I bake at last

What is that?

Is that my oven?

Is that something in the oven?

Is that something I made, in the oven?

:D

I'm so happy to be back. On the first day, I slept for seven hours, so I woke up just in time for dinner, (dinner, no longer 'supper' like they say in Britain) so the only pocket of time I could find to bake was at half-past nine at night, but I took it anyway.

I made butterscotch muffins from a recipe written on a slip of paper by my mum, with mainly the ingredient list and minimal instructions copied from god-knows-where. The muffin was a regular vanilla butter muffin, and the rest was simply butterscotch sauce spread over the top. I made a mistake by using brown sugar instead of muscovado sugar, for the muffin bit. I think muscovado sugar gives a stronger, molasses-ey taste, but brown sugar works too. Still tasted great!

And then the butterscotch decided to throw me in a corner and tell me what a wannabe baker I am.

The last time I tried cooking sugar, I was making creme caramel (a.k.a flan) and, although I got the caramel without burning it, majority of it hardened in the ramekins and the pan. Why? I still have no clue.

I made butterscotch by mixing and heating golden syrup, butter and sugar. Then I left it on the stove while waiting for the muffins in the oven. Then the butterscotch became all weird when I stirred it. It turned into what looked like toffee worms swimming in a pool of oil. I have no idea what happened, could someone please enlighten me.

Anyway, I salvaged what I could, and managed to yank some of the hardened butterscotch onto my muffins.

Overall, the muffins tasted great, with or without butterscotch sauce, (as you can see I didn't have enough sauce for the last four muffins) and I'm happy.

Then we had some great cake from Jane's Cake Station to celebrate my brother's 19th birthday. It was a basic single-layered chocolate cake, and the texture of everything was perfect. Chocolate cream not too runny and not too firm, while the cake was moist and almost jello-like, meaning that it didn't fall into crumbs very easily. It is a cake that you can't fail to like.

Today, I baked this baby, and as my friend Chaice would say, "I feel like a proud mama duck."

It is a Finnish apple cake with cinnamon, found on my trusty recipe source, Foodgawker. It was a rainy day and I woke up at noontime, plus I didn't seem to have plans for most of the day, so why not more baking?

Here's some of the action (Apples being mixed with sugar and cinnamon)

I'm never a fan of spice, such as cinnamon, but I decided to give it a go anyway, and now I actually find the taste and smell of cinnamon quite appealing! While in the oven, the aroma filled my entire house, and I couldn't wait for the hour of baking time to be over so I could try some of that cake!

We got some beautiful cake batter here... and some kick-ass apple-arranging over there...

And some more top-quality springform pan removal... and some apple-arrangement disappointment!

The cake poofed up and rose above the apples, so the apples look like they are disappearing under a patch of quicksand. But it's fine because it tastes amazing.

Well of course it does, because if you take a look at the recipe, the amount of butter and sugar in that cake will give anyone a clogged digestive system if taken all at one go.

Here's a fossil of a quicksand victim.