It's been quite a year. Here in Tennessee, we started out with the rainiest winter and spring that I ever remember having (not to mention the Australian wildfires and various other global catastrophes). January's gloom was not only caused by rain, but it was shadowed by talk of a new virus that had the potential to be deadly. From the very beginning, we should have known this year was different. It was March eleventh, and I remember being on the way to Asheville, North Carolina, at the start of it all, with my husband and his family when I got a New York Times notification with some grim projection of what the "novel Coronavirus" might look like here in the States. I shrugged it off, though, not thinking much would come of it. I didn't realize that weekend getaway to the mountains would be the last time I left my house for the coming months (except for the bare essentials). On day two of our trip, I got an email from my university saying that spring break had been extended an extra week. I looked at that as a win. Blissfully, we continued our vacation; we went out to eat, went shopping, hiked, unbeknownst to us, of what was to come. The rest of the story is probably like most everyone else's: a frantic blur of empty toilet paper aisles, Clorox wipes, and quarantined mail.
If your time inside looked anything like mine, it also had lots of baked goods thrown in the mix, some online shopping, and maybe even some clean baseboards. My personal experience of 2020, thus far, hasn't been too earth-shattering. My comings and goings have been pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but I've made some good memories. My semi-feral adopted barn cat has become deeply bonded to my husband and me. I've been on several road trips and visited a lot of new places (all with a negative COVID test, of course). I've also baked a lot of new things. That's what I do when I'm bored, stressed, happy, etc. I bake.
I say all of this to ultimately have you look at pictures of some things that I've cooked. Please enjoy my quarantine bakes.
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blueberry white chocolate ganache tart
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| Irish soda bread |
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| Chocolate cake with milk chocolate buttercream |
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Strawberry cake with fresh strawberry buttercream
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| Cinnamon sugar puffs |
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Banana bread with vanilla sugar crust
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Hot cross buns
(not my prettiest batch, but I figured out how to make a proper bun shortly after this) |
