Lessons from Sally

Things I’ve learned from Sally’s Baking Addiction:

·         Measure your ingredients when you’re baking. And by measure, I mean weigh. Roy bought me a little kitchen scale for my birthday and I think we both were secretly thinking, “I hope this actually gets used occasionally.” I use it constantly, and my baking successes have become much more consistent. I’m OK with doing the spoon and flatten technique with flour and sugar, but powdered sugar—that scale has paid for itself just with that. #icingthatrottedmyteeth

·         Sally loves sugar. Even if you weigh the sugar, her recipes tend on the sweet side. Or, perhaps it just needs a pinch more salt?

·         My oven must bake hotter than hers does. Sally posts a lot of homemade granola recipes, which we’ve been lapping up recently. But every batch I’ve had to pull out early—like 15 minutes early. And it’s still on the dark-brown/extra crispy side. Note to self: try turning down the oven 25 degrees next time. (Today’s batch: apple spice quinoa granola. Can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow.)

·         The difference between Dutch and regular process cocoa.

·         That one can bake tons of stuff with a hand mixer, but one can still dream about the mighty KitchenAid...

·         The scientific difference between baking soda and baking powder.

·         How to make consistently fluffy pancakes.

·         That Biscoff oatmeal cookies are among the food of the gods.

Today’s 1%: Still haven’t cried about Bathroom/Kitchen fiasco 2.0. (Still haven’t showered either…) Also, let Owen get up from his afternoon nap that wasn’t happening and brought him into our bedroom. He sat on our bed and looked at us with the happiest face known to man and then started rolling around and hugging us. With James that would have spelled disaster by 5PM but Owen can go for twice the length of time without showing any visible signs of crankiness. And he lapped up every ounce of attention. Here’s to adapting to individual children’s needs/strengths.