Backdated baking post
Saturday, February 14th, 2009 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwingSo, as I said in the meringue-related post three days ago, stress results in increased baking. For Crocky's birthday, I've baked cookies, a chocolate pear cake, and meringues. I'm self-conscious about my baking proficiency and am concentrating on getting simple stuff as perfect as possible before I endeavour to try anything more difficult and fiddly, although there are half a dozen cookie and cake recipes I'd love to try now that I can manage to get stuff tasty.
This resulted in a four-hour baking spree while Crocky was at work, conducting, on Friday.
Cookies:
Recipe I used:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 egg yolks, beaten ( as I needed the egg white for the meringues. I did use whole eggs for two batches, though)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/8 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
100g white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate respectively.
I did three batches with three different kinds of chocolate. I love the crumbly consistency of these, but I found them far. too. sweet. They are so sweet that you can just about manage to eat one of these before being completely full, and that's one of the ones with semi-sweet chocolate chips.
The first two batches, for which I used egg yolk only to save the egg-white for the meringues, did not taste significantly different, which was good, but somehow seem much heavier than the other batch for which I used a whole egg.
Chocolate pear cake:
I normally use this recipe, although I have to admit that this is a cake from an instant mix:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1-1/4 cups self-rising flour
2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 Tablespoons milk
2 small pears, cored and sliced
I dislike this way of placing the pears, so I cut them in slices, resulting in this slug or cheese look. Somehow, this cake sometimes turns out too dry for my taste, but this time, it worked. Maybe instant cakes are just better than mine.
Meringues:
This time, I used the egg white of four large eggs. My meringues turned out larger than I had intended them to be, but this time they neither had the consistency of glue on the bottom nor tasted of egg.
Unfortunately, I forgot them entirely for an hour after Crocky had returned, but seeing as they were in an oven that was only 100°C warm, it did not hurt them. Due to the extra hour, they turned out rather more crunchy and brown than they were supposed to be, so I guess 1 1/2 hour at 100°C would be perfect for this size. The instructions say 1h at 100°C, but I was not convinced when I did that last time.
This resulted in a four-hour baking spree while Crocky was at work, conducting, on Friday.
Cookies:
Recipe I used:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 egg yolks, beaten ( as I needed the egg white for the meringues. I did use whole eggs for two batches, though)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/8 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
100g white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate respectively.
I did three batches with three different kinds of chocolate. I love the crumbly consistency of these, but I found them far. too. sweet. They are so sweet that you can just about manage to eat one of these before being completely full, and that's one of the ones with semi-sweet chocolate chips.
The first two batches, for which I used egg yolk only to save the egg-white for the meringues, did not taste significantly different, which was good, but somehow seem much heavier than the other batch for which I used a whole egg.
Chocolate pear cake:
I normally use this recipe, although I have to admit that this is a cake from an instant mix:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1-1/4 cups self-rising flour
2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 Tablespoons milk
2 small pears, cored and sliced
I dislike this way of placing the pears, so I cut them in slices, resulting in this slug or cheese look. Somehow, this cake sometimes turns out too dry for my taste, but this time, it worked. Maybe instant cakes are just better than mine.
Meringues:
This time, I used the egg white of four large eggs. My meringues turned out larger than I had intended them to be, but this time they neither had the consistency of glue on the bottom nor tasted of egg.
Unfortunately, I forgot them entirely for an hour after Crocky had returned, but seeing as they were in an oven that was only 100°C warm, it did not hurt them. Due to the extra hour, they turned out rather more crunchy and brown than they were supposed to be, so I guess 1 1/2 hour at 100°C would be perfect for this size. The instructions say 1h at 100°C, but I was not convinced when I did that last time.
