A Taste of Grace

Please forgive me, but I am taking a momentary break from 7 days of baking, or at least from writing about it. There are more eternal things to write about. Which brings me to grace. Grace has become a non-word in our society. Overused and under appreciated, it has come to stand for little more than a name and a prayer said before meals. But it is so much more than that. Over the past four years, I have come to know grace well. Grace is getting anything from God that we do not deserve, which is anything above and beyond wrath, which is exactly what we deserve. Grace is so much more than that though. Grace is free, but grace is freedom. It is freedom from longing and striving. Grace is freedom from shame and guilt, freedom from pain, deep, entrenched pain, freedom from having to earn favor, freedom from being chained to the opinions of sinful people, freedom from an out of control life. The gospel is the single greatest comfort the world could or has ever known, and so much of that comes from grace. The T-ruth is that the King of Kings took on flesh, became a man, lived a sinless life, and died a criminal's death that you deserve to give you righteousness and grace, and then rose again to put death in its place. The reality is that even if you do not believe that, which is nothing short of sheer, utter foolishness, you still experience, quite lavishly I might add, God's grace in your life every day. Food tastes good, sometimes very good, and God did not have to do this. The air feels fresh, the sky is not raining fire, but produces multiple beautiful sights everyday. Chances are that if you are reading this then you can poop in a toilet whenever you want, then when you wake up in the morning you do not have to wonder where your clean water is going to come from. That is something that millions upon millions of people on this planet do not have the privilege of boasting. You have free time (at least enough so to read this). All of this you did not deserve; I do not really care if you agree or not, you did not deserve this, it was lavishly given to you via God's grace. I read an article on grace today, that really highlighted what free grace means, what it does for our lives, how it frees us. 'Free grace'; just let those words permeate through your head for a little bit, meditate on the fullness of what it means for you and how free it has made you. Even when God does not answer our prayers the way we would like Him to, that is grace because He is still acting in our best interests. All of the good and perfect things in life, all of the things we enjoy and all of our ability to enjoy it, these are all examples of God's grace in our lives. I feel as though God has given me a taste of grace lately, a little drop of insight into how unbelievably, unimaginably blessed beyond the furthest reaches of my wildest dreams I am. And it is insane. Just a slight taste, and I realize that all of these crazy examples of grace in my life barely skim the surface of the reality of how much grace God has for me, and all of the freedom that comes from that. I think ultimately what I am trying to get at, not everyone will understand or really realize the depths of at all. Heck, even now as I type these words, I admit that I am not in the highest of spirits and that my body is physically not right, but I also recognize the enormity of grace in my life, that there is so much, so much to be thankful for. I have experienced so much freedom, more than I would have ever imagined. To think of my reality, my situation. My joy is not uncircumstantial; on the contrary, it is completely dependent on my own circumstances, I just happen to have the greatest circumstance imaginable: free grace. The words ring through my head, vibrating, resonating, reassuring me. The freedom that I need to understand right now: I do not need people's approval; I have the approval of the King. That will ALWAYS be True. Absolutely nuts, in the greatest way.

Free Grace. Free Grace. Free Grace.

7 Days of Baking: Day 3-D.I.Y. Poptarts

Regardless of what toaster streudel would like to think, poptarts are a lot of kids favorite breakfasts.

So, when I saw this recipe for homemade poptarts I knew that I wanted to try to make them. Now, the first thing that you should know is that although these are called D.I.Y. poptarts, they are not poptarts in the traditional sense; they have fewer preservatives and are less processed. In my opinion they are much better than poptarts, but although they definitely take a mold of poptarts, they are more similar to just pastries with filling and possibly icing (I know, I just described poptarts). These also have a much flakier crust

than do regular poptarts, which I think puts them over the edge. The pastry dough is exceptional and the egg mixed in gives it a delicious aroma and taste that is quite nostalgic. This is the second time that I have made this recipe this year, and I have tried them once with icing and once naked. Quite frankly, I think that they are delectable either way, but if you do choose to use icing (I recommend using royal icing) the key is being cautious with how much you put on. These are nice and flaky and the filling is delicious, so you do not want to overdue it with the icing. Another reason that I am in love with this recipe is because it is so easily shareable. Everyone knows what a poptart is, and although these sound super fancy, they aren't actually that difficult to make. I do need to get better at cutting my pastry dough straight though. The only real downside to this recipe is that it is slightly time consuming because you have to let them freeze a couple of times. Other than that though there is nothing negative that I can say against this recipe. I honestly give it 5 out of 5 poptarts, and I highly recommend trying it out for yourself. It is so easy to impress people with.

7 Days of Baking: Day 2-Strawberries & Cream Muffins

First off, I apologize for my lack of posting lately; it's not that I have not had time to bake, it's that I have not really had time to write, what with school picking up and me having to do some other things. I assure you though, I have been baking, and as the title of this post implies, strawberry and cream muffins.

This was the second time that I have made these muffins, but the first time in two years. The first thing that I have to say about these is that the cream concoction-a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla, is one of the more delicious creams that I have tried or created. There is just something about how all of those ingredients come together that makes it amazing.

Combine that with actual strawberry pieces, a basic muffin mix, and a streusel topping to bring it all together. Now, this recipe is a little bit labor intensive, as four different elements have to be made and then poured alternatively into the muffin tins. If you do bake these I would advise having a helper. As you can see from the pictures, these things look amazing.

On this iteration of these muffins, the stresuel topping did not turn out quite as I would have liked, but I do tend to overstuff my muffins and cupcakes and that likely played a role in that. I love the fresh bites of strawberry in these guys, but for me the cream mixture is what puts it over the top. The batter itself was quite a bit thicker than I was expecting, and I probably should have added a bit more milk, and consequently a double recipe only left me with twelve muffins. On the whole, I cannot say much on the downside of these muffins; they are good as a breakfast, a dessert, or anytime. I give the recipe, found over at the Squirrel Bakes Foodblog, 4 out of 5 muffins.