Baking in cold weather

Like most of the country we have had a cold miserable week. One of the things I love to do when it is cold and snowy is to bake. So this past weekend to give my four year old daughter something to do we baked cookies. I let her pick the flavor and of course she chose chocolate-chip. What four year old wouldn't. Her attention lasted long enough to load the first batch onto the cookie sheets and then she was off.

I belong to a MOPS group (that has saved my sanity, having big people to talk to is wonderful!), and I was part of the rotation to serve breakfast. Because they all know I love to cook I usually take two items instead of one. I use this as an excuse to work on my cinnamon roll technique. So I made a batch of cinnamon rolls, I only had to throw out the first batch... I always forget to put the eggs in before I add the rest of the flour. I finally came up with a trick of putting the eggs on the counter right by the bowl so they can't be forgotten. I love working with yeast doughs they take practice and can be very creative, oh and don't forget yummy. I like to do the cinnamon rolls because for the second round of letting it rise, you can cover them and put them in the refrigerator overnight and then pull them out and after letting them sit for 30 minutes bake them and take them to breakfast still warm. The other item I do is an overnight crock-pot oatmeal. It has apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and YUM! I like to take these because there are rarely left overs to take home.

My husband had been asking for lemon bars for a couple of months and because I had everything I needed, we made those for him as well. I was able to make the lemon bars while I was working on our bread. I have been making our whole wheat bread for a couple of years now and can't stand the store bread. Once you get used to the texture of home-made versus store bought the taste alone wins hands down. It takes a little time, I have figured out that for slicing I need to make sure that I have the bread ready the day before I run out. Bread slices better once it is completely cool and that takes between 12 and 24 hours.