Holiday Treats

Story by: Kaylynn Coffin

With the holidays right around the corner, bakers near and far are prepared for the adventure this holiday season. This year I decided to join in on the baking fun and see what a day in the life of a baker was like.

No one ever tells you how much work goes into baking a couple of treats and let me be the one to tell you that it’s a lot of work, depending on what you pick to bake.

I chose three different treats to bake by myself and gave an honest review on each of them. Now I’m not new at baking, meaning I can make amazing boxed brownies, but the baking I did this time was way different then what I’m used to. If I’m being honest I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. The baking I did for this review was fresh and homemade, with a recipe that wasn’t on the side of the ingredients. The treats I wanted to bake were meringue cookies and hot chocolate chip cookies.

The first treat I decided to make were the hot chocolate chip cookies that I made using my grandma’s secret recipe. She sadly denied my request to put the recipe on this review, but that’s no issue, because I found a recipe that is almost identical to hers (sorry grandma). Now these I found fairly easy and fast to make. They were actually the treat that was the fastest to bake, only clocking in at35 minutes total, including preparation and baking. These were also really enjoyable to eat and made my tastebuds extremely grateful. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it an eight and that’s only because I feel like I could have added more chocolate chips. I really recommend you make some of these for either an event you’re going to or just your family at home or even for yourself..

Now onto the meringue cookies. So, for these I used the SugarHero recipe, which would be amazing if a more experienced baker used it, which sadly I am not. These cookies are a long, stressful process.s. Calling for a copious amount of egg whites, the prep can test a novice baker. Next, you cook them for an hour, and then after they are done cooking you have to let them cool for an hour. Normally this would be completely fine, but when I tried the cookie, the texture was grainy and it didn’t just ‘melt in my mouth’ like everyone says they do.. In my opinion, it is not worth the time. I think these didn’t turn out the way I wanted, because I’m not the best baker like I said, so if you have some more experience with baking then I do, I say try them!

With all that being said, I definitely have way more respect for bakers of any kind, whether it’s just cookies, cakes, pastries, anything! If you’ve ever baked I have a lot of respect for you.

Overall, this experience was really fun and rewarding. I did have one that didn’t work as well as I hoped, but that happens and it’s not always going to be perfect. Especially because I had one really good recipe that I can now make all the time for my family. I would also try to make the meringue cookies again, because if I made them right I think they’d be amazing!

Overall, I really recommend baking sometime, because it gives you something to do, makes you learn in the process, teaches you patience and to trust the process, and in the end you will get an extremely delicious treat (if you do it right).