Baking for XPN

Last summer I volunteered to work at the XPN summer music festival. I had a blast and it really made me want to do more for my favorite radio station. This week was their pledge drive so I decided I wanted to go help work the phones and take pledges. I even convinced my boyfriend to do it with me. Than I realized it would be a nice way to put my baked goods in tons of hungry hands. Hands can't be hungry, can they? Hungry mouths? Hungry stomachs? You get the point. So I stayed up late the night before and baked plenty of snacks. I enjoyed finally being able to use my mixer! Which, by the way, is amazing. Sadly I didn't realize until it was too late that I should have been taking pictures for the blog! I was way too busy and just was not thinking clearly. It was a lot to take on by myself with not a lot of time.

I ended up making white chocolate chip chocolate cookies which came out AMAZING. I am not a fan of tons of chocolate but wow, these were so chewy and full of flavor. I would not change a thing about these. I have already decided to make them for June's Dolla Holla Bake Sale.

Also peanut butter chocolate chip bars. Personally, I do not like peanut butter in my baked goods....at all. So I do not have much to say about this, except that they did go over very well. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

Strawberry shortcake cookies turned out far better than expected. Only downside was that any bit of strawberry touching the cookie sheet turned black and I had to try to pick it off. The recipe said they were best if eaten the same day, I actually thought they tasted great the next morning. They weren't brought to the radio station until later the next night and they were the favorite of the bunch I think.

Even after I baked all of this I still felt like I needed more. I got up early the next day and decided I wanted to make churros. What a crazy time that was! I didn't have the tool to make them come out like big thick stars so I decided to use a pastry bag with the smallest (and only) star tip I have. They came out like tiny garden snakes. That was fine for making bite size snacks, except they cooked so fast!! The second they hit the oil they were done. Within seconds they would already turn black. They still tasted fine but I couldn't bring black churros to hand out. My whole apartment filled with smoke and it smelled like burnt oil all day. Still, I would love to make them again, they were worth the trouble.

We brought everything to XPN and I must say it was my most positive baking adventure yet. Everyone was so nice and thankful. People assumed I went to cooking school and one lady even asked what my bakery was called! HA! They offered to talk about me on the air but sadly they completely misread my info on the air. They got the Angela from Voorhees, New Jersey part right, and that's about it.  Totally bummed out but there is nothing I could do and I was invited back to bake for the station anytime. Even met some great fellow volunteers who asked about my blog and such. So, hey Mike and Dana if you are reading!

As I said, wish I could have gotten more pictures. I really wanted one of Roger LaMay, GM of XPN, eating a cookies : ) No such luck. But my boyfriend did get to hand his band's cd off to him which was pretty sweet.

So onward with pictures and if you would like to check out XPN, do it! Where else can you hear Ray LaMontagne followed by INXS followed by a ten minute Rush song?