The Art of Baking

These past weeks , I've been attempting to bake cakes. I have this recipe book I bought from Angus and Robertson bookstore called "Cooking, A Commonsense Guide" which is quite good for newbies at baking like me. Baking cakes isn't really my family's tradition. I never can recall my mum baking a cake for us! So naturally, I never felt the urge for baking. We were very much a savoury sort of family anyhow, so the main course was more important for us. Fresh fruits like slices of mangoes and oranges would do fine for dessert. To my mum's credit though, she is a great cook when she cooks for us and dh thinks she is the best cook in the world.
Mum used to make the most outstanding traditional Malay kuih (sweet cakes/desserts/snacks) like kuih talam, seri muka, apam, lompang, currypuff (the pusing/circle type), rosles & kuih cara etc when we were little in London. I 've never tasted anyone's who could make kuih as good as hers from any traders, except from La Cucur where you have to pay a premium price. Unfortunately , mum didn't make much kuih when we came back to KL. I don't think she likes cooking desserts much. She later told us that she had to make the kuih in London for the M'sian VVIP /head of state's and their entourage who came to visit London (probably more so for the LIP( lesser important people) in the entourage).
I digress. Coming back to my baking attempts, I felt compelled to bake something for dd. She sometimes bake cookies etc at her school and she would often inquire or ask me if I could bake her something. I started out baking muffins for her as they were the easiest to make whereas most cookies and cakes I assume would require electric mixers. Yes, I don't own a electric mixer as yet!
Last week , I thought it was high time I tried to bake a chocolate cake. There was a recipe for a chocolate mud cake in the book and it didn't require an electric beater. I had all the ingredients in the pantry so I mixed them up accordingly and pop the cake mix in the oven. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out well. It was on the dry side coz the oven temperature was too high. I had earlier baked a tea cake and 12 mini pizzas at 220 degrees, hence, the oven did not cool down to the required 160 degrees. (So I guess I better made sure I do not bake any pizzas in the oven beforehand next time hmm).
My second attempt yesterday was okay and actually looked and taste fine despite that I put extra chocolate in the mix as half the bar had melt in the midday heat so I could not estimate properly, lol. I am feeling confident that perhaps I could maybe bake a cake for my MIL family when we are back in KL. ( Just perhaps)
My in law's family are totally the opposite of mine. Whereas mum would order tasty kuih raya (eid cookies) from a relative or someone else, MIL and her four daughters used to put in a lot of effort baking for eid celebration and make heaps of cookies and fry heaps of kerepek, (traditional malay flour based crisps equivalent to junk food ) weeks prior. My SILs often attempt to bake different type of cakes which sometimes turn out great or not so great depending on the season, lol. Not only do they make cookies and all, they actually enjoy finishing them off as I noticed that there wasn't any left when I visited them 1 and 2 weeks after Eid, whereas at my mum's place would still have plenty of leftover cookies that could be carried forward to Eid ul Adha.
My friend's used to send me Eid cards and the usual question would be "Dah buat kuih raya?" ("Have you made any Eid cookies yet?) and then the question would later evolve into "Dah beli kuih raya?" ("Have you bought any Eid cookies yet?) or to that effect. Whatever it is, bought or baked, I hope you have a Happy Eid everyone!