I used to bake a lot. Despite my usual protests and grievances about baking, as baking is a precise art whereas cooking is a whole YOLO approach, I used to bake because I felt like we could always have more spinach quiche and chewy chocolate cookies in the world. That said, I stopped baking back in 2019, “coincidentally” with the time I started my job at Automattic, since the job occupied most of my time and energy.

Fast forward to 2026, now I have a teenager and a pre-teen in the house, and anyone with teenagers growing up would know that the concept of the digestive system is nonexistent for them, as their whole being seems to consist of multiple black holes of the galaxies. RIP our grocery shopping budget. Hence: Baking. Homecooked meals and snacks.

I (re)started with the easy ones: Peach cobbler.

The recipe was from Khairul Aming, a Malaysian food content creator and businessperson. He is really famous in Malaysia with his “30 Hari 30 Resepi” (Thirty Days, Thirty Recipes) during Ramadan, and this one, peach cobbler, is from this year’s series: Peach Cobbler Resepi Mudah untuk Moreh.

I personally love this recipe because it’s pretty easy and you don’t have to be super precise in measurement. It’s also quite forgiving in a sense that you can use canned peaches and still get a really nice dessert afterwards. Most of the ingredients mentioned are easy to be found in Malaysian and Indonesian supermarkets, too.

Next would be Betty Crocker’s chocolate chip cookie premix. Premix, because I initially bought it for the kids’ previous term break so Rey could have some activities at home, but the break passed by with the premix package still sitting nicely in our pantry. While the premix helped with make things waaaaay easier, it reminds me of why I am not super favorable to chocolate chocolate (yes, two “chocolates”) chip cookies. Reason being: It’s hard for me to see whether the cookies are ready or not.

Thankfully, my kids didn’t really complain much about the cookies. They still managed to polish off the cookies in no time as their after-school snack.

And just yesterday, I baked my own chocolate chip cookies. The recipe is from Sally’s Baking: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. Chewy chocolate chip cookies are our favorite, and this recipe is the recipe I have been holding on to for years.

My goal with the cookies is to have them as “snack of the week”, but since I just saw Rey finish a whole small jar of cookies in one go for breakfast (we got like three-ish jars of cookies), I honestly doubt that the cookies would manage to get through this weekend. I do have a plan to bake sticky date pudding, though!