Baking Day. I love baking day.
It used to be that baking treats for your family was an excellent way to save money by not buying those packaged cookies and cakes but I don’t that that that is the case any longer. With the price of butter, milk and all the flours skyrocketing it is no longer a matter of saving money, however it is still worth doing.
When you bake for your family you can control the ingredients. There won’t be anything unpronounceable in there and you can can control the amount of sugar or sweetener as well as deciding which kind of sweetener is best for your family.
Over the years I have developed the habit of having one baking day a week to make treats and breads for my family. Now I need two, so Tuesday and Friday will likely find me, at least for a couple of hours, in the kitchen baking. I find it a soothing occupation and my children look forward to seeing what I am going to come up with for them.
Do you have a set baking day?
Typically I will bake a few banana or pumpkin breads, sometimes a few loaves of sandwich bread, cupcakes for snacking, and biscuits. Not all of these every week but some each week. I love Allrecipes.com for inspiration and reading the reviews on the recipes can really help tweak it for you.
This is my autumn gingerbread. It’s popular here because it tastes good but also because the house smells wonderful while it is baking.
I’ve posted the recipe before but it’s worth repeating
Favorite Gingerbread
1/2 cup softened butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 cup of dark molasses
1 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a square baking dish (9×9). Cream butter and sugar. Add the egg and combine. Blend in molasses and water. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add in batches to the wet ingredients, beat until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 45 – 50 minutes until done. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
I hope you enjoy.
Printable version
The plan for this week:
Monday: American Chop Suey, steamed broccoli, crusty bread.
Tuesday: Beef and barley soup, garlic bread
Wednesday: Breakfast for dinner, pancakes and hamsteak
Thursday: Stuffed shells and meatballs
Friday: Pizza night
Saturday: Chicken and dumplings (prepared ahead as mama will be away)
Sunday: Pork roast? (I may do leftovers if there are enough)
I don’t have a set baking day; I do that when the mood strikes me. We don’t eat a lot of bread around here, so I’ve got sourdough bread going for toast and I do buy a pack of rolls from a local bakery for my son’s lunches. I can’t believe the price of butter right now! And with only one child at home, if I bake treats, I’m the one eating most of them. My cookie jar is sad and empty.
I don’t have a set baking day because I am currently in a nursing a baby stage of life. I do manage to bake a lot through out a week but never a lot at once. I have found that a kitchen scale is really helpful in speeding up my baking process–especially now that I’ve memorized a lot of th weights of common ingredients.