Assorted Goods

           Lately, I've taken an interest in baking. It all started with my mom randomly asking me one day if I wanted to make banana bread.Now, to fill you in on a major detail: I suck at and hate cooking. Everytime my mom would ask me to make dinner I would mess it up. Some of my less embarressing cooking screw-ups were: dropping the chicken in the corn, using metal spatulas on non-stick pans, (how in the what now?) and my personal favorite, serving hard romen with less seasoning on it than, well, something with no seasoning at all. Needless to say, I have a repution in my household of being a horrible, horrible cook. So when my mom asked me if I wanted to make banana bread, I looked at her like she was crazy.
"Well," I mumbled, thinking she was making fun of me. "I guess I could try."
            And I made banana bread. It tasted funny on the account of me and my conviction that the more the flour the merrier, but all in all it wasn't too bad. I liked baking, and I decided from there on out that I would continue baking.
          I once read a manga on baking, and the main character would always say: "I bake because I like to see the faces of the people who eat it, good or bad."
          I felt exactly the same. It's fun mixing it all together and putting it in the oven, but the best part is having people eat what you bake. That's why if I bake anything, I tend to give it all away to anyone who will eat it. And over these last few months (?) I have made lots and lots of food. There's banana bread, sweet bread, cupcakes for peer support, whipped chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, roasted pecan pumpkin custard and lots of cookies.
       There's a story for every one of these items, but my favorite is the whipped chocolate pie one, so I'll type it up for you. A while ago me and my mom were at the store when she decided that I was going to make pumpking pie to take over to my grandma's. (again, she's weird like that.) So we bought pumpkin puree, a frozen crust, and a small baking magazine that caught my mom's eye. When we got home, I realized that the frozen crust we got was actually two frozen crusts, and wondered exactly what I was going to do with the extra. So while the pie was baking, I flipped through the magazine and found a recipe for a delicious looking whipped chocolate pie.So that Sunday when I went to my grandparents, I went on another magical adventure to the store and bought baking chocolate and other assorted goods. I went back to my grandma's and found I had forgotten butter. So back I went. Then I had bought the wrong type of eggs. (they need to be pasteurized) I ended up going to the store four times that day, and I finally got everything I needed.
         So I started baking, and I found that this is the most challenging pie I have ever made. First you have to melt the chocolate without burning it, Then you have to use a hand-mixer to slowly whip the softened-not-melted butter and add the sugar gradually. In the end it took me three hours to make this pie, and my arm was still shaking from the vibrations when I put it in the fridge to firm up for another three hours. Although it was really hard, it was definitely worth it. My grandparents and my aunt loved it, along with the rest of my family.
         My mom found out that her work was having a pie contest, and she asked me if I wanted to enter. I was estatic! The timing was perfect, and I had a gold medal recipe. So in preparation, I ended up making four pies. Four! I was crazy excited, and I used up all my ingredients on those two deep-crust and those other two thin-crusted pies. I thought of course that she would take all of them, but she left the deep-crust home. So I cut it up and had my siblings help me eat one of them, and took the other one to Thanksgiving dinner at my grandma's. I also made a roasted pecan-pumpkin custard, wich was delicious.
          My mom also bought me another recipe book, this one for cakes. Looks like I'll have to find an excuse to bake a cake!