gingerbread men

There was a day in the not so distant past when my female owner had an impromptu baking session with her Therapist (this was in Brisbane). They had some time to spare after a workshop in school and decided to do what they always said they would do after their exams… and that was, to bake, using my female owner’s cookie cutters.

Quite quickly, they decided on baking gingerbread men. Even though they had no recipe or idea what ingredients were required, they headed for my female owner’s house. Their plan was to search for a suitable recipe online and innovate if they did not have the required ingredients… and innovate they did (what on earth is molasses?)

Anyway, all’s well that end’s well and here are some photos of their impromptu baking escapade.

the two budding CBT therapists at work (not in the sense of the traditional Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, but Cooking-Baking Therapy)

their fluffy gingerbread men blink-blink turtle
check out this turtle with eggs.. hope my female owner wasn't thinking of me when she made this for her Onli Fren..
check out the happy feetthe random cookies...

assortment

My femaleo owner is gaining weight again.. and you won't wonder why when you see what she has been up to:

She thinks carrot cake is healthy... but I think cake in any form or manner is unhealthy

Here's the recipe though.
The sure win double chocolate chip cookie. My female owner's answer to not buying her favourite mass produced chocolate chip cookies. It actually costs the same to bake her own cookies.
Japanese curry - another one of my female owner's deadly sin.
Finally, the day when she went crazy and baked an assortment of muffins in different flavours and sizes.

And now you know why she's gaining weight..

sure win double choc chip cookie recipe

My female owner's next baking attempt:

Double Chocolate Chips Cookies
125g dark chocolate
150g flour
30g cocoa, sieved
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
125g soft butter
75g light brown sugar
50g white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
350g chocolate chips

1. preheat oven to 170 degree. melt the 125g dark choclate in microwave or over a pan of simmering water.
2. put the cocoa, flour, bicarbonate of sodda and salt into a bowl.
3. cream the butter and sugars in an other bowl. add the melted chocolate and mix together.
4. beat in the vanilla extract and egg, then mix in the dry ingredients. finally stir in the chcolate chips.
5. scoop out 12 equal sized mounds - use an ice cream scoop and a palette knief. place on a baking sheet about 6cm aprt. do not flatten them
6. cook for 18 mins.
7. leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 mins then transfer to a coooling rack.


My female owner is very convinced that this recipe is worth its weight in fats, coz her Onli Fren baked her some as a welcome gift when she came back recently. They were so yummy (right texture and taste) that my female owner had no qualms eating them, despite its obvious fattening nature (and you wonder why my female owner wonders why she put on 2 kg in those 2 weeks she was back home!)

choc chip cookies!

My female owner is out of steam, coz everyone around her is in a holiday mood and she is finding it difficult to maintain her momentum… to start work on her ethics essay due on Monday. She sat on the essay for a few days because she was just so tired of pushing herself. Besides, she had endless to-dos to see to each day.. and that took up hours each day. She can’t believe that she has to go to school from Mon to Thurs next week, even though she only has two clients booked in. The only reason why she doesn’t need to go to school on Friday is because she need to fly home (yay!)

As part of her procrastination and trying-not-to-feel-like-a-loser-who-cant-have-a-holiday-when-everyone-else-is-having technique, my female owner tried baking some chocolate chip cookies just now with a recipe she copied from the bookstore… The picture had looked promising..

See her maiden choc chop cookie dough (with a hint of crushed walnuts)

They expand really big and quick, like her temper!
The customary close-up. Certainly not what she was aiming for.
A slight back-track to how the cookies looked, baking in her untrusty oven
The cookies remained soft and suspiciously uncooked after 10 mins. So she did another 3 + 3 mins... and the cookies ended up looking charred. =(

Hmm… so apparently the cookies turned out the way she expected them to (not the charred bit though), and not in the way she hoped they would. So that means that she needs to go on trying other recipes, in search of that magical (and evasive) taste.

moist chocolate cake

My female owner, currently in her baking frenzy, tried to bake "Moist Chocolate Cake" yesterday. The process was difficult as she had to mix chocolate milk and cocoa powder together by hand. The mixture soon felt like clay and made the area messy.

Although she followed the recipe to a T and the dough looked promising, the cake did not turn out "moist". It had a brownie texture - dense and heavy. The problem was analysed by a number of baking experts and the blame was put solely on the fan oven she used (or maybe user fault?).

The promising looking Moist Chocolate Cake, baking well. Unfortunately, the temperature was not hot enough. So the cake swelled but it shook like jelly when there was movement. Moist Chocolate Cake indeed.

My female owner could not finish baking the cake as she had to leave for the goodbye party. She intended to continue baking the cake when she returned home but for some strange reasons, the cake was cooked by then. The cake swelled a great deal and upon cooking, formed a huge sort-of U-shaped crack in the crust. Before she could do anything about it, her Intuitive Fren poked three holes into the cake, resulting in a =)

Making the icing for the cake. Now, icing is a 100% foreign concept for my owner. Not that she never heard of it before but she had always avoid eating it. Too sweet, too fattening.

They had a lot of problems with the icing because the wrong type of cream was used. My female owner started off with 50g of butter and had to top up to about 80g, in order to salvage the icing.

Believe me on this. Although my female owner read the recipe many times, she didn't see the portion instructing her to slice the cake into two to put icing in-between the layers. Anyhow, she managed to do a clean cut of the cake. Hmmm... potential butcher.

See the hole in the cake? That was where her Intuitive Fren had earlier pierced through (using a chopstick) to check if the cake was cooked. It was as if you did something bad to someone and later on, you see your victim's wounds right in front of you. No escaping your guilt.

The final product... They used icing on half the cake (just in case the icing didn't turn out good).

Verdict: Although the cake did not turn out as my female owner envisioned it to be (just like the muffins!), my female owner learnt a lot through the process. In addition, her friends gathered round to help her complete the cake. One made the icing, another changed the oven setting for her and educated her on the quirks of that particular oven and the last one, helped her complete the cake. Getting the right "moist" would be just a bonus. However, my female owner decided that if she wanted a quick chocolate cake indulgence, she would just stick to the first chocolate cake she baked a few weeks back.

muffins

My female celebrated the end of her examinations by baking some banana chocolate chip muffins. The muffins did not turn out the way she had envisioned them to be. The texture turned out to be more like banana balls. She figured that she had used too many bananas (4, instead of 3). Nonetheless, she enjoyed the experience of learning to bake (something decent).

Ah.. on to the next muffin recipe. Something more cakey and rich in flavour.

Her trusty oven.. doing the job for her...

Halfway through..
Finally.... after 20 mins

strike

Today, my female owner finally handed in the last assignment that is due before her exams. She struggled a lot with it. She had to write a case study based on the first session with her adult client and because she didn’t ask enough questions, she didn’t know what to diagnose him with (can you beat that?!). She ended up changing his diagnoses a few times, each one becoming more serious than the previous. Finally, last night, she gave him two diagnoses, which complicated her case study.

She has two more written assignments to submit but those are due after her exams and she don’t really care about them at the moment. And if you thought she would jump straight into revising for her examinations, you are so wrong.

She went on mental strike and did some grocery shopping at the nearby suburb. Grocery shopping has a kampong feeling, coz sometimes you would meet people you know. In a way, i suppose it’s quite fun to see them, in another way, you wonder how come everyone is at a supermarket on a Thursday evening.

Anyway, so she bought the week’s grocery. Didn’t get much snacks (alarm bells ringing) – just a BIG bag of chips (oh well..). Just another form of poison. She went home and decided to bake the same cake (but using peach this time) for Q, although she doesn’t know when they would be meeting again. This time, she didnt have a weighing scale, so she used "agaration" with the measuring cup. Turned out pretty ok.

I suspect that if they don’t meet up soon enough, the cake would end up in my female owner’s stomach.

Anyway, my female owner continued her mental strike and decided to cook spaghetti for the next few days' meals.

Think she needs to settle down quickly, coz time is racing out (not even running out).

cake

Besides trying to follow a cooking recipe today, my female owner also had plans to try baking a cake. Her maiden attempt! The recipe was courtesy of her Onli Fren who had painstakingly typed it out over MSN a few weeks ago.

As luck would have it, her bible study fren who came over to her house for a meeting (and the all important weighing scale) in the evening was early. Since there was still time, she readily agreed to guide my female owner through her maiden attempt.

Holding the mixer in her hand was really nostalgic for my female owner as she was cued to recall the times when she helped her mother mix the batter for all sorts of recipes – pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, fruit cake, pandan cake etc etc… Thinking back, those must have been precious moments, when mother and child worked together to make something good for everyone else. Maybe she would bake a cake for her dad’s birthday.

Anyway, the cake turned out respectable (meaning that it was okay enough to offer her friends who were at her house later, actually, they were all forced to try her cake. Wahaha). My female owner didn’t manage to take a photo of the whole cake… but here’s part of it.

Pear Chocolate Cake served with Chocolate Sauce. Old-time friends would be able to recognise what the doodle means. Second Onli Fren - this was written with you in mind. Onli Fren - now my female owner can call you Cuppie Pear Chocolate Cake!