Lemon butter cake

3.9.2011 Saturday

Actually, I did plan to carry out 2 baking projects in one day, afternoon section for muffin and followed by butter cake at night. The original recipe was obtained from Sonia, with some modification as explained or marked by red *.

Recipe: Lemon butter cake

Ingredients:

125g butter
100g sugar (I use brown sugar)
1 lemon*¹, grate the rind
2 large eggs (I wasn’t sure if the eggs were big enough)
175g self-raising flour (The one I used was Blue key self raising flour)
4 tablespoons of milk

 Lemon glaze:

3 tablespoons of sugar (I used brown sugar as well)
1 lemon, extract the juice
1 lemon*², grate the rind (I skipped this step)


Steps:
1. Add butter and sugar. Beat until fluffy.
2. Add the egg one by one, beat.
3. Add the lemon rind and beat.
4. Add flour, followed by milk, then beat
5. Transfer the mixture into a 7-inch cake pan. (Loaf tin was used in original recipe)
6. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180⁰C for 30*³ minutes. (I set both top and bottom heating)
7. Mix sugar and lemon juice, set aside. (I did not heat the mixture)
8. When the cake is ready, prick over the surface with a fork.
9. Pour the lemon glaze onto the cake.
10. Leave the cake overnight.

I could not wait until the next morning, so I tasted a little bit of the cake. It was extremely sour…Huhuhu, can I cry? Can I throw it away? After all, I still kept it until the next morning. It turned out just nice after a night, tasted sour and fresh, except that the cake was a little bit “fragile”. Now I know already, time is needed for lemon glaze to work well with cake in order to give nice taste. Improvement is still needed. Stephanie’s suggestion was to put the cake in the fridge because she suspected the “fragile” was due to too much liquid.

My legs were in great pain, but no pain no gain right. Hehe. Cheers to everyone who supported and helped me. Thanks to You Ping who was willing to stay with me to bake this lemon cake as well. This is my second baking production, lemon butter cake, I love it.

*¹ After obtaining the rind from this lemon, the juice was used in lemon glaze.

*² This is another lemon. I did not want to use 2 lemons, so I skipped this step.

*³ In original recipe of Sonia, 40 minutes was suggested, but the type of heating was not stated. Both top and bottom heating were set, therefore my plan was to observe the cake at 30^th minute first. After 30minutes, I used a fork (stick, toothpick or anything that is suitable) to poke the cake. The fork came out clean. Hence it was ready. If the fork comes out wet and sticky, more baking time is needed.

Can you see the lemon flesh?

Muffin

3.9.2011 Saturday

Recipe: Chocolate muffin

Ingredients:
Nona chocolate-flavoured muffin mix
100g water
120g vegetable oil  (I used 75g only)
3 grade A eggs  (I did not use grade A eggs)

Steps:
1. Add eggs, water and muffin mix. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.
2. Add vegetable oil and mix in low speed for 1 minute until light and fluffy.
3. Fill the mixture in each greased muffin cup about 2/3 full.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes at 200⁰C.

I love baking. Over the years, I have been dreaming of having a nice kitchen with all the cooking and baking tools. Hmmm, it is still a long way to go before I have my own sweet home and nice kitchen. After some consideration, finally, I decided to buy myself an oven, a stand-mixer and a weighing machine within my budget (*¹). With these three basic utensils, efficiency in baking would be very much improved. Frequent practice of baking is made possible as long as I am equipped with these nice tools.

Time flies, it is the end of holiday already !!! It is a must for me to bake something with whatever I have. You Ping will carry out the project with me. Chocolate muffin was chosen to be the opening ceremony’s project. Why muffin? Because I bought a muffin mix which makes my work easier. For a baking starter like me, simple and fast baking procedures are just nice. It took only 20 minutes (*²) to bake muffin. Why chocolate flavor? Because chocolate is the widely accepted flavor. Well, did the baking process go on smoothly as I had expected? Let’s find the answer.

Muffin mix, water, and egg were ready. Initially, I decided to use olive oil because it is healthier. I wonder what went wrong with the weighing machine, 120g of olive oil turned out to be a small bowl of oil. Oh my goodness, if that is the case, most likely I would not eat the muffin. You Ping brought me to buy vegetable oil and borrowed her liquid measuring cup to me. We reduced the amount of oil to 75ml. Oven was preheated while we mixed the materials.

Guess what happen??? SMOKE!!! Lots of questions popped out. What happen to the oven? A malfunctioning oven? Plastic melted? Something burned inside the oven? Fire? I called Stephanie without further ado to get some help---“Don’t worry, it is normal for new oven. Oh ya, the outer part is not plastic. So, no poison gas. It happened to me before. Just go on and don’t get stress up. If you have anything just call me again. After you have done, write a report to me.”

Hahaha, what a shocking interruption (*³). The first batch of 6 muffins was sent into the oven finally. Sitting in the kitchen and chit chatting while anticipating the final product were enjoyable for us. Every single noticeable change seen and smelled had sufficient power to give us excitement. The “DING” sound set us free from waiting, we took out the muffin with caution. Wow, we were so happy to examine the muffins, not bad ya.

You Ping went on with the second batch of muffin as I had song practice section in church. Seeing the muffins stood steadily in the box after practice was such a rewarding moment. Muffins were no longer images in the minds, I could see, smell, touch and eat the muffins. I declared the opening ceremony of using my first oven with the muffins. In near future, I hope to come out with more baking products. Cheers and big claps to everyone who share my happiness as I am one more step nearer to my dream.

*¹ Price, brand, size, design and quality are taken into account when buying oven and mixer. Experiences and reviews from bakers around me would be helpful in making decision to buy the ones that fit my requirement. I knew nothing at all but I am grateful to Stephanie and You Ping who were willing to contribute their idea, time and effort just help me to get the right one.

*² Due to olive oil incident, we spent some time shopping to buy vegetable oil and also ingredients for next project. Instead of 20 minutes, we spent about 4 hours to make it done.

*³ During preheat, we saw smoke. There was unpleasant smell, similar to melted plastic as well. This was serious, cold sweat and fear attacked me at the same time. By the way, everything went on smoothly after that. I should read and know more about oven.