-= BakeXperience =-

What's on your sweets list?

2009-11-23T13:38:00.006+08:00

Hey! Guess what? It's gonna be christmas again! Wow.. It's been more than a year now since I last posted on this blog. I've been busy job hunting back then and I'm fortunate enough to get myself one at last! I still did bake for my family and friends, but haven't really baked to experiment or to test out a recipe yet.

Do you already have a list of sweet goodies in mind to add up on your menu this festive day? Or am I too early for this? ^_^ I just can't help it.. I get thrilled when I hear December! ^0^

I might try making fruitcake this time, it's a traditional christmas cake which I'm not really a fan of coz the taste of raisins dominate the entire cake (in my opinion, hehe). I'm also excited about trying blackforest cake -- I've been eating them but never tried baking them myself, so why not make myself one for a change?

I guess that's about it for now. I'm actually trying to lose weight here, but with this baking thing again, I'm having second thoughts!

I'm so Frustrated!

2008-10-01T00:36:00.005+08:00

I'm so frustrated right now.. I thought I will be able to make it right this time, but to no avail..
All I wanted to make is a pipable, glossy, chocolate fudge icing that we usually see in bakeshops. Is that hard to achieve? Thought it was easy... I'm sooo depressed.. huhu!

Anyway, I saw a chocolate fudge recipe online, I think it was just okay.. so here's the actual recipe:

1 c. sugar
1 c. water
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
6 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. oil
1 tsp. vanilla

I just followed the recipe, combined the first five ingredients over medium heat, stirring constantly until it starts to boil and get thick, removed it from fire and stirred in the oil and vanilla. The texture was smooth and glossy, it looks perfect but not the taste. The taste is just okay. Back to my story, the only thing I altered in the recipe to get it pipable was increase the cornstarch to 2 tbsp. It turned out great.. I've even practiced piping borders with it. It was lovely.

So now that I already knew that the secret to a pipable fudge icing is cornstarch, I started thinking of experimenting with its taste. I started with milk and butter first. What I did was replaced water to evaporated milk, and oil to butter, I also made the cocoa to 1/2 cup so it'd taste chocolatey. I did the same process, I kept stirring for 15 minutes and it still hadn't thickened yet! I was soooo disappointed!

Until now, I'm still thinking what could have been the problem why it failed to thicken. 3 questions kept running in my mind right now:

- Is it just me? maybe I didn't measure the cornstarch well.
- Could there be somewhat like a chemical reaction between evaporated milk and cornstarch that slows down the thickening process in contrast to the quick thickening of the mixed water and cornstarch? (I don't even understand what I'm trying to say now.. hehe)
- Or maybe could I have just sticked to the cocoa measurement and shouldn't have increased it?

I'm never gonna stop until I get this right. I'll update you guys soon. Bye for now.

Mom's Bday (Revel Bars)

2008-09-23T23:55:00.010+08:00

I also wanted to make revel bars for the party coz I love it really much! Hehe.

Ingredients: 3 c. Quick cooking oats, 2 c. packed brown sugar, 2 1/2 c. all purpose flour, 1 bar butter, 1 tsp. salt, 2 pcs. eggs, 1 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsps. vanilla extract.

Cream butter, add sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs.

Meanwhile, sift flour together with baking powder and salt. Mix together with oats.

Pour in flour mixture into butter mixture, mixing well using a wooden spoon.

It would then become like this.

Make the chocolate: 1 1/2 cocoa powder, 2 tbsps. butter, 1 cup condensed milk, 1/2 tsp. salt.
Heat all ingredients over low heat in a medium saucepan, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat.

Press 2/3 of the oat mixture into the bottom of a slightly greased 9x13" pan or wider. Spread chocolate over the top and dot with the remaining mixture. It should look something like this. Bake for 30-35 mins at 350 F.

How it looks like when cooked. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Already cut in bars, placed in paper cups.

Ooh la la...

I got a chewy soft and fudgy chocolate bars.

Mom's Bday (Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake)

2008-09-23T20:29:00.022+08:00

Mom celebrated her birthday last Sunday and I was the one in charge of the sweets. Since I'm not YET into the fancy world of cake decorating, I decided to make everyone's all time favorite moist chocolate cake, and it's ULTRA moist this time!

Ingredients: 2 1/2 c. cake flour, 2 1/2 c. sugar, 6 pcs. egg yolks, 1 bar butter, 3/4 c. cocoa powder, 1/4 c. evaporated milk, 1 1/2 tbsp. baking soda, 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 c. mayonnaise or 1 tbsp. vinegar, 1 tsp. vanilla extract.

Cream butter until light and fluffy, add sugar and egg yolks.

Dissolve cocoa powder in boiling water.

Combine flour mixture (sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) alternately with cocoa into butter mixture. Incorporate milk in between.

Stir in mayonnaise and vanilla. Batter becomes thin.

Pour in a greased and lined pan. Bake for 40 mins at 350 F. (I used a 9x13" rectangular pan here. For other pan sizes, make sure to pour only up to 1/2 to 2/3 full so it won't overflow as the cake rises pretty much.)

It's done! Let it cool completely. Run a knife on the sides to loosen the cake and.....

Invert!

See how moist it is...

Yummylicious...

Now the frosting part...

Ingredients: 1/2 c. cocoa powder, 1/2 bar butter, 1/2 c. evaporated milk, 1/2 c. condensed milk, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 pc. egg yolk (optional).

Mix all ingredients together while stirring constantly over medium heat until frosting becomes thick and spreadable.

This is how it looked like already sliced at the party. I advice you to not slice this type of cake when super cold / just had been chilled coz it gets too moist that the cake would cling to the knife and will destroy the beauty of your cake.

Although mine had been terribly sliced, it still looks tempting and irresistible.

and had been a huge hit in the party.

I'm so happy that my family, relatives & my moms friends loved the cake and were even asking about ordering from me. One of my mom's friend who is a cake lover told me that I should study piping borders and letters, apply it to all my cakes so she can start ordering from me for several occasions.

I hope I'll eventually learn those "art" stuff, I just need to take things slowly. Right now, I'm actually trying to experiment on how to make a stable, pipable chocolate icing (not buttercream). Good luck to me!

Let's try bars this time!

2008-09-18T00:19:00.006+08:00

I was quite bored at home, craving for something sweet to eat again. Seems like I'm starting to have a sugar addiction..my system gets restless if I can't eat anything sweet in a day!! Will I get diabetes from this?!

Since I can't help myself, and my hands are itching to bake anyway, I've thought about trying bars this time. There was this recipe from a cookbook that I planned to try when time and money allows me, now I think it's about time to try this out. They call it Cafe Bars.

The recipe actually calls for a coffee liquor, since we don't have it available at home, and I don't have the time to check on it in malls, I decided to make a homemade coffee liquor, which recipe I found on this site: http://liquor.suite101.com/article.cfm/homemade_coffee_liquor_recipe.

Like the usual brownie procedure, I melted the butter and mixed cocoa with it in medium heat, removed mixture from heat and added sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, coffee powder, salt and folded in the peanuts (It was supposed to be walnuts, but it's kinda expensive, I can't buy 'em in grams in one shop here, I'll try to check for other shops though. It doesn't matter, they're still nuts). So here's how it looked like in a 10"x13" pan..

Baked for 45-50 minutes at 350 F, and.. tadaa!

I then brushed the top with my homemade coffee liquor, and drizzled it with sugar frosting only. (They're supposed to be drizzled with coffee liquor frosting also, but since my homemade coffee liquor looks kinda brownish black instead of the caramel color that it's supposed to look like due to the added coloring, I didn't frost the bar with it anymore). Anyway, here's how it looks like already frosted..

I'm a frustrated commercial model. Hahaha!

The bar has a bittersweet taste from the sugar and the cocoa + coffee incorporated in it. All in all, this is a bar that every sweet toothed and coffee addict creatures will love.

Note: This is already self explanatory but I just want to share it here. Brownie recipes and the like usually melts the butter together with the cocoa over heat simply because a melted butter with a dissolved cocoa can be incorporated properly and easily in mixture, leaving no lumps, and makes a smooth batter.

My 2nd Chocolate Cake

2008-09-09T00:22:00.009+08:00

My younger sister asked me to bake a cake for her teacher's birthday last week. Ako naman, was more than eager to help her out and teach her at the same time. She requested me to bake the same chocolate cake I made before with the chocolate frosting all over it and that. Here's what we got..

I was supposed to put the cake in a single pan and cut in half, but I thought of trying to use two 9" round pans instead so I'd just stack the cakes one over the other. It's quite uneven so I had to trim off some areas to even it out. Sorry I don't have any pictures of it coz I didn't know I will be needing it for my blogging.. Hehe. So anywayzz, since I'm still struggling to make pipable icings, my sis came up with a marshmallow idea! So here's the rest of our decorating escapades...

Playing focused on her work. She's the one doing the decorating stuff since she's gonna be the one to give it to her teacher anyway..hehe. She's my sister by the way.

Yeah I know, trying hard to look cute..

A closer look to our simple creation..

She's gonna put a heart on the top surface..
Hey! are your hands clean?! Haha!

The end product. Lovely.

A good cake deserves a good packaging =D

Ever wondered why most chocolate cake recipes require boiling water in it? I've learned that most chocolate cake recipes that use baking soda would call for boiling water; as baking soda activates when combined with boiling water, which would result for chocolate cakes to rise sooner. Hence, a soft cake texture.

Egg Pie Disaster!

2008-09-08T16:30:00.004+08:00

Believe it or not, I only ate egg pies twice in my whole 22 years of living here on earth! The first time I ever took a taste and started to love those rich tasting pies was back in college, I had a summer job back then and someone just passed around those pies for our snacks. The second time was when my cousin bought us a box from Goldilocks. I never bought egg pies for myself, because I think it's quite expensive for a single slice. So I thought, why not make my own? I could then just devour one or two layers all by myself.. Haha!

So this happened around august, I was looking for recipes online and chose the one from Pinoy Cook as her pie looks so tempting in the picture, with some good reviews about it. I just changed the recipe for the syrup a bit; I used water and sugar as substitute for honey.

Now time for baking it in the oven! After 40 minutes, I started panicking when I saw one side of the filling blow up like a balloon. So I lowered down the heat -- did estimations as our conventional range doesn't have a temperature guide (I think I really need to buy an oven thermometer this time). Since it's still wiggly, I had to bake it 20 minutes more. To cut the long and disastrous story short, this is how my very first egg pie looked like...

It shrunk and looked like saggy skin after I took it out of the oven. On top of it's weird appearance though, it still tastes great. Its sweetness is just right. This is the eggy type of egg pie, so to those who prefer the milky type, this pie isn't for you.

I don't know what went wrong when I followed the procedures step by step. It could possibly be my oven temperature settings. It might be too hot for the filling to handle that's why it blew up. Lesson learned: The right oven temperature is very essential in all parts of baking because each type of food cooks just right in a specific range of time and heat. I'll definitely give this a second try soon once I get myself an oven thermometer.