Orange Bars... Or Sponges

I always wanted to have a go at lemon bars. From seeing many photos and videos of them, my curiosity grew. How did they taste? Did the crust really have to be baked before the lemon part? Would the crust burn since it had to be baked again? All my questions were answered in one day; the day I decided to make lemon bars. My sister advised me to use oranges instead of lemons, since my mother used lemons for tea and health drinks to ward off illness, it being flu season. Our fruit basket was overflowing with oranges anyway, so why not?

I used this recipe. Here's a spoiler statement: Ironic how the recipe is called "The Best Lemon Bars."

;)

I was doing fine while mixing up the crust. Then, as I pressed it into a 9" x 13" pan, I worried. Why?

1. The pan was too big
2. The crust batter was too little
3. I couldn't switch to a tinier pan because I'd already pressed the crust into it, AND the pan wasn't greased or lined. (Hey, it was part of the instructions.)

That wasn't the biggest problem, however. Eventually I'd managed to distribute the dough evenly, and I baked it for twenty minutes. It came out fabulously, and I left it on the stove while I set to making the lemon filling, or orange filling, rather.

A jug of orange juice sat in the fridge, but I decided to get all 'natural' and used orange juice freshly squeezed. When I'd finished making the lemon filling, I poured it over the crust, which was still hot. And squishy. Another B.I.G. mistake!! :(!! I couldn't take it back, though, so I poured the whole thing in and slid the pan into the oven. The orange filling, like the crust, didn't fill the top completely.  Arghhh!! Next time, I'm totally using a square pan. Or a better recipe. No offense, allrecipes.

Did you acknowledge the fact that I highlighted 'left it on the stove'? That was a B.I.G. mistake, 'cause the oven was still hot, which meant it was heating up the stove too, so the crust didn't really get to cool, which it should have been doing whilst I made the filling. Arghhh!!

The results? Shortbread with a yellow concoction bubbling on the top. It was good, but it was wrong. When they cooled, though, they looked like sponges. 'Twas cool.

I'm glad I didn't take any photos.

Thanks for reading!!

N

HMC x 3

I used to go on a consistent craze for lemon cake. Now, it seems that hot milk cake has taken its place. I made it three times last week, once as you saw in the previous post. It was only on the second time that I totally succeeded with no mistakes. On my third attempt, my mom pushed me to color it green with pandan. After I took the heated milk & butter off the stove, I beat some pandan into it, which was a B.I.G. mistake!! :(!! I should have added it when I had to mix the wet with the dry. Beating the pandan gave off air into the butter and milk, slowly cooling it, and possibly ruining its structure. The recipe said to heat the butter and milk JUST until the butter melted. What did I do? I added an extra ingredient and extra air. What was the outcome?? Sunken, unpuffy cake. I'll show you what I mean.

The second attempt... the one that really worked. Compare it to the photo below.

See how flat it is? (The green sets off a morbid theme here.)

As for the cuts...

Rising proudly

Whereas here, it sunk about an inch.

I might've liked the green cake more if it hadn't been green. Want to know the worst part? I gave some to Mom to give to her classmates.

Soz, we don't have the best backgrounds or lighting

Gasp, chocolate chips

I really want to make more, but I made orange/lemon bars recently (which'll go into another post), and my mom told me "Don't make dessert every day."

Anyway, thanks for reading!!

N

Hot Milk Cake is Life. ♥

This is supposed to be hot milk cake. Lovely, isn't it?

Yesterday I made a new blog about my life, called Progression. Everything in the the process of attaining success and making progress every day, and I thought that would be a good name. Hence... Progression.

I wanted to finish the milk up because its sell-by date was January 7. So I looked up 'baking recipe using milk.' And I came upon a great recipe which I have already linked above.

The cake was so easy! 'Xcept for the part when I had to melt the butter and heat the milk. When I turned off the heat, the mixture bubbled up and over the sides of the pan. It leaked into the stove and the burner sizzled, and I felt both agitated and frightened to death. Any moment now a fire would flare up. Was I right? Usually I'm not. This time, I'm glad I wasn't. I put the pan aside and grabbed a rag, wet it, and placed it over the hot burner. It sizzled, and quieted down. Then I took the rag off and grabbed another rag, a dry one, and carefully cleaned up the mess under there. I took out the burner and its bowl thingy and washed them, then I fixed them back on the stove. Story of near-death, over.

I poured the batter into the prepared pan and put the pan into the oven for 25 minutes. After testing it, I put it in for another ten minutes. and then.............. VOILAAAHAHAHA.