My Favorite Creations

When people find out I love to bake and cook they always ask me what my favorite dish is to make. My very favorite thing to make is the most wonderfully smelling and even more divinely tasting cinnamon raisin bread. The recipe I found online looked decadent -- cinnamon, sugar! BUT, the dough was just regular white bread dough. The spice was only included in the filling. Well, my friends, that just does not cut it for me, especially when it is called cinnamon raisin bread! When I started making my version of the bread I ransacked my spice cupboard and hauled out the giant container of cinnamon, and the essentials -- cloves (put in absolutely everything that needs a spice!) and nutmeg. And then I dumped cinnamon into the prepared flour mix -- give it a sniff -- still smells like flour -- dump some more in, and so on. And then the smell perfumes the flour without becoming overpowering. The next time I made the bread I measured the amounts of spices I used for future bakery purposes. It comes out to three tablespoons of cinnamon just in the dough. Wonderful. And then there are two tablespoons in the filling. When finished, the bread smells and tastes like your most wonderful memory of the winter holidays.

Aside from making this most delicious bread, I don't really have one thing I make the most. I love keeping track of the mouth-watering recipes I create, but I really love to try experimenting with foods that may be seen as rather unique and out of the ordinary. This summer I drew inspiration from my garden -- every time I walked into the house I was overcome by the intoxicating scent of lavender, and decided to incorporate it into my next cupcake creation. I used a chocolate foundation, and chopped two teaspoons of lavender petals, and threw that into the mix. Then I made a chocolate fudge frosting and decorated it with the dainty, precious lavender petals. The outcome was gorgeous, not to mention a delicious treat for the taste buds. They were all pleased with the faint floral taste among the depths of dark chocolate.

-We did not eat the non-edible silver balls of death.-