baking

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I Just Got Some Insights On Baking

I’m not often in the kitchen when my wife is baking, but the other day I got a little insight into what goes into baking.

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She was making cookies – ginger snaps to be exact. I’ve been eating her ginger snaps for years and I really never knew what went into making them.

I knew there had to be sugar because they’re pretty sweet. I also knew that there was molasses in ginger snaps.

But what I didn’t know is that it’s not just any kind of molasses that you put in ginger snap cookies. It’s fancy molasses.

To be honest with you, when I realized that it was fancy molasses in the cookies, I found it hard to believe.

First of all, I wouldn’t call ginger snaps fancy cookies. You wouldn’t find them at a fancy restaurant, or at a high class hotel. You wouldn’t even necessarily come across ginger cookies at any special occasion like Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving.

It’s your run-of-the-mill, every day, blue collar, working man’s kind of cookie.

So why do they use fancy molasses? And what’s the difference between regular molasses and the fancy kind?

I was really puzzled about this so I did a little research and found out that my wife, though she bakes a mean cookie, has been using the wrong molasses in her ginger snaps.

There are actually five types of molasses and it comes directly from sugar cane. I couldn’t find out why it’s called “fancy”, but another name for fancy molasses is “gold star”.

Whatever you call it, it sounds kind of special, certainly more special than the others: Lite, cooking, unsulphured, and Blackstrap.

Fancy molasses is very sweet and I now realize that’s why my wife’s cookies taste so sweet.

If she used cooking molasses, which is a combination of Fancy and Blackstrap molasses, her ginger snaps wouldn’t be quite as sweet and I would be able to eat 5 or 6 more at a time.

… It’s possible that she knows this and it’s on purpose that she makes them sweeter to cut down on my consumption per serving, but I’m not sure about that.

I think she uses a recipe that calls for fancy molasses because the person who came up with that recipe had a bit of a sweet tooth.

I’m just not sure how to break the news to Lily that she needs to change the molasses in her ginger snaps. Though she sees me as a cookie eating machine, verging on a Cookie Monster, she doesn’t respect my culinary skills or knowledge.

I think the best I can hope for is when she reads this post she will be swayed to try a different kind of molasses the next time she makes her ginger snaps.

By the way, why don’t they call these cookies “molasses cookies” instead of “ginger snaps”? There is way more molasses in them that there is ginger.

You know, if we called them “fancy molasses cookies” I bet they would start showing up in snobbier places and events … I’m just sayin’.

Here’s the thing: We all have different tastes, likes and dislikes. That’s why it’s important to create your time with God in a manner, method, and way that you relate best to Him. There are no cookie cutter relationships with God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you structure your devotional time? Leave your comments below.

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Being Firstborn Increases Your Duty

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I think my firstborn nature is keeping me from reaching one of my goals. There is something about firstborns that they are duty-bound.

They diligently follow through on something until it’s complete. We have a kind of gyroscopic equilibrium deep inside us that does not stabilize until we have done what we think is right.

Of course, what we think is right probably came from all the “no’s” we got from our parents in the first two years of life. The more “no’s” we got back then, the harder it is now to maintain that inner balance.

How this is playing out for me right now is with food and my weight goal. I hope to reach my target weight goal by the end of the month but the problem is we are over a week into the new year and I’m still trying to clean up the excesses of Christmas food.

… Not so much the turkey, more like the candy, baking, and other calorie-laden edibles.

You see, right now along with every meal, I also have to consume morsels of good cheer that are lingering in our pantry and fridge.

And yes, I said “have to” because of my firstborn nature, and the program my parents instilled in me before I was really accountable for anything.

Those Ferrero Rochers HAVE TO be eaten. Lil’s allergic to hazelnuts so I HAVE TO do them in. Then there are the liquorice allsorts and the peanut brittle, and . . . I could go on and on.

I’m not even mentioning the cookies and other baking.

Every time I open the pantry, I start to get vertigo unless I pop something in my mouth. This firstborn thing is really getting to me. I know what I need to be doing, but this thing I have about cleaning up is killing me!

With every piece of chocolate, every Christmas cookie, I sense my cholesterol on the rise. But I say to myself, “It’s just until I get rid of all this stuff.”

The problem is there’s so much of it. And because Lil’s not a firstborn, it’s all on me to do the clean up.

I know, it’s a heavy weight to bear . . . literally.

I have a choice to make. I either gorge myself and get rid of it all quickly (and in the process gain about 10 more pounds), or I slowly kill myself by eating just bits every day.

I think my second choice would take until March which is way past my target weight date. But the other prospect will have me living on my new rowing machine for hours every day to work off the poundage I’ll be putting on.

I just wish my parents hadn’t said “no” so often when I was a child so I didn’t have to say “yes” so often now.

Well it’s morning now, and the cream I’ve been adding to the milk with my cereal is finished so I’m done with that. I will, however, need to finish off Lily’s caramel corn later today.  Man, it never ends.

Here’s the thing: There are a lot of things that we might feel bound to – one of those things should be our spiritual growth. We should have a feeling deep inside that things are not quite right unless we are growing spiritually. We should feel like we are out of sorts unless we take care of our spiritual needs. Stay stabilized and commit to your spiritual growth this year.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you plan to grow spiritually this year? Leave your comment below.