The Art of Baking

Many of you know that this past weekend (August 23rd-24th) courageous heARTS hosted a Bake Sale. The Youth Advisory Board and members of the community made delicious goodies for us to sell. But what you may not know, is how crazy baking can really be.  

On Friday morning, my fellow board member Antonia and I met at her house around one to begin baking. We only had a few hours and we had to make gluten-free as well as normal brownies, Rice Krispie treats, banana bread and rhubarb muffins! With five recipes, three hours, two people, and one kitchen, we began baking. I threw on some Taylor Swift and we hit the cook books.

Since I am not gifted in the art of baking, I decided to be the one to continuously stir a pot of butter and chocolate for our brownies. It was daunting but important to keep the chocolate from burning and was something I could easily handle. While I did this, Antonia mixed together all the other ingredients for our brownies. After about thirty to forty minutes, the chocolately buttery concoction was melted and had cooled enough to mix with the other ingredients. We got both the gluten free and normal brownies topped with chocolate chips and into the oven. Now was time for the Rice Krispie treats and guess what my job was?! Stirring the marshmallows until they were melted! Which ended up being a pretty challenging task for both me and Antonia. After many attempts to get the marshmallows to melt properly, we found that putting butter into the pot first is a very helpful tip.

We mixed the marshmallows to the Rice Krispie’s and let them sit a while, during which we wrapped some cookies and biscuits Antonia had already made. Then, with only an hour left, we formed the Rice Krispie’s into balls and mixed the banana bread ingredients together. We put chocolate chips on it and after only five minutes of it being in the oven, a truck hit the power lines in the alley and knocked out the power! We spazzed for about ten minutes and listened to the only song I had on my phone three times and by then, the power was back. Antonia quickly prepared the muffins and I left to go see Katy Perry (whoop whoop). 

I woke up early and arrived at courageous heARTS at 9:45, just in time to help price the items before we had our first of many customers. It ended up being a long day full of dancing, yes dancing, and meeting members of our community. It felt so amazing to exceed our fundraising goal of $500, knowing that it was because of the hard work we put in and generosity of our community. By the end of the sale on Sunday, we raised almost $780! 

 It started as an idea thrown out at one of the YAB meetings and with a little planning and hard work, ended up being a very fun, rewarding and successful experience that I can’t wait to do again.


Thanks so much to everyone who came out to support us!

Lilly M.