Tag Archives: Cake

Maybe I Can Bake

24 Feb

I gave up the idea of baking with my Kenwood Rapid Bake but not baking itself. So another box of cake mix I bought and another attempt.

This time, I opted for a carrot cake that comes with icing! An improvement because there’s another step involved instead of just adding eggs, milk and butter to the cake.

The cake itself was easy – this time, an egg with water and oil instead of milk and butter to add to the mix. And for someone who doesn’t bake a lot, if not at all, I have a fair bit of baking essentials, like the loaf pan that I found. So I didn’t have to use the round pan.

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Top: straight out from the oven; Bottom: drowned with icing

After 40 minutes in the conventional oven, my cake was done! Excited I literally drowned the cake with the icing that was mixed earlier, a separate fun task I must say. Maybe I’m not supposed to drown the cake like this? Hmm… but the overall taste was good, not too sweet and just right.

Maybe I can bake after all if I put my mind to it by using the correct equipment, that is the conventional oven and not a bread maker. Having said that, true baking skills come from doing it from scratch and not from a ready-mix box. What I have attempted the last three times was simply novelty and I’m far from being a pro at baking.

If I truly want to pursue baking to hone my kitchen skills, I should keep trying. But do I really want to? Hubby says we will gain weight from having to eat all the cakes, muffins and what nots. Given that we are still at the 16/8 diet, I think this baking novelty will be short-lived.

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This Is Why I Don’t Bake, Part 2

18 Feb

So I attempted to bake again, on Saturday. And you wouldn’t believe the process of this second attempt. It’s simply incredulous.

I bought the same brand of cake mix but this time Vanilla instead of Butter. Despite this little flavor difference, the ingredients needed were the same – eggs, milk and butter to add to the mix.

Like a pro, I put everything into the pan efficiently and switched on all the buttons and my Kenwood Rapid Bake came alive. It was put to work to churn the ingredients before baking. Oh yay I thought, let’s hope it works this time.

But no, that’s when all the problems started!

It went straight into Mode 1 before I could even select Mode 7 for cake. Then it was user problem because somehow, I couldn’t press the buttons—any button or all the buttons—in a semi-panic state to change the setting. After that it was machine problem as it went into overdrive mixing because it was in the bread making mode. Quite a comedy…

Finally hubby had to help me and he managed to change the setting. By now, the ingredients were thoroughly mixed which was probably good. Or maybe not… I don’t know.

With Mode 7 selected, the machine started another round mixing the ingredients all over again. Gosh! Can a cake mix be over mixed? Suddenly several funny knocking noises could be heard…

The next thing I knew, there was a power outage!!! My Kenwood Rapid Bake in cake mode setting tripped a fuse in the house. Amazing or is it just me being totally hopeless?

As for the thoroughly mixed cake mix, into the round pan again and into the conventional oven again. Thirty minutes later, the Vanilla cake was done but a little bit more crusty on the edges and more brown than the first cake last week. The taste? Quite nice I must admit in spite of all that crazy problems.

A little burnt, a little brown but yummy

If I had known baking with the bread maker can be so hazardous, I wouldn’t even attempt. But will I bake again? Hmm… it’s hard to say because both cakes did turn out okay. It’s the idea of using the bread maker that was problematic.

So if I do want to bake, the easy way of course, I should just bake the conventional way and leave my Kenwood Rapid Bake as an extension of the upper kitchen counter.

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This is Why I Don’t Bake

11 Feb

I have a Kenwood Rapid Bake machine sitting on my lower kitchen counter and all these years, it’s used more as an extension of the upper counter to put things than to bake. It was a house warming gift when we moved in ages ago rather than a purchase on my part. As I’m really hopeless when it comes to being adept in the kitchen, the appliance hardly saw any action all these years.

Somehow over the weekend–out of the blue–I decided to bake a cake! I don’t know why but there was an unexplainable urge. Not from scratch but to use the machine which I thought was a brilliant idea.

Apparently my bread maker can also bake a cake at setting number seven. So I did some homework to make sure this idea was feasible before I even began.

To make things easy, I bought the easiest box of cake mix that called for just eggs, milk and butter to add to the mix. I can do that, right? Yep.

So Sunday morning was the big bake day! Everything went into the bread maker’s pan and all I had to do was even out all the ingredients and let the machine mix ‘em up and bake. Easy…

But when I put the pan into the machine and switched on the main power before pressing the ON button, nothing happened! Oh no!!! Has the machine kaput? It’s been left unused for so long. Why didn’t I think of testing the machine first before embarking on this ambitious attempt?

As for the mixed ingredients, what a waste if I left it unbaked; so I transferred the mixture into another pan and baked the cake the conventional way. In the oven…

After 30 minutes, the cake was done and it actually turned out pretty good for my first attempt after so long. A little crusty on the edges but moist on the inside.

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The butter cake which turned out good!

Later as I was cleaning the counters, I was mulling over what I should do with my bread maker. Do I still leave it as an extension of the counter or get it fixed? Then when I was putting the cable away, I discovered another power button! Hey… I didn’t see that earlier!

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Somehow I missed this!

I plugged the machine in again, switched on the main power and flipped this newly discovered button and voila, my bread maker came alive! Hahahaha… what a major dork I was.

I simply did not realize there’s a power button hidden behind and thought the worst of my bread maker. Now you know why I don’t bake or fuss around in the kitchen that much. I hardly know my appliances!

But having said that, I think I’d want to bake another cake again just to try the Kenwood Rapid Bake in the cake mode setting number seven.

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Progress After the Food Trail

10 Jan

We have dived straight into our 16/8 diet this week and pleased to say we are holding up okay. There’s no withdrawal symptoms from the change in pattern nor from the diet that now consists of minimal meat/protein, some carbo and lots of fiber.

I have gone back to my usual tea only in the morning before the salad lunches and healthy home-cooked dinners at home, all within the eight hours window to eat and no further intake during the 16 hours except for one night where we had fruit cake and tea at a friend’s.

I am also mindful to move to burn some calories but exercising has been a challenge when every evening I’d sit at my little corner to work on my carvings. I’m not too worried though because this would be resolved once we go back to playing golf.

But of late, the endometriosis attacks have been rather frequent and the pain level ranges, it’s unbearable and hard to do much. The night when we were at the airport, I had to take my painkillers twice in a span of three hours apart because the pain was simply horrible. There’s no words to describe this. Sigh…

Other than this problem of mine, I’m glad to say the both of us have adjusted after the food trail, with our weight almost back to pre-M1’s arrival.

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It’s All About Food, Part 2

17 Sep

Now that the three long weekends are over and done with, it’s back to work. Sigh…

Over the weekend, we took Friday off again, this time to stopover in Ipoh for a round of golf and a full blown three meals of yummy eats prior to driving up North to see hubby’s parents.

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Nasi Lemak breakfast at the Agromall along the Plus highway

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A little hazy but it didn’t stop us at Royal Perak Golf Club

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Felt like a glutton doing Nga Choy Kai with Hor Fun AND Char Siew at Lou Wong after golf

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Amazed at the White Rabbit sizes! Humongous or Large anyone?

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Had to eat Nasi Kandar before reaching the house

Honestly, the weekend was also all about food, and golf too. And yes, the 16/8 diet was put aside as well. There was a variety of local fare we ate this time, mostly spicy but just as enjoyable.

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Caffe Diem in Pekan Cina was very hip with the decor and ambience

 

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Had dinner with an aunty. Cakes were really good

And the two rounds of golf, at Royal Perak Golf Club (on Friday) and Darulaman Golf & Country Club (on Sunday), was equally enjoyable with both games finishing in three and a half hours as we had the courses all to ourselves. Nice. However, the golf elbow flared up this time! Uh oh… I had to Salonpas it to reduce the pain.

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We had the course all to ourselves!

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After the game…

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After game lunch was a Kueh Teow goreng (top) and Pasembur (bottom)

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Dinner was a Fruit Rojak (top), Nasi Ulam (left) and Thai Kueh Chap (right)

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The Apom was nice while the packet of Nasi Lemak was very little but enough

Well, rest should fix the elbow and no more breaks until October. This has been a good break too like Club Med but the same cannot be said for the drive back this time.

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It felt like a Chinese New Year exodus drive. So tiring!

It was an unbelievable eight hours and 15 minutes to reach home! Very unusual for a typical 4.5 hours journey. Then again, when there’s a long three-day weekend, others are bound to take advantage of it as well, just like us.

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It’s Deciding for Me

18 Apr

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I thought all was fine with my iPhone4 after the last few scares; maybe it could last and I don’t have to give it up so soon. But I guess I spoke too soon! Last week, it blacked out on me again at a critical Kodak-moment! I was right about to capture the amazing birthday cake presented at an uncle’s birthday dinner when the phone froze and the Apple icon appeared before a black screen! Aaaargghhhh…. the cake was cut and I do not have a picture of the amazing cake intact. Hrmph…

I was annoyed to say the least. Hubby was sympathetic and suggested that night I should just have the new iPhone5S charged up, ready to be used instead of having to wait until my birthday to open the box.

My dear iPhone4, I love you but you chose your destiny.

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Beyond January and April

7 Apr

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When I was young, I had only 4 important dates to remember: my birthday, mom’s, dad’s and my only elder sibling. Mom, Dad and me are April babies while my only sibling, January. It used to be then one celebration in January for him and a combined one for the three of us.

Fast forward to the present. Both my sibling and I are married and separately, each with a family of our own. I now have the hubby, M1 and M2’s birthdays, spread across the calendar. And him, with his wife and children, the calendar is filled with even more dates to remember. In the family, April by far has the most number of family members having their birthdays. And combined birthday celebrations are done occasionally (especially when the children were younger) but the bigger picture being several birthday dinners and cakes in the year beyond January and April.

This year, we decided to do the combined celebration for the April babies again although Dad is no longer with us. One half of the twins is back from college and the April month is back to its three person requirement.

So happy birthday mom, my niece and me!

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