Blog (and Photography) on the Rise

A good friend of mine, who is a loyal reader of my blog and a willing guinea pig to my baked treats and who is also a graphic designer, has taken pity on me and this poor little blog.  She has graciously volunteered to redesign my blog for me.  As you know, redesigning my blog was on my new year’s promise-to-do list.  Five months into the New Year and besides taking down the hideous back ground, I have done little else.  To my credit there has been little time to redesign, but I have been blogging pretty consistently.

So, when my friend volunteer to re-do my blog, I willing accepted (after making sure she was not taking on too much.  After all, I do not want to overwhelm her with a pity job).  I was so excited, thinking about colors, design, fonts, and logos… Then it hit me.  My photography skills will need to be elevated to live up to what fantastic-ness my blog is getting ready to become.

Currently, I spend about 5-10 minutes taking 100 pictures of my desserts, with my flash on usually at midnight after an evening of baking.  I pray that a few shots come out okay out of the 100.  I then shift through them and pick the best and upload them, as is (resized but unedited), to my blog.  I have always been more concerned with the taste of my food over the pictures of my food.   But out in blog world readers literally eat with their eyes, and my pictures need to start being visual treats.

I have very minimally started to care more about pictures.  There are a few things that I need to get, like some backing to block out the random junk on my kitchen counter in pictures, but I can still begin to practice some of the techniques I am picking up from random internet searches.  The first technique I am practicing is the use of natural light as opposed to my camera’s flash, which up until this point, I was a huge fan of due to nighttime photography sessions.

This brings a whole new level of having to prepare to take pictures, as there is not natural light at midnight.  The Birthday Cake Oreo Crispie Treats are the first treats I captured by natural light.  Friday morning before work, I took the treats out onto my balcony and tried to get a few photos.

Over all they came out okay, I definitely need to spend more time taking photos.  Even with natural light, taking photos before work in 5-10 minutes does not a brilliant photo make.  Oh, by the way, I have no clue how these taste.  I do not eat marshmallows, but I was told they are wonderful.  I used the standard Rice Krispies Treat recipe, but melted extra marshmallows, chopped up an entire package of Birthday Cake Oreos, and added extra sprinkles because everything is better with sprinkles.

The Ultimate Salty-Sweet Cookie

I have a friend who likes sweets, but is much more of a crunchy, salty, snack person.  This past weekend she invited me to come see her new home and I wanted to bring her a treat.  I love to bake, so creating and baking new things is kind of selfish, but I always make sure to take the individual person’s likes, allergies, and dislikes into account.

I have made it a mission to know all the crazy food quirks about my friends.  I mean, I may not remember the name of their adorable 2-year-old niece or their beloved pet cat, but I can tell you that they are semi-allergic to some nuts, do not like peanut butter but loves peanuts, or has a serious thing for lemons.  Yes, those important things in life I do not forget.

Well this friend, let’s call her VJ, has always had a thing for chips.  I remember back in our college days, on Thursday night when we had to use up the rest of our weekly meal plans before they reset on Friday, I would always stock up on cookies and VJ would always go for the chips.  When VJ does go for something sweet, she prefers salty-sweet, like peanut butter cookies or snickers bars (which I have combined into a cookie for her before).

This time, I wanted to take salty-sweet over the top and came up with a cookie that was so VJ that I was worried I would not even like them.  Instinctively, I knew all the ingredients would work together, but I still just was not sure about these.  Anyway, I got over my apprehension, put on my big girl panties, and just made the cookies.  No guts, no glory!

The cookies are a simple chocolate chip cookies base, but that is where conventional ends.  The mix-ins contained Ruffles Potato Chips, Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels, and Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chips.

These cookies are the epitome of salty-sweet.  You get the crunch and fried, saltiness of the potato chips, and the salty, flaky crunch of the pretzel.  You also get the strong, slightly dry peanut butter taste from the pretzel filling.  Lastly, you get sweet burst of chocolate and peanut butter chips with the cookie being one big, soft and chewy fifth texture holding all that goodness together.  Seriously, it hit so many taste buds on my tongue upon first bit that I was actually overwhelmed… by a cookie.  Did I like it?  Did I love it?  It is weird?  Did I hate it?  Maybe too much salty?

All those questions were answered upon second, third, and fourth bite.  No, I did not like it; I LOVED it.  Yes, it is weird, but I don’t hate it.  Not too salty at all.  Though I would not eat potato chips in everyday life, I would in a cookie, this cookie!  That says it all.  Oh, and VJ liked them too!