Baking Machine

So I'm a bit ahead in my studying schedule so I thought a bit of stress relief in the form of baking was in order. It rained quite heavily the other day and that made me want a cookie, which made me think about all the different cookies that I have yet to make in the world. My mind finally settled on Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip...indulgent, I know. So I Googled a recipe, popped over to the store and got myself to work. I ended up using this recipe. It looked the the simplest recipe with the best looking results. Man, oh man. If you like the richness of a peanut butter cookie, the texture of an oatmeal one and the surprise of finding a chocolate chip, then you need to make these ASAP.

I ended up hitting a baking stride and noticed that I still had a bit of leftover zucchini from when I made a few loaves of zucchini bread to bring to a family potluck on Friday. Since I didn't keep any for my house and my mom loves the stuff, I went ahead and made a few more. I used a recipe that I picked up from a friend in highschool, with a few tweaks here and there:

Zucchini Bread-
3c Flour
1 1/2 c Granulated Sugar
1/2 c Light Brown Sugar
2 tsp Baking Soda
1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
3 Eggs
3/4 Oil
1/4 Milk
2 c Shredded Zucchini

Combine all ingredients, sans zucchini, in a bowl to form a thick batter. Stir in zucchini and pour into 2 loaf pans (or 2 8x8 pans). Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes. Let cool, slice and enjoy!!

After all of that, I noticed that there was still about a cup of chocolate chips left in the bag, so I decided to do something else with them to keep myself or the little bro from eating them straight up (which I would have). So I took to Google once more and went in search for another recipe. I was going to go with good old chocolate chip cookies, but the o-pb-cc ones already stocked my house with two dozen. I toyed with the idea of scones, but then realized that I was milkless so had to scrap that as well. Finally, I decided to try my hand at biscotti via Good Housekeeping's online recipe.

Now this is the first time I've taken on biscotti (though I do recall a disastrous attempt at the all too similar shortbread cookie that I experienced in high school), so I'm a little bit lost on what the dough was supposed to look like. After following the directions to the 't', I noticed that the dough I had was far too wet to even pass as a standard cookie dough. I searched the magic that is Youtube and noticed that I was right about the texture. So, I took a chance and added an extra 1/2 c flour to the recipe. Everything else proceeded as usual. The end result was a pretty darn good product for a first timer. I will definitely consider experimenting a bit more with this biscotti business.

Alrighty, that's about all I have to share right now...I hope things are well wherever you find yourself at the moment.