Now I know my ABC's...?

If you have ever read the "About" section on this blog, you will know that I started Alphabake as a personal quest to make better use of my collection of cook books.  In three years and seven months I have FINALLY baked my way through the alphabet.  Alphabake took me on a journey around the world as I attempted to improve my culinary and photography skills. I am really lucky that I got to do a lot of travelling these past few years and I really enjoyed filling my baking void on the blog with pictures from my adventures abroad.

Links to all of my previous entries can be found in the "Recipes" and "Travel Posts" sections.  For those of you who are just starting to get introduced to this project, here are some of my favourite posts from earlier on:

I have certainly taken my sweet time with putting up my first round of alphabetical posts, and in that time there have been many people who have been very supportive who I must thank:

1) All the roommates I have had during this process, thank you for being so cool with me occasionally hijacking the kitchen and for saying such nice things about the food I made

2) The people who had me as their house guest (Mum, Sarah and her mother, and the Harveys), who were so kind as to let me use their kitchens for blogging purposes

3) Mike for all of your technical assistance

4) Phil and Victor for teaching me as much as they could about photography during my short stint in San Francisco

5) AND EVERYONE who has taken the time over the last few years to check out and comment on the blog

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!

This is in no way the end of Alphabake.  The alphabet will be repeated!  There are a few new ideas I would like to try out on here in the future.  One thing I would like to start doing right away is use my ice cream maker more and experiment with making the frozen dessert while it is still summer.  If you have any flavour ideas you are curious about, leave me a comment below and I will see if I can turn them into something cold and tasty. If you have any other general thoughts about the blog, I would love to hear about those too!

Thank you again!

- Louise 

A, B, C, D, Eat

I've always had impeccable timing...NOT!

This is probably one of the worst times to start a food blog for the following reasons:

1) My exams are going to start in less than a week and I am probably better off without any type of distraction

2) I'm going to be leaving the country in a month for at least half a year and I can't imagine having continuous access to a well-equipped kitchen

3) My laptop just broke...

Nevertheless, obstacles create challenges and challenges are FUN!

I have a medium-size collection of cook books. I love them because they have beautiful pictures and they are fun to flip through on a rainy day (or when your laptop breaks). The thing is I spend more time reading the recipes than actually putting them to use. I have always loved baking and sharing the results with my friends and family, but it can be difficult to find the time to do it. There is no way that I would ever be able to make all the recipes I have but I feel that I owe it to the books to at least try out a few from each of them.

So, here is the idea:

My books are going to be put into storage soon but I recently had a look through all them. In order to help narrow down my choices, I have selected 26 recipes that all start with the different letters of the alphabet (I even have one for 'x'...sort of). I will not be able to make all of them before I leave so hopefully I will meet some people overseas who will let me make use of their kitchens. Let's see how it goes!