In Which We Bake

 

For a while, I was baking something pretty much every week.  My motto was "If you you want to eat fresh cake, then you have to bake fresh cake."  And you know what?  I got to be good at it.  But I got distracted by all that Super Agent Fred dying stuff so I've only baked a couple of times this year. 

I decided it was time to get back up on that pastry horse and so tonight I thought I would make the easiest baked good that exists: a Seven Layer Bar.  It's sort of a cross between a candy bar and a cookie.  It is so easy, it's how they teach little baby girl scouts the elements of baking.  You just measure the ingredients, mash them in a pan, and shove it in the oven.  Pretty much the most difficult step is crumbling up graham crackers to make a crust, and if that is beyond your skill set, maybe baking is not for you.  Maybe you should just go back to the sheltered workshop. 

The layers are, in chronological order, graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, condensed milk, and shredded coconut. Here's the deal though, I do not like chopped nuts in cookies and I don't like shredded coconut in anything, period.  So I replaced the chop nuts with peanut butter and Nutella.  I kicked the shredded coconut to the curb.

My baking experience has taught me that trying to incorporate Nutella into any recipe is just asking for heartache.  Unless you decide to bake with super glue, I don't think any other ingredient is as sticky and messy.  Plus, despite my tendency towards OCD, I am not a terribly tidy baker.  I am resigned to making a mess and then cleaning it up.  You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs and mrpeenee slings eggs all over the kitchen. 

Speaking of sticky goo, I also had to deal with condensed milk, which is pretty damn gluey in its own right.  Between the two I am lucky I wasn't permanently stuck to the counter.  As it was, I had to wash my hands a half dozen times during what was supposed to be a simple little project.  But now it's in the oven, it smells fabulous, and the cats have reappeared from wherever they were hiding while I was loosing madness in the kitchen.  

Seven layer boys: 

I think all cars should come with something like this in the trunk.

It's all about that pretty hair for me.

Hit the road.

It's bathing suit season.  Perhaps you've noticed?

Skinny boys with big dicks: it's a thing.

Yep.