i'd rather be baking

Chocolate and strawberries are quite possibly my favorite flavor combination, ever. They’re possibly upstaged by chocolate and mint, but somehow that only seems right around the holidays. But chocolate and strawberries are year-round heaven. They never fail me.

It’s no secret that we’re reaching the end of strawberry season, but there are still some beauties to be found at the grocery store and by golly, I’m going to use them. I’m going to soak them in lemon juice and plop them down atop chocolate and pastry. And if you know what’s good for you, I suggest you do the same.

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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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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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Ryan has a thing for blueberry muffins. You may recall the muffin extravaganza of 2009, which included quite possibly the world’s most perfect blueberry muffins. I wanted to make some for him, and I really should have stuck with the recipe I already knew and loved. But you know me, I can’t leave well enough alone.

My Google Reader is pretty much equally divided between ridiculous food and super healthy blogs, which is a pretty accurate representation of, well, me. The moral of the story is that we can’t all eat butter laden, crumb-topped morsels of deliciousness every morning. We have skinny jeans to wear and races to run. You understand.

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Everybody makes banana bread, right? That’s what I thought until I began bringing it to share with coworkers at various previous jobs of mine. People would go nuts. They couldn’t believe it. One lady told me that she makes her family banana bread from a boxed mix. What? I didn’t really know such things existed.

I was raised to believe that banana bread was what you did with those nasty looking, brown-spotted bananas that are otherwise completely disgusting. Mash them up, stir in some wet and dry stuff, stick it in the oven and something magical happens. That’s basically ten-year-old Laura’s understanding of the whole process.

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