With Christmas right around the corner and Hanukkah on day two, I imagine many folks are baking sugar cookies today. And so, I pay tribute to the scrap cookie.

Scrap cookies are always misshapen, but they taste just as good as the regular ones that you’ve rolled, cut, and baked in the shape of pumpkins, turkeys, shamrocks, trees, dreidls, whatever. I encourage all bakers of sugar cookies to embrace the imperfection of the scrap cookie, to hold it up as an example for life in general. While not everything will turn out as pretty as you might have wanted, or look the way you thought it should, it’s still valuable and important.

Plus, the scrap cookie allows you to be as creative as you like. So roll into a ball and press it flat with the bottom of a glass (which is what I always do), or shape it free-form. Either way, you’ll have something tasty.

Last weekend, while visiting family in Ashton, Maryland, I flipped through the Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook and knew instantly that I had to have it.  Back in the Day Bakery is actually located in Savannah, Georgia, and it will definitely be on my list of places to visit should Mike and I ever travel there.

I spent a good part of the drizzly Saturday afternoon reading recipe after recipe, making mental notes of which ones I wanted to try.  My first experiment will be the cinnamon-sugar doughnut muffin, which I cannot wait to bake after I get through my Passover/Easter projects.  Other gems on my list are a lovely lemon loaf, sweet potato cupcakes, chocolate mint cookies, and buttermilk chess pie.

I own 30 cookbooks; of those, 13 are specifically dedicated to baking.  I’ve been fortunate that both Mike and my sister-in-law Kristin tend to give me cookbooks for my birthday and holidays; I’ve amassed quite a collection varying from the sophisticated tastes of Martha Stewart to Warren Brown’s fun, quirky United Cakes of America.

Please share with me – what is your favorite cookbook, and which ones should I add to my collection?

 

I like to think my New York style cheesecake helped Eli Manning and the Giants win tonight’s Super Bowl.  But even if it didn’t, Mike and my mom both loved it, so that’s good enough for me.

On a weekend getaway to Williamsburg, Virginia, I spotted vanilla beans at the Raleigh Tavern Bakery.  On the packaging was a recipe for homemade vanilla extract, and I’ve adapted it as follows; I usually have one bottle in use and another steeping in my cupboard.

Ingredients

1 vanilla bean

Good-quality vodka

Preparation

Place the vanilla bean in a bottle with a good seal.

Pour in enough vodka to cover the bean and store in a cool, dark place for 3 to 4 months.

 

Welcome to Amy Bakes in the ‘Burgh!  Thanks for joining me as I bake my way through the year.