dessert

And Why I Bake A Lot Less…

I like baking and I LOVE desserts! =)

I used to bake often but in the last five years, I hardly bake for 2 reasons.

1. I hate cleaning up the slick, buttery mixing bowls, whisks, and tools
2. Reading the recipe and seeing the mountains of butter, sugar and cream in it makes me lose my appetite

So, I like Sticky Toffee pudding but I’ve never made it. Having had a Sticky Toffee Cupcake, I contemplated baking a Sticky Toffee pudding for Thanksgiving in addition to my pie.

I googled the recipe and the pudding and sauce had A LOT of butter sugar and cream and made me go Ewwww

I try to regulate the amount of sugar, butter and cream I take given that my metabolism is slowing down with each passing year and my body seems to think I need to store more fat. =P

When I think of how much sugar is in a brownie or cake, I just can’t eat it.
However the value of denial is that I’ll eat some other dessert that I’ve bought outside because I did not have to see the bowls of sugar that went into the dessert.

Yes. Total denial.

Sugar is bad. Sugar  aggravates acne, causes your skin to age faster by breaking down your collagen and elastin fast. Collagen and elastin makes your skin firm and taut.So more rapid degeneration of collagen and elastin will make your skin drier and lines and wrinkles appear faster and deeper. Sugar also increases the likelihood of cellulite.

So not a good thing AT ALL if you’re concerned about your skin and preserving your youth.

The process of sugar breaking down your connective tissue is called Gylcation and forms AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products) if you want to research this further.

When I was younger, I was NOT aware of the negative impact of sugar on my skin and aging  and I ate a lot of sugary foods including desserts, ice cream, boxes of Oreos (OMG!!!) and too much sweet food and junk food in general. I wish I ate less of all that crap!

Additionally, sugar can also cause inflammation in your body (which you may not know about), lead to medical problems and most obviously, diabetes.

So yup. That’s why I bake less these days (although I still eat a lot of dessert!) and a good note to watch your sugar intake =)

Wishing you youthful skin always =)

Sticky Toffee Cupcake

It took me 5 attempted visits to a local cupcake shop to find them because they are in a tiny lane that isn’t easy to find.I made that many attempts because they supposedly use pure buttercream and are fashioned after NYC style cupcakes, which i miss terribly!

I love my cupcake frosting buttery and creamy, full of flavor so I had high hopes on these.

I finally found them and took back 2 cuties: a carrot cake with cream cheese cupcake and a sticky toffee cupcake.

The Sticky Toffee Cupcake was much better than the carrot cake cupcake. However, the frosting was both too sugary and not buttery enough for me.

I quite like Sticky Toffee Pudding and the rich, sweet caramelish sauce. All the better with vanilla ice cream! It’s a typical UK dessert and I’ve had it a few times but never made it myself.

Which got me to thinking, Hmmmm maybe I can make sticky toffee pudding in addition to pie for Thanksgiving dinner!!

I googled the recipe. Problem one: it requires dates. I do not have easy access to dates. and it requires me to blend the dates. Not happening. I do not have a full force blender. So too bad, I’m nixing it.

My biggest problem with baking? Read on ….

Brownie Carvings — at 1030pm

Mmmm I can just imagine these babies… warm, freshly baked brownies, the smell of chocolate lingering in the air that leads me to them. Cold vanilla bean ice cream with generous hot fudge and warm caramel sauce drizzled. Ah! Heaven!

If only I could get my hands on these!

ps: it’s 1030pm at night. Nothing’s open.