What I’m doing is trying to improve my baking skills ! I don’t know why, but what I believe is that if you master the baking issue, then you are a good cook. For me cooking a main course is much easier than preparing a loaf. When I started baking my first two cakes were a real failure. Although I followed the recipe step by step and the ingredients were exactly as mentioned. But the result was a ruined cake!
Since then, whenever I wanted to bake a cake my previous failures come to my mind before starting. When a baking idea is there I will feel nervous and tensioned. The oven became as an SAT exam, you can never tell what the result could be. At the end I decided to end these feelings and buy a book called Baking, so I can read and see at which step is my mistake. For baking, a small hidden fault can change the whole recipe from a very delicious one to a disaster.
I started to read and search for the weakness in my implementation. Then I thought while ” there should be others who are facing the same problems, just like me!” . An idea popped into my mind it will be a good thing to share what I’m learning with others. And this can be done by listing the baking techniques and tips in separate page. That will make it easier for me and people who are interested. So I decided to create one.
When I started my blog the whole focus was on the recipe details and photos. I thought that this will be sufficient, but now I believe it is not. Within my cooking experience I found that there are hidden secrets for implementing any recipe. The recipe will teach you how to cook this specific one, step by step in parallel with the provided photos. But it will not teach you how to freeze different types of food. How to store your ingredients or even what to do in some situations such as how to make your meal in advance and keep it fresh at the same time or how to have a good home meal within a short period of time. These tips and techniques are essential, but it doesn’t come with any recipe.
Now I believe that this information is so important as the recipe itself. I started to provide this type of information for the Photography section. In Sha’a Allah ( if God will) it will be there also for the cooking and baking sections too, in the near future. I will try my best to list whatever I found, read or hear about from others. To create a good reference for everyone and share the knowledge with them.
Please if you have any additional tips for any of these field don’t hesitate to share it with us. For that purpose please e-mail me on cheesecakeforall83@yahoo.com. Your name will be listed beside the tip you provide.
At the end I want to thank my sister Salwa. For her support and help in the last two posts. I really appreciate the time and the effort you have given to make these two posts succeed.
This year, Thanksgiving holiday and The Muslim Feast of Sacrifice coincide around the same time, I wish for all of you a happy holidays. For the recipe, it is ideal for breakfast and for occasions like The coming Thanksgiving and Eid Aladha.
Adapted from my mother friend Layla.
The needed ingredients are
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 3/4 cups sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
5 eggs
1/4 liter milk
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla
To bake
First of all, preheat the oven to 324°F. In big bowl beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Then add the flour and the baking powder to the mixture and beat again. Pour the milk into the bowl while beating. When the mixture is homogeneous, grease a baking dish with unsalted butter or oil, make sure that the butter/oil covers the high sides as well. Add a little amount of flour on top of the butter/oil and shake it to distribute the flour everywhere. That will prevent the cake from sticking. Pour the mixture into the baking dish and insert it into the oven. Bake for 45 minutes approx., when the cake turns to golden brown stick a tooth pick into the middle of the cake. If you get a clean tooth pick that means your cake is done, if it’s not then wait for 10 to 15 minutes and try again till you get a clean one.
enjoy with love,
Maryam
Print this recipe
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
awesome!
i also always fail at baking and i want to be good at it. even my bettycroker cakes sometimes fail, i dunno why:(
for this recipe , how deep should the pan be??
Wow those pics make me hungry :P
You know maybe I should go have some breakfast for my supper…
Love it!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Hi Choc Chip,
happy to see you again and thanks for the comment .. hope you enjoy your cake; however, I recommend the carrot cake which is rich in flavor and can be considered as a luxurious treat!!
Maryam