I’m fine with cookies but baking cakes is something I’m not adept at. Last Tuesday evening, I plucked up the courage and started with the most basic cake – butter cake. So, after picking up Amber from babysitters, we went Giant to get the stuff : flour, eggs, butter and caster sugar. I used Buttercup instead of pure butter to reduce my capital cost, in case my cake ‘tak jadi’. My little girl was very excited and happily helped me collect the ingredients from the shelf.
She also sibuk-menyibuk in the kitchen, bringing along her stool with following me from the island to the sink, back to the island again to get a better height to watch what I’m doing and also to lend a hand.
The recipe was quite simple :
Block of butter 250gms
Caster sugar 240gms
Half cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 eggs
Self Raising flour 250gms
Cream butter and sugar till fluffy, add eggs one at a time
Add in milk & vanilla essence
Fold in flour
Like cake tin with baking sheet and pour in batter. Bake in oven baking mode (upper and lower heating elements on, fan off) for 1 hour at 180C
Ingredients and what a mess !
Amber sibuk-menyibuk. She's standing on a stool, following me everywhere around the kitchen
I told her not to stand near the oven coz it's hot. Here, she stands 3 ft away, again on a stool.
Result ? Tadaa......
My first successful cake and I'm darn proud of it
Verdict :
Quite okay but a bit dense and you can see specs of sugar (in small yellow dots) on the cake.I think I did not cream the butter and sugar well enough, sugar can be reduced to 220gm as I prefer less sweet cakes.
I shared the cakes with my colleagues and Amber's playmates at the babysitters. They'll be my guinea pigs for my future bake projects.
Once, the butter cake is successful, I will embark on flavoured cakes : marble cakes, durian cakes and orange cake. Then, hopefully I'll move on to cupcakes. That's my to-do list for 2009.
