01/09/2017

The old gas range finally retired as the new one was delivered this afternoon.  I was happy as I am the person in the household who cooks and knows what a faster and new cooktop means to me.  My daughter was happy too, as she has been looking forward to baking her cookies, corn bread, etc.  (The big oven has been broken for years, and I used a small oven to bake, if needed. Plus I rarely bake. )  After the dinner tonight, she asked me to go shopping with her. So we went to Trader Joe’s nearby, and bought the baking materials for the cornbread.  On the way back, we talked and laughed as we recalled the days almost ten years ago when I baked the hard and rocky cookies, since I could not stand the cups of sugar or butter required in the recipe, and always cut them by half.  My daughter, who so craved for cookies and who never cooked then, started her own cookies the next day.  Her cookies turned out to be very successful, chewy, moist, golden and crispy, as she followed the recipe to the letter.  An experienced cook like me was defeated by a first-time new hand, and this made her feel so proud of herself.

 

Once we were home, she started whisking the ingredients, and I was happily being ordered around to melt coconut oil, clean utensils, etc. I am a good assistant. :-)  We put the well-mixed batter in the oven, and she kept coming back, crouching near the glass door and peering at the dough rising inside with some excitement.  Looking at such a big oven with one pan alone, I remembered that I have a lot of blueberries left at the refrigeration. The next minute saw me putting the blueberries into a blender and mixing with flour and eggs and baking soda. Then muffin cups filled with batter were now placed quietly next to the cornbread.  We watched, we expected, and 40 minutes later, both were ready.  The room was instantly filled with the sweetness of the freshly made bakery.  We smelled at the inviting bread and muffins, tasting only a little, as it was late at night.

 

Blueberry muffins turned out to be a success, but not the cornbread.  The crust of cornbread was perfectly browned, however it was too crumbly and fell apart when I took out of the pan.  I guess it needs more flour, less corn meal, or perhaps more eggs and oil. We shall try again before she leaves for school again.