Thoughts on Baking & Measurements

I would describe my approach to baking as... slap-bang. That's a thing, right? I hate measuring things so usually I guess. As you can imagine, measuring hard butter is very difficult so when my recent recipe for cinnamon bread called for six tablespoons of butter, I cut the butter up into six cubes and called each one a tablespoon. Could this explain my failure of cinnamon bread? Or maybe it was because I put the yeast into the hot milk/butter mixture while it was still hot instead of warm...

I use measuring cups to measure dry ingredients like flour and sugar but instead of following Ms. Cosson's advice (food tech teacher) and levelling off the various powders with a knife to get an exact measurement, I often dump a heaving, humped cup into my mixing bowl or a half empty cup in, promising myself I'll make up for it with the next scoop.

I think life is more interesting when it's slightly less organized. It's also more satisfying when the recipe comes out half decent after you've basically not followed the recipe at all.

When it comes to "extras" like nuts or chocolate chips, this is when it really falls to hell. Measuring half a cup of chocolate chips? PLEASE, more like pour it in until you feel you've broached a level of indecency. Usually, I tell myself I've put in less than half a cup and hence haughty-taughtily congratulate myself for my incredibly healthy habits. I am beginning to believe that I have in fact been putting in three quarters of a cup or, God forbid, a whole cup. My life is a joke.

I hate nuts so I usually just put in three to appease my nut-loving mother.

J