Baking Nostalgia

Back in the day, my mom would bring home blocks and blocks of excess margarine/shortenings and tubs of whipping cream from our factory. We had a good sized kitchen and oven at our old home in New Manila. I faced the oven almost everyday. I loved using my mom's Oster mixer from the 70's. I enjoyed trips to Chocolate Lover in P. Tuazon and Unimart for packaging and ingredients. I played with cookies, bars, sponge cakes, pies, casseroles and went as far as empanadas from scratch - dough & filling. I can clearly recall toiling over the empanadas for three hours just to have them disappear in 20 minutes. I didn't make them again after that. =) I gave my goodies to friends and family as treats for birthdays, Christmas or just because. My "baking career" lasted for about seven - eight years - HS to College. I got sick of the smell of sugar and butter. I couldn't eat what I baked and let whoever is around taste test. Eventually I just stopped. The oven burns on my arms have since faded. Too bad, taking photos of good food wasn't trendy yet. 

I've been home the past months and have time on my hands. The exact night escapes me but I had a dream of chocolate chip cookies and strawberry butter. Not necessarily together. =) The craving wouldn't stop so I thought I'm going to just make myself a batch. I knew a recipe by heart before but now needed a refresher so I googled a basic one and did simple tweaks - switched 1 cup of flour for oatmeal, put in less salt and MORE chocolate chips.

Who wouldn't take a swipe at cookie dough? Yum! I've always used an ice cream scooper to drop dough on baking sheets. Easier and less messy than using tablespoons.

They turned out great! Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Purrfect with milk! 

Here's an all time favorite of mine. Nora Daza's Sugar & Spice Coffee Cake. I was nervous making this. Cakes were always my weakness. Let's not go into how many angel food cakes I've thrown out because they came out the oven like bricks. Mmmmm.... the smell of cinnamon was MmmmMmMMm. It brought back memories of our old kitchen. 

When life gives you lemons, make coconut lemon squares! I lifted a recipe for such from Mary Engelbreit's Cookies Cookbook that a supportive cousin gifted me ten years ago now. I have made this no more than five times. This shot after 'years of retirement' was the best one that I can recall taste and texture wise. 

Last Friday, I meant to bring home made goodies to a birthday gathering of friends. I felt confident enough to switch chocolate chip brands and experiment with oven temperatures. The cookies' bottoms were slightly burned. Fail! I had no choice but to do a quick run for grocery store brand cake instead. I'm a baking schizo. I don't always get it right. 

Compared to cooking, baking's pretty exact. Follow directions to a tee and you produce a good result majority of the time. I'm no cook so I like that a lot. =) The process that I do now is a far cry from my Manila baking days. Now, I do everything myself, from prepping ingredients to cleaning/washing up all the utensils, bowls and baking sheets/pans. I do miss having help but enjoy the time and effort that I put into it. I welcome not having a mixer to do the grunt work - it's a lot of arm effort! I savor the time in between cookie batches, I get a kick out of watching the cake rise and for the batter to turn golden. To put it simply, I can think. It's quite calming. 

This probably won't continue when I start working again. In the mean time, biscotti next?