My First Ever Chiffon Cake

MISSION: bake a chiffon cake with boiled (a.k.a. “foam”) icing.
TARGET ACHIEVEMENT:  0%

Hehehe.

Okaaay. It was my first time to bake a cake on my own. That is, outside of class without a master baker to look after me and without teammates to help out. The outcome? #BakeFail! Hahaha. 

Everything went well at first. I enjoyed measuring each ingredient and organizing them on the table so I wouldn’t mix up the similar-looking ones. I was doing okay until the part when it already involved the egg whites. According to the recipe, I had to mix it with cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form (see photo below). I knew exactly what to do because it was taught in class. The problem was, there was no soft peak forming. Huhuhu. I continued mixing but the point came that I gave up. I was damn sure that I already over-mixed and that I missed the soft peak formation. At this stage, I could not salvage the egg whites anymore. I was left to choose between throwing the mixture away and stop my baking, or continue with it and pray that the finished product would still look like a cake. Hehe. I chose the latter.

This is how a "soft peak" looks, one of the multiple stages an egg white mixture goes through when beaten. :)
(Photo courtesy of Google Images)

Because of the egg-white mishap, the base cake didn’t rise enough. :( At this point, it still looked and smelled like a cake.  But I already knew something was very wrong.  I had to wait ‘til I tasted it.

Same egg-white-soft-peak-fail happened when I was doing the icing! :( Look how flowy it was! It’s supposed to stand firm and take shape, but it never did.

My ever-supportive hubby said it tasted okay, he even said it’s yummy! (%5$!2#*??!) But of course that’s him, so I took the statement with a grain of salt. Bolero eh!  Haha. I myself sank my teeth into this unsuccessful creation. In fairness, it still tasted good, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to taste that way. Didn’t taste like chiffon at all. It was more like sweet bread. Hehe. Oh well, I’ll just try again next time! No pain no gain! :) I just wish that Rolly would never get sick of all my cake experiments. I wouldn’t want him to regret buying me my baking tools. Hehe.

Cheers,

Project Brownies

June 22nd. It was Day 1 of my “baking life” outside of our baking classes. Hehe. My project: BROWNIES. Don’t laugh. I know this is pretty easy, I’ve been told that countless times. But as a first timer, I was kinda nervous, especially because it would be my first attempt at operating my kitchen oven, one that’s very different from the ovens we used in class.

I enjoyed mixing the batter.  I started doing it with my bare hands, but I got tired after a while, so I sought help from my kitchen mixer named Missy. :)  This was how the mixture looked after Missy laid her tough hands on it.

And after baking it for 25mins under a 350-degree (F) temperature, voila!  There goes my first ever brownies!

It’s really true, brownie-baking is child’s play! And I felt good after overcoming my intimidation of the oven. Haha. Hurray hurray! :) This will do for now, but next time I will already add toppings to jazz up the brownies so that they wouldn't look too sad and dark. =D Hehe.

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Cheers,