In my absence I baked a lot of things. There was this cake I made for Eid, and then these checkerboard cookies, and then these chocolate chip cookies that had too much sugar.
I feel like I did more than that. Maybe I did. I need to keep up on life updates in my virtual diary. The last time I updated my actual real book diary was 8 days ago. And I just went back to my blog called 'The Heart of a Human' and there are stuff I said about this place that I don't mean now. When I make friends in a new place, I automatically like that place. -_- Which is dumb considering all my friends can't live in the same place I am. So, correction - I like this place, but hate the house. Which is okay since I won't be staying in it for long, iA. I also used to hate the masjid/school because it didn't have any softie carpets like the one in my previous home. But, it's a school, man. Schools aren't comfy, although they should be. That sounds wrong, coming from a homeschooler. But where was I, anyway?
Oh yeah. I was going to talk about life updates. My sister and I recently began going to the sister gathering for youth every Saturday after Maghrib. We began around a month ago, and on the second week I made friends with my Quran classmates. The epic ones. And, tomorrow I have a competition that takes away my chance of going to archery class. And calligraphy class. (But that's okay since calligraphy isn't as exciting as archery.)
SO! Where was I - oh. Darn. The stuff I made. Yeah. This is a baking blog. I always get carried away when I write, and then when I take a break, I look at the post's title and then I remember what I was supposed to write about. So, without further useless paragraphs, here we go!
The Cake I Made on Eid
I don't think most of you know what Eid is (or what most of the words in this post are), but that doesn't matter because this is a cake we are talking about. Let's all go to the storyteller room.
'Twas the night before Eid Al-Adha,
when all 'round the Ka'bah,
all Muslims were praying,
remembering Allah.
Okay, actually, I'm not sure if the hujjaaj were going around the Ka'bah at the time. I don't know a lot about Hajj. #shameonme But, anyhow... I had burnt myself upon taking the cakes out of the oven (I always remember the times I cook through my injuries), and as they were cooling on the table, I was preparing to make the frosting. It only needed a stick of butter and a cup of powdered sugar. I blended those two together, but they only resulted in a bunch of tiny white balls of butter and sugar. I stared at them and I thought, "Hey, nice excuse for frosting." Just kidding. I read the recipe again and recalled that they needed some sort of extract. Namely vanilla extract. We don't use vanilla extract because we don't know what these people put in those bottles. There could be alcohol in them. So if we ever do buy vanilla extract, it's usually from a health/organics store. Anyway, I let the mixer blend again, and I washed my hands and let the excess water drip inside the mixer. Right away it began turning into a very fine icing. One that was somewhat too sweet. Once the icing was completed, it was time to ice the cake, and here I stopped. I always get so nervous when I have to frost or decorate anything, especially if it's something real. Graphics, fine. Deleting is possible. But glue, paper, cake, all that jazz, they're too precious. This paragraph is too long. I asked my sister to help me frost, and of course it took her some time to actually get up and leave the room, because, well, you know, I keep the room clean and she can't take her eyes off of my work. [Just joking] The cake was supposed to be sandwiching the frosting and some raspberry fruit spread. So my sister did the jam first and then she did the frosting, and I did the sandwiching (we should have switched jobs, because she didn't know how much jam to apply, and I can't be trusted holding a cake (or doing anything, rather)). BUT, we ended up with a fabulous cake, and I put it in a cake carrier and stuck that in the fridge. And, after we came back from Eid prayer the next day, we ate the cake. It was cold and hard. I always feel bad for the people who have to deal with the stuff I make because the stuff I make always look horrible, taste worse, and there's either too little or too much of it. Anyway, we finished the cake - hehehe. The end!!
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| Don't ask me why I/we cut it like that. And yes, it's floating above the rug and the chairs. |
The Checkerboard Cookies That Mum Loved
Well, here you go, Mum. The post you've been waiting for. I love it when I get requests for blog posts. I'd probably be a bad YouTuber because I always need suggestions, and when I get them, I never DO 'em (until 30 days later, at least). But when I do them, I do a bad job. -_______-
The recipe was called Chocolate Checkerboard Cookies -- oh my cookies I just remembered something else I baked, yay!! Anyway, the recipe was simple (which is one of the reasons I chose to make it) because it required no sugar. At all. Just a few tablespoons of powdered sugar, and voila!!
I actually have a more important assignment to do that's due in three hours, but I can't leave this post because my memory's awful, and my writing sprees are hard to turn back on. BUT, I'll update this post when I finish the assignment. Hopefully it won't take long, because I'm supposed to write about the most vivid memory I can remember, be it good or bad. And I'm writing about a bad one because, heh. I mean, good stuff, happen to ME? Yeah, huh.
I sound so spoiled. Well, I'll check back when I do! [10:55 AM]
OKAY! GUYS! I finished the writing assignment. [11:47 AM] It was a little hard to figure out where to start because the paragraph should not exceed the length of one page. And as usual, I have a lot to say. If I KNOW what to write about (story from beginning to end), I can get it done in a much faster time than how I would get a novel done. -_- Ah, me.
Well, now that I'm here again, the story can begin again. I mean, it can proceed. Because I'm not sure you guys would want me to start from the beginning again.
As I was saying before the assignment called me, the recipe required no sugar. The dough was a little too fragile, 'cause it broke easy. I can usually tell what the texture of a cookie will be like if I know what the dough/batter feels like. Most of the time I'm right. The dough for this recipe was fragile, as I stated earlier, and me prediction was correct. The cookies BROKE. But they always do when I'm in charge. I don't know if you guys have watched my video on BROWN SUGAR COOKIES, but I hope you haven't. In that video, I smashed a cookie.
"She smashed a cookie." -My cameraman/My brother-
Again, I hope you haven't seen that video. It is the worst way of torture for me. (I don't like using that word. Just sayin')
I had to color one half of the dough, then freeze both doughs in the fridge for IDK how long. I have to check the recipe. But my mom's around so if I get off this chair she might steal the computer from me. And the -- TMI.
*waits for mum to leave the scene*
I did an awesome ninja move over the loveseat and grabbed the book off the shelf.
OKAY. I ended up switching computers because of... well, you know.
Anyway, I have to study a million things for tomorrow's competition. AGH! One more thing to add to my growing list of things I fail at...
Studying, Thing #1246.
Me, study? Ahahahaha. Look, this is what I have to study.
10th Grade
1) IQRA Seven Surahs Book – Memorize Surah Rahman (Ayahs 1-25), meaning and tafseer by Abdul Nasir
2) When the Moon Split by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri – pages 163-320
3) Who gets Allah’s Mercy video lecture by Nouman Ali Khan
4) Diseases of the heart and their cures by Ibn Taymiyyah – Chapter 1
This is insanity!!
I can't win. Wish me luck though - I mean, pray for me. Halal-ly.
Back to the point! I freezed both doughs in the fridge for 1/2 an hour - wait, freezed isn't a word? I thought it was, for a moment. For real. Anyway, after that 30 minutes, I had to roll out the doughs into a rectangle, then stick them together with something called egg wash. I was too lazy to make it *hem hem* so I stuck them together just like dat. Then I cut the dough in half lengthwise, and flipped one half over to make a checkerboard design. I was supposed to use egg wash for that part too, but I didn't, which is probably why the cookies broke. Lol. Anyway, I sliced beautiful little checkerboards and baked them for ten minutes. They were delicioso. They just lacked in sugar.
And in strength. *watches cookie break*
The Cookies I Invented Myself, Merging One Recipe with Another
I was rather proud of these but not proud enough. I wish I had pictures, but I was home alone at the time and my camera is broke. (It's been broke since September 2013.)
I used a recipe from YouTube, which I will link later. The other recipe I used was from my blog, If You're Hungry and You Know It. (Adorable name, right?)
My leg hurts.
These I named PB and J cookies. I simply took the Cool Sugar Cookies recipe and flavored/colored one half of dough with one giant spoon of creamy peanut butter, and the other half with some jelly. The jelly was really hard and annoying to flavor. The jelly made the dough limp and more breakable, and sticky. I added a lot of flour, but the dough didn't change at all. So I gave up and dealt with it how it was. When I came to the part where I had to roll up the doughs into a log, the jelly dough BROKE, and I almost screamed, but I kept rolling because I had confidence.
They resulted pretty well, but they didn't taste that good. At least that's what I thought. I'm only one person.
The Cookies I Shared with One of My Classmates (And Gave Me a Rather Chronic Burn)
This recipe I took from the internet. We had chocolate chips and I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, but there were so many recipes we had, and I was looking for a simple one. So I typed up 'simple chocolate chip cookie recipe' on Google search, and I found THIS.
My mistake in this recipe was that I used dark brown sugar. And, telling from the color and texture and taste of it, dark brown sugar melts much more easily than light brown, therefore it makes batter runny, and the cookies spread real flat out. My guess was right. (Shameful Note: We actually did have the correct type of brown sugar, but I was kind of rushing... as always -_-) --
I had one cup of chocolate hazelnut milk for breakfast, and that's all. Just saying. I better eat a lunch fit to feed four children.
-- I burnt myself real bad on the middle and pointer finger of my left hand. And, of course, it was because I was rushing.
Okay. WHY WAS I RUSHING ANYWAY?! Because, that day was a busy one. I had to go to Quran class at 3 instead of 5 because I had a class that my mom made me go to that started at 7 and the teachers preferred us to go at 6:45 because of Maghrib time (yes they're Muslim) and I had rocks class, literature class, and history class.
I had to apply three ice cubes wrapped in tissue to my fingers. The pointer finger healed first, but the middle finger burn was worse. I didn't keep track of the healing, but it's fine right now.
I packed up some cookies to take to the masjid for my sister. (And a little extra for my Quran class friends lol.) I sat at the desk where nobody could see the contents of and put the ziploc bag of cookies inside. Then, my friends came, and one sat next to me. Near the time I had to leave, she asked me to give her two of the cookies and I was like, "K." I tried to make it as subtle as possible. Though I didn't actually have to because we had a sub teacher.
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Thanks for reading! If there's something you actually want me to make, I'll do so! But I'm not a pro. (Pros don't burn themselves -_-) So nothing too complicated.
Keep on baking! Or doing whatever you're best at! Or doing whatever you enjoy most!
N
[1:01 PM]
