HEH. Sorry about that.

I knew I hadn't posted here in a long time, but I didn't know that my last post promised my chiffon cake report. I'm sorry! Creepy also, since my last post mentioned being positive about the future. Heh.

I don't really want to post my report anymore since people are annoying and might steal my information and stuff if their teachers for some reason want them to write about chiffon cakes. Uhg. Hey, maybe I should make a NEW blog that contains my accomplishments (which are none loool). Whaddya think? Another blog would be quite some work for me, but it's fun work.

And yes I did make some stuff in the two months of my absence. If y'all have been reading Progression you'd know what was happening.

Okay, that's all I wanted to say.... I think once I get myself a camera or something like that I'll get this blog active again (cuz people are too busy for me).

Thanks, N

Keep Y'alls Eyes Out

By keeping y'alls eyes out I do not mean gouge them out. I don't think any of you would do that anyhow, because why listen to a blogger that you aren't really a fan of? Ah heh huh. Right.

Now what was I going to talk about?? I ffo.... DON'T forget that I made some brownies on Friday!! ^_^ Yeah! And...... today I tried to do a chiffon cake all by myself! Ugh I just reminded myself of the dishes in the sink. Who cares. But yeah, I just wanted y'all to keep your eyes out for the chiffon cake report post which will be posted.... soon. Just soon. I dislike being positive about the future, lol. Anyway, that's all I need to say!!

-N

Pasta Cake

I made pasta cake today!!! Wanted to pretend to make weird things like they do on Cupcake Wars, so I mixed savory with sweet! Turned out great!!!

Just jooookinnnnggggomgdidyouguysreallybelievethathahahasrslythisislonganduseless

I did make cake tho, and I did make pasta. Well, I didn't MAKE pasta, I just cooked it. 'Cause, like, pasta makers cost as much as heaven. And it wasn't just pasta! 'Twas pasta salad. With homemade 'pesto' or veggie sauce or dressing or whatever. I just jammed about a cup of kale leaves in the blender with some moisture and the product was produced.

Just jooookinnnnggggagainlolyougulliblehumans

Appetizing, right?! OMG, IKR!!

#fangirlstatements #freakingoutaboutnothing #thatswhatido #lolsrsly #demhashtagsdoe

I kinda made up the recipe moiself so here you go if'n you're interested... ~

How to Make N's Nourishin' Pasta Salad ~

1. Set about 4 cups of water to a boil. Pour in the crusty and hard uncooked pasta things. I used gluten free ...tortellini?? Rotini? Yeah, it was rotini. I used gluten free so that Little bro with allergies could eat it too. #youcanthaveallergiesandeatthingstoo
2. Stir until al dente or until they're as soft as you want LEL. Mine wasn't al dente because a certain girl told me to take it off the heat. T_T #sisters
3. Strain the pasta and set it aside to cool whilst you prepare the ... we'll call it dressing.

To make the dressing, you'll need:
About two handfuls of baby kale leaves
About 1/4 cup of soymilk
Half a lemon
1/3 of an onion, chopped
Three stalks of cilantro
A tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
A tablespoon of salt
About two tablespoons of orange juice

Dump everything into a blender except the lemon half, the vinegar, and orange juice. After smooth, squeeze the lemon half into the mixture, ensuring no lemon seeds enter the mixture.

Now, you dump the cooked pasta into a dish of your choice. Then pour the dressing over it and mix everything together. Pour the vinegar and orange juice into a measuring cup or tiny bowl and mix it together. Pour over the pasta and stir together.

VARIATIONS: That's all I did, and since Little brother has allergies, I cut little cubes of cheese and put them in a separate tiny bowl. However, if you're making this for people with no allergies, you can dump the cheese cubes right in. Also, if I'd had tomatoes, I'd add them. And tiny cubes of peppers. Also -- okay, that's all for now. A different version of my pasta salad may appear on this blog in the future. We'll see though, as pasta isn't really baking.

~♥~

Now, as for the cake... I used a buttermilk pound cake II recipe (look that up). Instead of vanilla and lemon flavoring, I used orange juice. I'm guessing the taste wasn't very obvious because it was orange juice. Freshly squeezed would make more of an impact. Eh, I was rushin' and lazy. Process was chill. I greased the pans like crazy with butter. Then, yeah. Baked them for almost 100 minutes. One side stuck to the pan. It was okay though, because I took the cakes to Sister's Cake Hospital and, after a short operation, the cakes were brand-new. Ish. I made a simple icing out of 1/4 cup butter and 1 cup powdered sugar, which Sister dressed the bottom layer cake with. Then she spread four-fruit jam on top of that, and then dangerous things happened. I watched her dangerously put the top cake layer on, and we squealed like little girls. Then we pigged out on huge slices.

Some mysterious soul finished it. Which means I must go to work and make another one.

Thanks for eating, keep on reading!!

N

My Break Haha No Not Really

I have the best news a baker could provide her fans with!

(I have fans?)
(Be quiet, brain.)

Anywho, I don't know who reads my life blog and who doesn't. However, if any of you do not read my life blog, you may not know of the fact that my oven was fixed yesterday!! Yup! I heard a professional knock at the door, and I peeked through the peephole and saw one of the maintenance guys. "Hold on," I said loudly, and rushed to pull on my presentable attire not really. Then I let him in and said hello. My brain screamed in happiness when I saw a brand new element in his hands. He said he was gonna turn off the power. Since I had literature class at the time, I couldn't really pay attention to him, but he didn't need my expert assistance anyway. Before he left he was like, "It's fixed now," or summin' like that. Outside I was like, "Okay, thank you." But inside I was like YAAAASSS MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!!!

Internet you are awesome

And then I continued literature class. And biology class. And history class.

Due to this wonderful morsel of news, I am now able to construct a chiffon cake, composing a post about it, which will contain my chiffon cake report. Stay tuned for that!! ;)

As for now, I'm going to tell you a sort-of-story in which I took a little break from baking from scratch.

This may or may not lower my rep that may or may not exist.

Heh. Well.

I couldn't wait any longer for the oven to get fixed, so... I went out and bought cupcakes from a store called Kbar's.

#youdontseethatducttape

Kidding. I made these using a box mix that my friend named Kbar bought at the store for me to make because she invited me to her house to chillax with food. It was a strawberry super moist Betty Crocker's mix.

Kidding, again. It was a white super moist Betty Crocker's cake mix.

Kbar has a very nice kitchen. (Any other day my sis would've killed me for getting my hands in the picture but I guess she was being nice that day.)

Yes, it WAS a white cake mix, but she provided me with neon food colorings!! (OMG! I rarely get to use those!!!) I chose pink out of purple, green, orange, and pink. I was like yaassss, Imma have fun here!

looks like imma use u a lot today, bebby

'Xcuse that one down there, it did NOT get pierced by a fork ;)

Also, Kbar said she could make cream cheese frosting, and again, I was like YESSS!!! Cream cheese frosting is the best kind of frosting ever, 'cause buttercream is too silky and sikly (lel deliberate misspelling of the word sickly).
Using the purple and green from the remaining neon food colorings, we frosted rather fabuloso cupcakes, which kind of resembled Patrick from Spongebob because of the colors. Don'tcha think so??

'Durrable, right?

I decorated the, uhh... the purple one on the most far right under the star one. And, well, that was my first one. The rest I did are the ugliest ones. ;)

We ate the non-frosted ones with chocolate ice cream and raspberry sorbet. It was heavenly.

Fortunately, Kbar had some boxes in which we could take home our creations. Kbar is a wonderful person. She didn't even keep any for herself. ;_; (Amma pay her back now that the oven works :D ;))

That is my story of my break from scratch baking. Thanks for reading, and remember to stay tuned for the chiffon post!! (Yeah right N.)

Welcome to DunkNDonuts

 Let's not have that debate between Donut and Doughnut....

Chocolate raspberry and raspberry... only 50 cents each... ;P

My First Attempt at Donuts! And Also a Type of Bread

These are not the first donuts to be constructed by this family, but they are the first donuts to be produced by me! I have never tried to make bread on my own before, mainly because it requires patience and kneading and I'd most likely overknead something. Oh gosh. Overknead isn't a word.

So I was browsing G+ and I came across a donut recipe that I linked for later. The day was rainy and dark, depressing and lazying me. My patience with a malfunctioning oven had diminished, and I HAD to make something. Donuts were a great choice in these hard times, since they only required use of the stove. However, our inventory lacked yeast, and good donuts required yeast. So while my sister was beating up punching bags, Daddy went to Wal-Mart to restock our inventory. He came back home with... GROCERIES!! But I didn't make the donuts right away, because I still felt lazy and it was too late, anyhow. So the next day, I browsed the Net for good donut recipes, and by 9am I'd found one and began to mix stuff up.

Mmkay, so the dough was easy to prepare despite a few things I did wrong, and it rose properly as well. Everyone became included once I rolled the dough out. Brother H cut out a star shaped donut, but it resulted as 'tiny' and 'lame' in his words, so that was the only star donut ever made in donut history. The majority of the donut shapes were the typical circle with a hole in the center, but then with the scrap dough, H wanted to make some blobs with air inside. After finally cutting all the donuts out, I let them rise for 19 minutes, and then Mum came along and told me the dough would need space if it was going to rise, so I had to transfer some donuts to another sheet and add 11 minutes to the timer. Later, H fried them, and put together a glaze made of confectioners' sugar, butter, and raspberries.

Why go to Dunkin' Donuts when you can make your own?
...because homemade donuts are terrible.

Special thanks to Mum, for her random assistance. H, for making blobs and a star and frying the donuts while also making a glaze that I didn't plan to do until they were all fried. S, for taking pictures. And Daddy, for eating the last piece.

Annnnd I may try these another time.

N

Elements

Have any of you been checking my life blog? Did you find out what happened to the oven?? I won't say what happened in this post, because I've already kindly inserted the link there for you, but in case you feel lazy, I'll give you a brief overview of the incident.

About two weeks ago, I tried to make my first chiffon cake for my Report Writing class. Nothing bad happened in the process of stirring the batter up, okay? However, after my shower, I checked on the oven and saw sparks running along the element. And I was like UMG. Fast forward - weturnedofftheovenandlefthtecakeinthereandbasically - okay, sorry. BASICALLY, the cake was dense because it hadn't been cooked properly because of the dang oven, and so a few days after, a maintenance guy came over to check the oven out. He took out the element. from then on, we haven't been able to use the oven. It leaves me bored every day because I LUV BAKING (I need an apron with those words on it XD) and not baking for nearly three weeks now is becoming unbearable. Anyway, I went off-tangent. I meant to say that I ended up NOT using that cake as a cover picture for my report, and I used a picture of a chiffon cake that my mum made about seven years ago (yeah, ikr). I cropped it out on Microsoft Paint and voila.

I crossed out my fab name there because y'all don't deserve to know who I am (most of you, anyway)

Yeah, it's pretty bad. But better than the other ones I've done..... *cringe* I would display them here, but the first one has moi on it and the second one has moi name on it. Additionally, I'm too lazy to get them out and cross my name out. ;3

Yeah, that's all I wanted to say... if the oven ain't fixed by next week, bruh, I'm gettin' outta here. And moving to baking school. [to teach ;)]

I also wanted to mention that when the oven is fixed, I will make a chiffon cake (alone this time) and paste my report here. Stay tuned! :) <3

N

Updates and Upcoming: Chiffon!!

Heeeyyy, look what happened! It's February!! Goodness.

So, sometime in January, I made a hot milk cake for a party we had at Quran class. I gave myself a bad burn that still hasn't healed completely (okay, maybe it has, but I can't tell yet if what's left is going to be a scar). I wish I could have taken a picture of it. All my friends were horrified by it. Well, one of them wasn't. I was just like, "Look at this!" and shoved my arm in her face. And she shoved HER arm in my face and showed me HER injury and was like, "Look at THIS!" Then she went crazy showing me all her scars. Lol. Anyway... oh yes. So, I didn't get to take a picture of that hot milk cake because my sister accidentally washed her phone while doing laundry. That was a huge P.I.T.Y. because that was one of the BEST hot milk cakes I've ever made!! However, Dad bought Sister a new phone by the Motorola company. And it takes really good pictures.

I've been wanting to make a Chiffon cake since I began my English Report Writing class. But since I've never made Chiffon cake before, I need my mom's aid and experience. Which I can't achieve during the weekdays from Sunday to Friday. The best time to bake, according to me, is in the morning. My mom comes home in the afternoon, around 4. Now, why do I want to make Chiffon? Because in my English class, I'm writing a report about the history and science of Chiffon cake. When polishing up our report near the end of class, we have to make a cover picture, and I want my cover to be of a Chiffon cake that I made. In the two previous times I've been in this Report Writing class, I've written about Malaysia's food and culture, and the characteristics of cats and a specific breed: the Abyssinian. (That was a fun report.) For the Malaysia report, I edited a picture my siblings and I in Gramps' front yard. It was pretty cringey. For the cat report, I put together an oil pastel painting of an Abyssinian cat. The lesson for class says we can take pictures from the Net, but I don't really like doing that. I like to customize everything. So that's why I have to work hard to make a Chiffon cake before this class ends. (Which will be February 9th.)

While researching for my report, I discovered that March 29th is National Lemon Chiffon Cake day!! You know now what I'm going to do here on that day!! >:D

That is all I wanted to say. Stay tuned!!

N

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.

First Time for Another First Time

We're invited for lunch at a friend's house today, which is a wonderful baking opportunity. I leafed through millions of pages of cookbooks the other day, but I couldn't settle on one thing. I knew I wanted to make brownies, but what kind, bro?! My other option was to make banana cream puffs for the first time, but I decided not to. Seriously, why does my mind want to make things for the first time when it's for a special occasion? I think I'm mentally challenged.

Okay, I take that back. One mustn't be too hard on oneself.

I made something about an hour ago that is still in the oven. Ugh, BRB, the timer's done.

Okay, back. I had to do a couple chores instructed to me by Mum. Anyway, the brownies were supposed to be done a long time ago, but I guess they took longer than they were supposed to because I preheated the oven at the last minute. Hey, don't blame me. A certain someone wanted to eat sweet potato french fries for breakfast, which required use of the oven.

Did I tell you what I made yet? No? *cackle* Oh, how I love exposing everything discreetly.

Today's post features....

Mexican Brownies!!

The Mexicans that invented this recipe are geniuses. These brownies taste like SUGAR OVERLOAD!!! SUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGAR
SUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGAR
SUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGARSUGAR

Like I said, sugar overload.

My sister, at the age of 10, made these all on her own for the first time. I, seven years later, am making these for the first time. My sister is such a genius. Maybe she's part Mexican. LOL, wut. Just kidding.

Here is a fabulous photo of the recipe card my sis wrote a million years ago. Don't you guys just love her penmanship?

Too blurry? 2BSS, SISTAH!! (2BSS = 2 Bad So Sad)

Since y'all probs can't read it, I will kindly write the ingredients down for y'all.
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

My sister is in the kitchen making the coffee icing. Since I did most of the work.... ehehhuhhuhuh *cough*

Since I didn't have much mistakes... other than the late preheating... here is a bunch of pictures I snapped. Well, Little Gamer Bro Assistant took some as well.

Little Brother took this. His finger is in the way.

Those fab feet are Little Brother Assistant's.

[10 hours later]

The lunch was fabulous. The hosts liked the brownies. One of them even took a picture of them. Lol. And now, one brownie is left, sitting alonely in a container on the table.

[1 hour later]

Okay, I'm back on my good old computer where the pictures are.

First you line your 13 x 9 square pan... with foil... also, remember, unlike me, to preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Fabulous, fascinating light.

Combine your flour...

Pouring flour in the bowl

  ...with your cocoa...

Pouring cocoa in the bowl

You know, I'm aware that these pictures are low-quality. I kind of like that. I mean, they're just pictures. I ain't no photo journalist.

Now add your salt...

Adding salt

And whisk 'em all together...

Now melt your butter over low heat...

Putting the stove on low heat

Butter wraps

Save your butter wraps... grease the pan with them...

Still kinda cold and stickin' together

Peace out, butter stix. Have fun being reduced to nothing but yellow liquid...

{Bedtime for me. Bah-bah, bad guys!!}

[13 hours later]

More photos for you people!!

I think this pic is upside down

 

Combine the melted butter with the sugar...

Ta-da!

I had Little Brother frustrated by telling him to take these useless photos

 

Now mix in the eggs one at a time...

 

Now, combine the butter-sugar mixture with the flour-cocoa mixture.

 

Whisk together...

 

Get this awesome chocolate mixture (that tastes awesome)...

See ya soon

Sorry, I couldn't find The Man, i.e., the cake tester. Had to kill the brownies with a fork...

 

The fault in our brownies (literally. If you know some geology, you'll find this funny.)

Teh koffy icing

 

 Then you serve them to people at lunch. The end. There. Finally done with this post. Took three days to complete.... e.e

And those guests are gonna come to our house this coming Thursday. Woo-hoo!!

In case you don't like reading recipes that have a lot of pictures, here's the complete recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

Brownie:

1 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa
1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 Cup Butter [2 sticks]
2 Cups Granulated Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Coffee Icing:
1 Tablespoon instant cofee powder or granules
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Water
1/4 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 1/3 Cups Confectioners'/Powdered Sugar
Coffee beans and/or chopped semisweet chocolate for garnish.

The process~

1. Line pan with foil and grease it.
2. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
3. In saucepan, melt butter on low heat. Remove from heat and stir in sugar.
4. Stir in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract.
5. Combine the flour mixture with the sugar and butter mixture. Pour batter in prepared pan.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely in pan.

7. For the frosting, dissolve vanilla extract with water and set aside. Heat brown sugar and butter over medium heat till they are melted and bubbly [two minutes].
8. Remove from heat. With a whisk, beat in the coffee.
9. Mix in water. Add powdered sugar until blended and smooth.
10. Spread over brownies.
11. Enjoy.
12: Wish that you had more.

Thank you for reading!!

N