Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Baking....Piece of cake (not for me)!!

This year I wanted to bake a cake for my Vidyuth's birthday. Considering my not-so-great culinary skills which L and the kids have been tolerating when L doesn't cook, I was quite nervous about venturing into baking. Somehow I mustered all my courage and decided to go ahead and bake one for him

I quickly checked with a neighbor who I knew could bake eggless cakes and jotted down a recipe for a Chocolate cake. Headed out to the supermarket and rounded up all my ingredients (225g AP flour, 100g butter, 1 can condensend milk, 1tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 2Tsp sugar, limitless melted chocolate, 1tsp cocoa, 1tsp coffee powder, 2-3drops of vanilla extract). Mixed all the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Then slowly mixed them both together to make the batter. I had to add some milk to get the desired consistency. Baked it in an oven at 400F for about 30 minutes and lo and behold....The cake was done considering that the knife I poked it with came out clean

Before Vidyuth cut the cake, I topped it with some whipped cream and decorated it with loads of M&M candy as they are Vidyuth's favorite. We lit the candle and sang the b'day song and Vidyuth took the first bite. He and his best friend Akruthi enjoyed the top portion (read M&M and whipped cream) and didn't like the bottom portion (read the cake that I baked...sob..sob) and told me "appa, i don't like the cake" in his no-longer-annoying whining voice. I was certainly disappointed that he didn't like it but atleast I got a true appraisal without any sugar coating - which means that I will certainly get my act together the next time I bake a cake

L had some interesting comments - flour is overpowering the chocolate, bit hard for kids, overall pretty decent for first attempt and definitely reflected what I felt as well

We also gave some of the cake to Akruthi's parents and also to my neighbor who gave the recipe. The neighbor who provided the recipe actually said that she liked it. Not sure if she didn't want to criticize her own recipe or if she was just being polite

Anyways since I have gotten my feet wet (my eyes too since Vidyuth didn't like it :-)), I hope to make the next one better by making it a bit more kid friendly - use eggs for fluffiness, extra chocolate etc

No comments: