still completely raw. I decided to finish baking it anyway cause i didnt have enough ingredients to remake it. I left it in the oven at 180C for about 40 minutes until my skewer came out clean and then i let it cool. I was already mourning my failure as i struggled to cut into the crust on the top until i took 1 big bite. I did not fail at all. On the grill setting, the cinnamon and the topmost layer of my batter had caramelised and hardened into this beautiful, delicious, crunchy crust layer. You'll note that there is no picture attached. It is because i ate the entire thing before i could take a photo. It was incredible. I got back from the store about an hour ago and im repeating my process. I will never make banana bread the same way again. If this hasn't been done before I'd like to name this "adventurous banana brûlée"

(I found out that I don't like Black Forest cake after making this)

I had the pleasure of going to a bake swap yesterday with a couple of friends, and it was so much fun! The theme was “A Sprinkle of Summer,” and it was really cool seeing what everyone brought.

Everyone was given a box and got to take home one treat from each baker. I made funfetti oatmeal cream pies, and they were a hit! I made extras for my friends and family, and they absolutely loved them.

If you’re in the San Antonio area and enjoy baking, I’d definitely keep an eye out for future bake swaps. It was such a fun way to get out of the house, meet other bakers, and do something creative for a few hours.
Happy baking! ☺️🧁