My First Time ACTUALLY Baking

I came to a sad realization yesterday. I mean a sad, sad, SAD realization, that I only made when two of the other wives from our Life Group came over to bake with me and asked me what I'd baked in the past. 

• Bread. 
• Box mixes. (I mean some delicious cakes, brownies, cupcakes, cookies, etc., but it was only with the help of my good friends Crocker, Hines, and Pillsbury.) 

That's it. I, a twenty-two-year-old newlywed woman from southeast Georgia could not think of one single thing that I had actually baked from scratch (other than the yummy loaves of bread I made last summer, thanks to recipes from my sweet mother-in-law). SAD (and pretty embarrassing)! 

Now, I promise my husband doesn't go around starving. I do cook and like to try new recipes, but I'd much rather bake . . . I've just been cheating this whole time! Luckily, these sweet ladies are saving me and teaching me their recipe-finding, ingredient-grabbing, measuring, knowing-the-difference-between-sifting, stirring, combining, and mixing ways. 

The first recipe we tried was a fudge recipe that was handed down to one of my friends. Sorry, y'all. I've been sworn to secrecy. You can ooo and ahh over the results below though! & yes, it's as delicious as it looks (which is good because Hubby didn't tell me until last night that his office was having a potluck today; guess what he took in)!

While that was setting, we whipped up a batch of The Best Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Joy the Baker (who I'm now in love with, by the way). We left out the walnuts and substituted the dark/milk chocolate chips for white chocolate chips, which still tasted amazing. My favorite part? The smell of the brown butter. Y'all, have you ever made brown butter? I obviously hadn't before yesterday, but I'm pretty sure that's what Heaven will smell like. It immediately took me back to Savannah, walking through places like River Street Sweets. Mmm!

Needless to say, I loved baking with the girls, even if there were "too many butts" in our tiny little kitchen. I hope to continue learning even more from these sweet friends! I believe the next item of business is pie crust--and I can't wait!