This week I am doing something a little bit different with my learning project.  Instead of baking (more like attempting it) something super yummy, I have made it my goal to find some online sources that can help me, or anyone out when it comes to baking.  Although it won’t have the yumminess of my previous weeks, I think it will be super beneficial in the long run.

My first goal was to try to find an online source where I could ‘store’ all of my baking recipes.  I know, I know, doesn’t Pinterest do this for me?  Yes it does.  But I find it is always time consuming to go through the many pins I have under ‘Desserts’ just to find one specific recipe.  Plus, you cannot make adjustments to these recipes on the site, which is not ideal becaise recipes often need little personal touches to make them better for you.

After doing a little web browsing, I cam across a great article from the LA Times.  This article gives a list of the best sites to collect recipes on. Perfect!  After going through their list, I decided that my favorite option was MacGourmet.  The main reason fro this was because not only can you import recipes/pictures from the internet (like Pinterest), you can also add in your own personal recipes and pictures.  This would make my life much more organized than the ‘recipe box’ I currently use to keep track of everything.  This site has one big con though.  It is only compatible for Mac. The good news is you can download an app on your iPhone or iPad.

My next challenge was to simply learn some common baking mistakes and how to fix them.  I cam across a great website for this.  Some of these tips I have learned by baking desserts for this learning project, including the fact that the temperature of ingredients makes a big difference!  Something I did not know was that ingredients like baking soda and yeast have a very short shelf life and that you should not use them if they are ‘expired.’  Pretty sure the yeast I used for my cinnmon buns in a couple years old…ooops!  I really wish I would have looked up these tips at the START of my learning project.

Reluctantly I also wanted to find a way to make desserts taste good but still being somewhat healthy.  Okay healthy might be stretching it.  But I still wanted to find desserts that are less fattening, I got baby weight to lose!  Plus I have a sister who is a vegan so I thought it would be nice to bake something she can actually eat!  This blog is amazing! She has tons of ‘healthy’ dessert recipes (and some mains too) and breaks them down into really easy to find categories.  Although I have not tried any recipes from her blog, I am hoping that I will get a chance to during this learning project.

Now to get back to the unhealthy, yummy, fatty desserts.  The way desserts were meant to be.  I found a wicked blog that has countless recipes for nearly every dessert you can think of.  My mouth was watering a I read some of her entries and recipes.  After I make a healthy dessert, I think I will come back to this blog and make a yummy, ‘bad’ dessert!  Again, this site is set up in such a way you can look at delicious pictures, and easily find the type of dessert you are looking for (ie. cookies, cupcakes, bars, etc).

I think all of this info will help my baking game, from the technical details I know nothing about, to new and exciting recipes!