book club.

it's time for yet another book club post. i'm still failing miserably at wicked and the devil in the white city. about a month ago i read the queen of palmyra by minrose gwin. yet again it was another book about a girl growing up in the south during the 60s. the book was enjoyable. it touched on some darker issues, moreso than i was expecting. overall it was a good read.

i also read a 'fluff' book called the ridiculous race. it was co-written by two los angeles writers, steve hely and vali chandrasekaran. the two friends start in la and race around the world, with one going east and the other going west. the only rules are they can not take without airplanes and they must cross every longitude along the way. all in all it was entertaining, both from a travel perspective and from their banter and bashing of one another.

currently, i'm rereading an old favorite. the shadow of the wind by carlos ruiz zafon.

poptarts.

so it's been awhile since i've last baked. due the recent acquisition of a kitchen aid stand mixer, my new favorite website, and just my all-out desire to bake and try new recipes, i've been going a little crazy in the kitchen. ok, not crazy per-say, but baking much more than i have the past few months. sunday morning i decided to test the waters with some homemade poptarts.

one of the first recipes i saw on this site was the homemade strawberry poptarts. as soon as i saw it, i knew i was going to make it this weekend. they tasted great. i think for an icing i would just mix up some confectioners sugar with a little bit of milk. the dough was easy to make, but i found it very difficult to roll out and maneuver onto the pan. the heat may have had something to do with it. next time i might just make them more like biscuits and add the filling after the pastries have baked. or before i refrigerate the dough, section it off so i don't have to roll and cut so much at one time. despite all the minor mishaps they were delish. the recipe can be found here. i didn't actually take pictures of mine/they didn't turn out as pretty as deb's.

enjoy!