Lots Going On

Things have been busy for me these past few days. I've been crafting a lot and I started some Christmas baking yesterday. This morning I made gingerbread dough and made a ton of mistakes whilst doing so.

I've been watching The British Baking Show and got all cocky and thought I'd try weighing my ingredients instead of measuring them out with measuring cups. So my recipe called for 3 c of flour. I looked up the weight of one cup and multiplied it by three which brought it to over 700g. I even got out a sieve and sifted the flour. It seemed like a lot to me but I trusted the recipe I've used for years. Then I sifted in the spices. 

I stood back and again thought it looked like an awful lot of flour so I got a measuring cup out and much to my horror I had about twice the amount of flour mixture than I needed. Turns out that I had mixed my liquid measures (mL) with dry measures (g). 3 cups of liquid are 711 mL NOT 711 grams. OOPS!

I then scooped out 3c of my sifted ingredients into the mixer bowl and realized now my spices were halved as well so added a bit more. Crisis averted. I threw out the remaining 3 cups of flour mixture because I wasn't in the mood to make a double batch. The remaining 3c were put into the KitchenAid mixer bowl.

I measured out the butter which I had previously cut into chunks. I used the displacement method, filling a 2c measuring cup with 1c of water and added butter pieces until the water level increased by the 3/4c - the measure of butter that I needed. So far so good.

I then read the next instruction - to whip the brown sugar IN THE FOOD PROCESSOR until it was very fine then add the butter. Well, crap, I forgot I use the food processor and not the mixer so I had to get another bowl to dump the flour into, wash and dry the mixer bowl, put the mixer away and haul out the food processor.

After that, things went pretty smoothly and I got the dough all mixed. I re-read the recipe card only to note the dough should only be mixed until the ingredients are just incorporated. Oh no! I'd left it all whirling about for about a minute. My cookies are probably going to be hard as rocks. Oh well, it's gingerbread. Maybe if they're decorated cutely, who'll notice?

The dough is now cooling in the fridge and I'll cut and bake the cookies this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'll decorate them.

I got a cool thing in the mail the other day. It was the sea turtle bracelet I sent away for from the Wildlife Collections in conjunction with the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

I have become quite interested in sea turtles since Fred and I saw a bunch of them released  on South Padre Island 5 years ago. There is a wonderful Sea Turtle Rescue place on the island and they had taken in dozens of turtles that were stunned by the sudden cold snap in the area. When the sea turtles get stunned by the cold waters, they can't feed or swim. It can be fatal for them if they don't get to warmer water or they get  help in some way.

Anyway, the bracelet came with a bio of a sea turtle that has a tracking device glued to her shell and her position is tracked every day. Here's Hope's bio:

She started out near Jupiter FL back in May. She swam up the coast to the waters off southern New Jersey then back down to N Carolina before heading out to sea.

I guess she'll float around the tropics all winter. I'm interested to know where she'll head to to lay her eggs. She was rescued in Florida but I don't know if that's where her eggs get laid.

On the topic of sea turtles, the sea turtle paint by number set I ordered arrived this week as well. Heaven knows I needed something else to do. 

I also have the sea turtle cross stitch kit that arrived in the mail earlier this fall. 

Now I must find the Handel's Messiah that is streaming and find my score to sing along. 

Wish me luck with my gingerbread cookie baking.