Home Baking Amp It Up!

Everybody bakes in January. It's a great way  of relieving those winter doldrums along with providing yummy treats to the family.However brownies and snickerdoodles can get boring , being made with the same old recipes time after time. It's time to amp up those treats! Make them a little more livelier,a  more sophisticated for a different kind of dessert or snack.

Melissa Clark realized this and wrote about zesting up her family's recipe for lemon bars in Wednesday's New York Times Food A Good Appetite section. Lemon bars are nice, easy to make and again a quiet way to end a dinner. They're also a bake sale staple , made by countless moms and tween bakers.. However Ms. Clark gives them a sophisticated turn by creating the filling with olive oil add to the traditional eggs, lemon and sugar.It not only adds flavor but makes the curds glossy and silky.Lemon zest is also added to both it and the crust. For the top there is always confectioners sugar sprinkled on but she adds flaky sea salt. It's an interesting mix of tangy and sweet, silky and salty.Home bakers do have to get a good olive oil.preferably something with fruity undertones to compliment the lemon The sea salt should be flaky. It melts perfectly with the sugar upon biting  whereas a more granulated sea salt may not perfectly mesh.

Other baked treats that you can zing up are brownies and cupcakes. Try turning  them into mole flavor by adding ancho chli powder or a drop or two of hot sauce (for this I'd heartily recommend Tabanero's Hot Sauce because it has agave in it and no vinegar)You can also make chocolate cake  this way too.Add just a sprinkle of confectioner's sugar on top .Icing would be too much however you can whip up a  frosting with it. Again add just a tiny amount. Alcohol is another good add in. Of course there are rum cakes, They've been made for centuries. However bakers , both professional and home, are tossing in other spirits to liven up their baking treats. Gin and tonic, that English classic, can be turned into a tasty sweet dessert thanks to adding a good dash of gin and a cup of tonic to the batter .It gives the cake an earthy , green flavor while the added tonic gives the cake's texture a bubbly airy consistency. Stout is also an add, favored by hipsters these days.Again this works best with chocolate because of the drink's dark notes and robust flavor (it would completely overpower vanilla).

Baking is a good pastime during snowy days . However it can be boring.Liven it up with a dash of the unexpected, whether it be olive oil or stout. Those lemon bars and cupcakes will have a life of their own!