apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Gougeres. I have literally thrown a baking sheet at my stove when they came out flat scorched circles of WASTED gruyere. I finally got them to turn out right and decided I didn't like them that much.

I tend to do this with muffins of all sorts and my homemade pizza.

I tend to do that with chocolates, both flavored ganache and pure fruit-based fillings, tweak a bit here or there plus switch ingredient suppliers checking quality. Enough already, it's all about the chocolate, it must all be good, right!?

I obsess over sourdough bread and English muffins. I went through a phase last winter where I made batch after batch of English muffins, trying to get them just right.

breakfast fancies, like french toast or biscuits and gravy. being vegan makes it harder!

last winter I attempted the same meyer lemon tart from smitten kitchen, oh, 8 times? the first 6 it didn't work out and I wouldn't give up on it.

Obsess is too strong a word, but determination? Yes. I just don't make good cake frosting. Icing, yes, I make lovely icing. Frosting? No. I have made a LOT more cake this year than I ever have (or need). My cream cheese frosting is now EXCELLENT. But still haven't mastered a plain old frosting or a buttercream. I will try again. Rather soon.

I'm not a baker, which keeps obsessive cooking to a minimum. Last winter, I did get a little crazy about perfecting a fusion coq-au-vin recipe I'd developed. A friend had proposed a "stew-off" where a bunch of people would put their signature stews up against one another. Sadly, the contest never happened...

Pickles!

Potato pancakes one year (different shredding techniques), then lemon white chocolate coconut cookies, and now challah and a chocolate cake. Next I suspect it will be a ciabatta.

Barbecue spare ribs. I had nobody to teach me the art so I collected as much knowledge as I could from the Internet and trial-and-error. The day I achieved my first smoke ring was one of my proudest moments.

Oh yes. There was once a semester of cupcakes, a winter perfecting my grandmother's bread recipe, the hunt for the perfect roast chicken recipe, last fall was chili, and this season will be soups. I love having a focus.

Pumpkin Bisque. For the last couple years in the autumn, i get a little obsessed with making it- trying several different recipes. I;ll ge it right someday.

When I got my first 2-piece quiche pan, there was quiche for dinner every day for at least a month. I also had a macaron phase, which didn't so much end but was forced to put on pause because of the impossibility of Tennessee humidity during the summer on meringue. Currently it is variations on flourless chocolate cake.

My question is, does anyone else go into absolute bat-crazy hysterics when these things don't come out?

This spring it was chocolate chip cookies. I had a recipe that I had messed up once and loved how they turned out, then had to experiment to figure out how to reproduce the delicious mistake.

Years ago, I had a chicken marsala dish at a restaurant that was delicious. It wasn't the typical chicken marsala since it had tomatoes and mushrooms. So I got some recipe tips from the waiter, and I've been playing with this recipe ever since - experimenting with different ways of cooking the chicken, adjusting the spices, etc. The restaurant has been out of business for years, but their chicken lives on.

Chili! I first made an attempt at chili four years ago, with no base recipe and have been perfecting it since. Twenty plus friends agree it's the best they've ever had, but I still tweak it here and there.

Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk. It had a weird medicinal twang to it the first time, but I LOVED that split milk cheese that came from the milk and lemons.... I've been experimenting with spices and milkfat content and different cuts of chicken ever since.

Basic whole wheat sandwich bread. It took a long time to perfect, but is sooo worthwhile as we love it a lot now.

What I hate is when something turns out really amazing the first time you make it and then you can never make it that well again no matter how many times you try...

For me, it is pancakes and muffins. I can make great pancakes with white flour, but want to keep tweaking whole wheat variations so I can get one which is healthy, but still tasty. Muffins, on the other hand, are just a constant challenge to make in the same fashion as those you get at good bakeries.

Lordy. Madeleines. I'm not much of a cook but I really like baking and I bought a madeleine pan on a whim one day. I spent every weekend for the next several months making the damned things, trying to figure out why they were never right. Now I can give away some truly awesome cookies as gifts.

I have a feeling that if I ever try my hand at pie crust, it'll be all quiche and pie for weeks.

I got a sourdough starter as a gift a little over a year ago. i was making tiny loaves every other day for months. I still make a loaf every week or so.

I was obsessed with making Spanish tortilla for a while. It's like a potato-onion frittata, except that you make it all on the stovetop. The trick is that you have to flip this half-raw egg mixture in the pan somehow--a very, very messy dish to be obsessed with. I came very close a few times, but my version was ultimately a bit more crumbly than the best tortillas I've had.

I have a cream cheese pound cake I can't get right...the top is supposed to be crackly but mine is too crackly - to the point it's almost completely separated from the rest of the cake. Good thing it tastes delicious because I've been making variations of it weekly and will continue to until I get it right!

Whole-wheat bread. I have been making it my whole life. Every few years I get a new favorite recipe and have to work on it until it's perfect. Every time I have to get a loaf of store-bought squishy bread I feel let down and vow to make more time for bread-baking. Unfortunately, even after all this time, I'm still not that great at it. :(

Granola bars. My husband eats them CONSTANTLY and it just got too expensive to keep buying them at the store (plus, they are so sugary and unhealthy!). I have gone through 5 or 6 recipes, tweaking things as I go and have finally settled on a recipe we both enjoy.

I've been obsessed with doing my own homemade pizza's. Putting a twist to each one I make.