Brown Sugar Cookies

Any recipe that contains brown sugar and cinnamon immediately grabs my attention.

Also, I'd been on a bit of a "cupcakes and nothing but cupcakes" roll, so I thought some simple cookies were probably in order.

As I reported to a friend, these brown sugar cookies that I found at Joy the Baker's blog (<<< link here) are kind of a lighter, lazier version of snickerdoodles, with the sugar and cinnamon (plus a little ginger) on the inside.

I didn't read the recipe very well and accidentally put in baking powder instead of soda... so then I added a little baking soda as well for good measure (about a teaspoon on top of the original two of powder). This no doubt contributed to their lightness. Next time I'll try the suggested amount and see whether it makes much difference.

Although I expected darker, moister cookies, these were cute and very more-ish. In the future I'd probably make them bigger so people (aka. me) don't feel the need to eat a few at time!

Welcome to Cakie's Home Baking!

After a few years dabbling in baking I've finally decided to blog about it, inspired by the likes of Bakerella and Smitten Kitchen. Alas, my photography is not nearly as grand as theirs, nor am I likely to be as original, but I do enjoy baking - the process, the products, and sharing food with friends and family :)

As a general rule I prefer to bake simple things. I'm particularly keen on recipes that use ingredients I already have in the cupboard, or that just require one or two special ingredients on top of my basics. But I'm not averse to trying something new, especially for an occasion.

I prefer to avoid using an electric mixer (extra washing up!), but I'm finding that the more I branch out the more helpful it is to use one. Which means I should probably get one. I'm currently alternating between a food processor (works OK for some things) and a cheap hand blender (tends not to get enough air into batter/icing and heats up way too quickly).

I have no experience with fondant icing and I'm not particularly drawn to learning. For now I'm trying to work out buttercream icing swirls for cupcakes. Yum.

Last but not least, I'm in Australia. So there may be a slight translational gap if you aren't. Eg. icing sugar is the Australian equivalent of confectioner's sugar, I use a combination of metric measures and grams, and my oven uses Celsius rather than Fahrenheit.

Questions and comments are welcome. I look forward to sharing my failures and successes with you (even the failures tend to taste OK :).