On Baking for the First Time (From Scratch)
I am very familiar with the kitchen. I am one of those women who could spend hours on end in the kitchen whipping up lunch, dinner, or snacks while having a really good time. Cooking is therapeutic because it forces me to focus on the present (i.e. the cooking steps), and the best part of cooking is the delicious final product awaiting me to indulge! It's a win-win type of situation for me.
But not baking. Baking sucks. I'm not sure if it's because I don't care much for sweets, or because the entire baking process is almost like a stressful gamble. I also haven't decided if baking is science or sorcery, but either way, you can be sure that if you mess up in any step of the process, your cake (if you can even call it that) will be a complete disaster. It can range anywhere from liquid-y batter to hard as rock or omg-what-happened-why-is-there-a-giant-crater-in-the-middle. And the problem is you can't really know for sure at what point of the recipe you screwed up either!
At least with cooking, you can always check how you're doing in the process. For example, you can always taste your marinade before mixing it into the raw meat or veggies, or you can just look at your cubed meat and decide if it's too big or too small before stir frying. As long as the flavor is not overpowering, which is why you check before marinading, the final product is pretty edible. The only exception is if it's undercooked or burnt lah. But if it's undercooked, you always have the option of cooking it a little more. And unless you left the stove unattended, your food shouldn't burn very often. See? as long as you check every step of the way, the end product is usually not too bad.
Anyway, since I have a pretty good intuition when it comes to cooking, I figured baking couldn't be THAT bad. I mean, I'm not one of those people who mess up even box mix (yeah, I know someone who bakes only from pre-made commercial mixes and STILL screw up so badly), so I decided that I should bake the famous Japanese Strawberry Shortcake as a starter. Which, btw, is apparently one of the hardest cakes to get right on the first try even for seasoned bakers. Conceited much?
I know when it comes to baking, you really have have to follow the recipe to a tee. So I did. Or so I thought I did. See, halfway into the preparation (at 9pm of all times), I realized I ran out of parchment paper to line the pans. I contemplated heading out to Safeway and buying more, but I was already in the middle of it! I can't drop everything to get some, so I told John to run the errand for me. And of course, he said no. Hahahaha.
John: You want me to go out at 9:30pm just to get parchment paper?
Me: Yes. Because the recipe says to line the pans that way...though...I'm not sure how it affects anything. But it says so, so we must do so.
John: What does it even do?
Me: I suppose it prevents the cake from sticking.
John; Isn't there another way to prevent sticking? You're a cook, you should know other ways. Like, greasing the pan maybe?
Me: But the recipe says to use parchment paper...don't you think they mentioned it for a reason?
John: Or maybe they just mentioned it in passing. You don't always follow recipes when you cook and it turns it out fine whenever you use your best judgement.
Me: I'm not sure if I should. Are you sure?
John: Why not? If oil serves the same purpose why does it matter?
Me: ......I don't know. But, still...
And so, because I was too lazy and didn't wanna argue anymore, I thought, "What harm is there in using a cooking spray if the purpose is to keep the cake from sticking to the pan?"
WELL. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The cake did not rise at all. SUPER. DENSE. CAKE. Good flavor though.
Yeah, MAYBE I messed up somewhere along the process. But I was confident I followed the recipe well enough. So I googled other recipes to get an idea of what I did wrong (maybe the recipe I had was faulty and was missing steps). I started getting a sinking feeling when ALL the recipes I looked at said to line pans with parchment paper. You'd think I could have looked it up BEFORE baking, but somehow I just didn't. Further googling shows that apparently, spraying oil on the pans is a bad idea because sponge cakes (the ones that do not use any leavening agents) are very delicate and the oil actually makes the cake too heavy when absorbed, and also prevents the cake from "gripping" onto something to "hold itself up" or something along those lines.
FML can. All these BECAUSE of the oil.
I swear, baking is sorcery! (It's not science because I don't understand it! lol) But I'm not gonna give up. I WILL KEEP TRYING UNTIL I CAN MAKE THAT MOIST, AIRY, FLUFFY, JAPANESE SHORTCAKE. I don't care how many eggs or butter I waste. That's what Costco memberships are for, amiright?
But not baking. Baking sucks. I'm not sure if it's because I don't care much for sweets, or because the entire baking process is almost like a stressful gamble. I also haven't decided if baking is science or sorcery, but either way, you can be sure that if you mess up in any step of the process, your cake (if you can even call it that) will be a complete disaster. It can range anywhere from liquid-y batter to hard as rock or omg-what-happened-why-is-there-a-giant-crater-in-the-middle. And the problem is you can't really know for sure at what point of the recipe you screwed up either!
At least with cooking, you can always check how you're doing in the process. For example, you can always taste your marinade before mixing it into the raw meat or veggies, or you can just look at your cubed meat and decide if it's too big or too small before stir frying. As long as the flavor is not overpowering, which is why you check before marinading, the final product is pretty edible. The only exception is if it's undercooked or burnt lah. But if it's undercooked, you always have the option of cooking it a little more. And unless you left the stove unattended, your food shouldn't burn very often. See? as long as you check every step of the way, the end product is usually not too bad.
Anyway, since I have a pretty good intuition when it comes to cooking, I figured baking couldn't be THAT bad. I mean, I'm not one of those people who mess up even box mix (yeah, I know someone who bakes only from pre-made commercial mixes and STILL screw up so badly), so I decided that I should bake the famous Japanese Strawberry Shortcake as a starter. Which, btw, is apparently one of the hardest cakes to get right on the first try even for seasoned bakers. Conceited much?
I know when it comes to baking, you really have have to follow the recipe to a tee. So I did. Or so I thought I did. See, halfway into the preparation (at 9pm of all times), I realized I ran out of parchment paper to line the pans. I contemplated heading out to Safeway and buying more, but I was already in the middle of it! I can't drop everything to get some, so I told John to run the errand for me. And of course, he said no. Hahahaha.
John: You want me to go out at 9:30pm just to get parchment paper?
Me: Yes. Because the recipe says to line the pans that way...though...I'm not sure how it affects anything. But it says so, so we must do so.
John: What does it even do?
Me: I suppose it prevents the cake from sticking.
John; Isn't there another way to prevent sticking? You're a cook, you should know other ways. Like, greasing the pan maybe?
Me: But the recipe says to use parchment paper...don't you think they mentioned it for a reason?
John: Or maybe they just mentioned it in passing. You don't always follow recipes when you cook and it turns it out fine whenever you use your best judgement.
Me: I'm not sure if I should. Are you sure?
John: Why not? If oil serves the same purpose why does it matter?
Me: ......I don't know. But, still...
And so, because I was too lazy and didn't wanna argue anymore, I thought, "What harm is there in using a cooking spray if the purpose is to keep the cake from sticking to the pan?"
WELL. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The cake did not rise at all. SUPER. DENSE. CAKE. Good flavor though.
Yeah, MAYBE I messed up somewhere along the process. But I was confident I followed the recipe well enough. So I googled other recipes to get an idea of what I did wrong (maybe the recipe I had was faulty and was missing steps). I started getting a sinking feeling when ALL the recipes I looked at said to line pans with parchment paper. You'd think I could have looked it up BEFORE baking, but somehow I just didn't. Further googling shows that apparently, spraying oil on the pans is a bad idea because sponge cakes (the ones that do not use any leavening agents) are very delicate and the oil actually makes the cake too heavy when absorbed, and also prevents the cake from "gripping" onto something to "hold itself up" or something along those lines.
FML can. All these BECAUSE of the oil.
I swear, baking is sorcery! (It's not science because I don't understand it! lol) But I'm not gonna give up. I WILL KEEP TRYING UNTIL I CAN MAKE THAT MOIST, AIRY, FLUFFY, JAPANESE SHORTCAKE. I don't care how many eggs or butter I waste. That's what Costco memberships are for, amiright?
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