i'd rather be baking

I may have a bit of a tendency to go overboard on some things. You know, sometimes. For instance, a recipe for peach bourbon cupcakes seems indulgent enough, yes? The answer is yes. But I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Lily-gilder, party of one.

It all started innocently enough. The recipe called for almond meal, and I didn’t have any almonds on hand nor the desire to buy any. I knew that any sort of dry flour wouldn’t be quite an appropriate substitution, as it would lack the fat content of almonds. That would be okay except that it would require further substitution in order to ensure moist cupcakes, and I just didn’t want to go there.

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It’s no secret that I like a good shortcut now and then. I’m at the bakery piping buttercream by seven each morning, so I’ve taken to brewing coffee the night before and pouring it over ice on my way out. Lately my straightener doesn’t see the light of day for more than three seconds until Friday each week. I lay out my clothes each night like a second grader. These are my twenty-more-minutes-of-sleep shortcuts, and I take them unapologetically.

I grew up eating those Pillsbury-popped-from-a-can cinnamon rolls every Sunday morning, and gosh, they taste good. My cinnamon roll sensibilities have improved a little but I think I have those childhood Sunday mornings to thank for my recent cinnamon hankering. I wanted to make cinnamon rolls from scratch, but didn’t want to wait around for three or four hours of rise time before church. That’s why I got really excited when I read this recipe.

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Blueberries are something of an acquired taste for me. Whether it be scones, muffins, or just fruit in general, anything with blueberries has never been my first pick. But in recent years I’ve come to enjoy them and even adopted my mom’s habit of eating them atop my cereal every morning.

I’m now able to fully appreciate the bounty of blueberries that comes with midsummer, and recently found two pounds for $3.99. That’s the best price I’ve seen around here and had to snatch them up. I’ve been happily gobbling them every chance I get, and last week decided it was time to bake some.

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I may have completely lost my mind.

I put both jalapeños and cheddar cheese into a loaf of bread. And now we can’t stop eating it.

This bread has now been eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It has happily provided a vehicle for egg sandwiches and some particularly fantastic BLTs. This is certainly not the healthiest bread I’ve ever made, but Ryan quickly pronounced it the best. I’m not sure I can argue.

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This weekend we experienced temperatures in the three-digit range, and it wasn’t pretty. I was pretty much forced to make these. It was (and still is, really) way too hot to turn on the oven. You understand.

I’ve seen them floating around various healthy living blogs recently and, well, I couldn’t wait any longer. And I wasn’t sorry. Ryan and I are now pretty much addicted to these little beauties.

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