~ The Baking Center ~

Hello my friends, I hope you're fairing well on this brisk cold morning. Cloudy skies prevail around our area and tons of snow piles are scattered here and there. I awoke this a.m. to a car stuck in our lane down by the barn. I'm not sure why they were even down our lane at 6:30 in the morning, our lane is an 1/8 mile long and we're on the only ones back here. After a fashion another truck drove in, tried to shovel them out. That certainly didn't work out well, a short time later they left and another truck came in to pull them out. I'm still wondering why on earth they were down our lane at that hour of the morning, kind of puts a scare into a person, sure made for an interesting start to the day wouldn't you say?

One
of my many guilty pleasures is eating popcorn, many of you know how I love my popcorn. I make it on a daily basis sometimes twice a day. I have a wonderful  9' X 12" Rubbermaid covered container that keeps it fresh and ready for me to grab a bite here and there. I'll share that process soon.
Not wanting the standard canister sets I've used the over sized jars for about 15 years now. The large glass containers came from Walmart, the smaller one I found at Bed Bath and Beyond. While shopping at Walmart a couple of weeks ago, I noticed they had the same sizes on their shelves. Up until a while back I used Martha Stewart scoops for the flour and sugar.

The silver scoops were fine, they worked great. It dawned on me while moving some things around why not use my blue and white Currier and Ives cups as scoops. The pleasing picture of the cup instead of the silver scoop is incredible, not quite so industrial looking, a little more cozy, warm and inviting.

Vintage style tile makes a pretty backdrop, ignore the fact they are so outdated. I would love, love, love to rip it all out. I have the vision of subway tile and granite counter tops. OK.. so it's a HUGE dream of mine, unless I win the lottery that dream won't come true. A gal can keep wishing and hoping can't she?

It is such a pleasure to use the Currier and Ives cup daily, the perfect measurement for my daily dose of popcorn.

Almost makes you want to scoop a cup of sugar doesn't it?

With such a large area to work on I still had room for the silver tray and some added decor. The brown box is full of recipes. Original pulls were wooden changed out many years ago for the cobalt blue pulls. I use it on a daily basis and would miss the convenience of having it sit on the counter, after looking at these pictures it may be moved by the next time I share this spot of the kitchen. It almost feels to heavy with the lighter decor.

If you're a dish collector like I am, you have plenty of cups in storage. If you have a jar or two large enough for your flour and sugar, pull out a few of your cups and use them as scoops. You'll enjoy the beauty as much as I do. In the next week or so I'll share how I put these beautiful glass containers to work in a different way, stay tuned for those posts.