I got a spurt of inspiration yesterday. I decided to bake a cake from scratch!
I'd never done that before, and I needed to strike while the iron was hot. So I went and got some sugar, since Jarrod used up the last of it yesterday making simple syrup, and baked a yellow cake at 9 p.m. The cake was still too warm before I went to bed, so I had to wait to ice it and try it today.
Jarrod and I just had a piece and the verdict is in: not bad! Pretty good, actually. It's a little dense, but that is probably because it didn't rise much.
Why didn't it rise? Well, my new best friend Betty Crocker says that it could be because of too much liquid, too much fat, or the oven was too cool (unlikely). I'm going with too much liquid, that's my guess.
I think the Betty Crocker cookbook is pretty much a staple in most kitchens. I've finally started really paging through mine, and let me tell you, this is a cooking & baking newbie's dream. It breaks down how to do anything you could think of, and in most cases there are little pictures and diagnostics for when things go wrong. Just like my cake not rising; there was a whole list of "What went wrong" and in the next column "Why". It's kind of awesome. In paging through it I also just got some tips on how to cut a chicken, how to know if my muffins are too done or perfect, what in the world kohlrabi is (pretty sure my grandma Watson's mentioned that one), how to poach an egg just right, and that Mesquite is actually a type of wood chip used for smoking (I always thought it was just some sort of flavoring, not an actual wood type.) Who knew? And I found a recipe for something I'll probably have to make for Jarrod's birthday next year: bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Yum.
So the next chapter in the homemade baking saga happens on Saturday: I will attempt to make bread. We're just starting with classic white bread. I don't know how I got so crazy, but I'm doing it. I bought my yeast and now I have everything I need. Jarrod is pretty stoked.
Let Betty guide the way.
PS - On the blog post yesterday, if you subscribe to the email, the YouTube video I posted at the end did not show up. Click to the blog if you want to see the clip from the Animaniacs' Schnitzelbank song :).
Isn't Betty awesome? I really enjoyed reading the Betty Crocker cookbook earlier this summer. Now I'm reading "More-with-Less", a Mennonite cookbook. I made some bread this past weekend from a recipe in that cookbook, and it actually turned out quite nice! It's a bit challenging for me, since you have to be so precise in the measurements (and make sure things are just the right temp so you don't kill the yeast). But that's a good exercise for me.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your breadventure! :D