Thursday, January 31, 2013

A Baking Lovers Favorite Ingredients

Well we’ve come to the end of the road of the January Blog A Day challenge (can’t believe tomorrow is already Feb 1st, wasn’t it just Christmas?!). While I may not have kept up with it like I wanted to, it was still so much fun to participate in! I had actually been having a terrible case of writers block for quite some time and the writing prompts from this challenge really helped me to overcome that. I felt for the first time in a long time the writing just sort of flowed… hoping that this continues. So big thanks to Katrina and Lindsay for hosting this awesome challenge! :)

The last topic for January Blog a Day (day 31) is Favorite. So seeing as how one of my very favorite things in the world is baking, I thought I would share a list of my favorite baking ingredients to have on hand. For a self professed bake-aholic like myself there’s nothing better than a well stocked kitchen. I love opening up my cabinets and fridge to find everything I need to spend a day in the kitchen baking my heart out. So below is a list of some of my go-to baking lovers favorites! :)

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  • Cocoa Powder
  • Powdered Sugar
  • Brown Sugar
  • Spices such as: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger, Cloves
  • Sea Salt – When I bought some of this stuff last year I never knew how much I would use it. Just a sprinkle of sea salt truly makes anything with chocolate and caramel better (as if they really needed any help). And it goes a long way, I bought a medium sized bottle and even after using it quite often, still have half a bottle left.
  • Extracts such as: Vanilla, Almond, Peppermint, and Lemon – those are the few I have in my cabinet right now.
  • Food Coloring
  • Molasses – I love keeping molasses in the kitchen not only for recipes but for making emergency brown sugar when I’m fresh out. It’s a little baking trick I learned a few years ago. All you have to do is mix molasses into white granulated sugar with a fork until it’s all incorporated, and viola!, you have brown sugar!
  • Chocolate Chips – My favorite kind is Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet. I love them because they’re more like discs than chips and they look so much better in cookies. Plus, they taste amazing! I could eat them by the handfuls.
  • White Chocolate Chips

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  • Peanut Butter Chips
  • Bars of baking Chocolate - Again I always go for Ghirardelli if given the choice.
  • Unsalted Butter – I’ve learned using unsalted butter is truly best for making frosting.
  • Peanut Butter – Creamy. Always Creamy.
  • Cream Cheese
  • Mascarpone Cheese – I love not only using this stuff for Tiramisu but I also love mixing some of it into chocolate frosting. It makes it super rich and creamy!
  • Heavy Cream – For making homemade whipped cream, ganache, mixing it into frosting, ect.
  • Sweetened Condensed Milk – Ah, if you aren’t a fan of this stuff than you and I won’t relate. Want to put it in everything.
  • Honey
  • Coffee – It’s not an essential baking ingredient, but I love to put a little coffee or espresso in my chocolate cake batter. It makes the chocolate flavor even richer.
  • Cute Cupcake Liners – While not an ingredient I couldn’t leave it off the list. They are just simply a fun must have. I love collecting them.
  • Sprinkles – Again another fun must have. My philosophy is that you can never have too many sprinkles! :D

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