Baking Carrie (The Stretch!)

 I think it started with expensive cupcakes.

Carrie had a gift certificate for Baked on the James (BOTJ). She decided we should celebrate Shane's riding lesson with a treat. BOTJ cupcakes are very high quality. Carrie appreciates the artistry/presentation, but they're too expensive for my tastes...unless there's a gift certificate! 

We all enjoyed a treat, but I could tell the cogs were turning in Carrie's head later on. Initially, she had skipped out on post-foxhunt tailgates, but she'd started to attend semi-recently. She didn't like showing up empty handed, either.

It was the start of a baking phase.

A very delicious baking phase!

Shane and I were the first beneficiaries.

Carrie goes through these phases where she goes all in on something. Sometimes, it's research. She's traced the genealogy of many an animal. Sometimes, it involves a building, cleaning, or rearranging a room. 

My favorite creative phases usually involve baking. At the beginning of the year, we got bento boxed lunches once a week (I miss them!). Beer bread was another great phase in recent memory, and Carrie did her own gourmet cupcakes for a while (including Gen and Chris' wedding). 

And now she's at it again. I might have been jealous of Carrie's hunt club, but she's been good to bake both a home and take-away portion (and if it's not up to her standards, Shane and I get to eat both!).

So far, the baking phase hasn't been as intense of some of Carrie's other phases. That may have been what's helped it to last! Carrie's experimented with gluten free Frankenstein cookie treats for club meetings, baked apple pies crossed with cinnamon rolls, and other more standard fare.

I'm pretty sure it started in December.

This picture is from later on. Carrie had agreed to help out a Hunt Club couple with Christmas shopping. She helped the husband know what horse gear the wife wanted and helped the wife by ordering it to make sure the husband didn't screw up! We met him in the rain at Ace Hardware to do the handoff.

And then we went to BOTJ again to use more of the gift certificate! I had been telling Shane about Elvis' favorite sandwhich (PB, banana, and bacon) before we left. Lo and behold, BOTJ had an Elvis cupcake!

They had free hot chocolate, too. Carrie really likes the people there and she decided she was going to make them a beer bread loaf for Christmas (which she did!).

I don't know how many of Carrie's creations made it onto my film roll. Nothing she's made has lasted more than three days tops (and that's an outlier!). Because Carrie has a hard time resisting sweets, Shane and I have learned to partake as quickly as we can! Some pictures may show up in the future. It's a fun Carrie creative phase to be in!