A Bake A Day Keeps The Depression At Bay

Today’s recipe came from a youtube channel called Savor Easy (https://youtu.be/FkSdxohyeRc) It’s a basic lemon cake with a condensed milk frosting. 

Going into this, the thing I was most concerned about was the frosting, honestly. I don’t like many home-made frosting recipes, but I hadn’t heard of using condensed milk, so I was actually pretty excited, but very worried about how it would taste. I mean, I don’t even think I’ve used condensed milk before today at all, so it was definitely an experience!

Like yesterday I halved the recipe. Usually it’s just me eating these things and if I’m baking something everyday then it would be hard to eat full sized cakes and breads ^^, (Speaking of, the bread I made yesterday is completely gone! My little brother really liked it, so it went fast XD)

No kneading in this one, but I can’t use the family’s Kitchenaid until Christmas and our handmixer is broken af so I had to whip the eggs myself DX I thought that I would be able to handle it, having done whipping in the past, but these last few months of inactivity have made me lazy and I haven’t kept up with excersize like I should have. My arms were weak, and I had to take frequent breaks. 

But, looking at it from a positive angle, when I switched to my other hand I got a lot of practice for my ongoing training to become ambidextrous! So I didn’t mind too much. All of this kneading and beating is going to make my arms very sore though, haha. 

Something I struggle with in baking is folding the whipped eggs into the batter. You’re supposed to be careful so that you don’t loose the air, but also you have to make sure it is fully incorporated. And I’m still amazed it worked out for me!

Also! I remembered to get progress shots! (Only halfway through, but I did get them!) Here is what the batter looked like

I ended up using this glass dish that my family never uses. I’m not sure if it’s a bread dish or something? We have two other sizes (Medium and Large I assume) and we just use them to cook chicken breasts so I’ve never actually used them to make any kind of baked good. 

It looked goo to me though! But, something I learned today... you actually have to preheat the oven while you mix the ingrediants! XD When I cook in the oven I never really preheat, I usually just stick it in when I turn the oven on. And baking cookies with mom we tend to do the same thing, and then just write off the first batch ^^, 

So the batter just sat there while I waited for the oven to heat, and I’m a little worried about the effect that might have had on the cake. It came out looking nice, but after I took it out of the oven it sorta shrank in on itself... that might have also been because it was colder, maybe I was supposed to let it sit in the oven after I turned it off? I’m not really sure if there was a way to keep it from doing that. 

Still, despite how it looks in this photo, the cake is still very soft and springy so maybe it was totally normal. Guess I’ll only know by baking some more.

Then it was time to do the Condensed Milk Frosting. The recipe was really simple- just a can of condensed milk and a fourth cup of lemon juice (though obviously I halved it) I had to whip it again, but by that point my arm was too tired to function well enough... so I brought out the old hand mixer!

The thing about the old hand mixer is that we’ve had it at least since I was five, and I’m turning twenty one in a few months. All of the attachments have rusted except for the square mixers- we had to toss the old whisk at the beginning of quarantine, actually. 

So I’m extremely confident that I didn’t whip the milk enough, but it tasted about right so I cut my losses and slathered it on the cake, like it said to

The last step I added myself, something to make it look just a little prettier; leftover Lemon Zest!

So yeah, it looks good!

How does it taste? ...uh,,,,,,

Haha, no it’s not that bad. Actually it’s pretty decent- I’ll be having it for dessert tonight, in fact! But the cake is a little bland, and the condensed milk is too sweet and completely overpowering. But still, for a first cake it’s not awful- and it looks so cute!

LESSONS LEARNED; 

1. Preheat the oven while you are putting the ingredients together, so you don’t have to wait for it. 

2. Invest in a nice hand mixer. We seriously went 15 years minimum on that hand mixer and so long as I toggle the off switch it still works. A solid hand mixer will go the mile with you. 

3. Clean up while you’re waiting for the cake to bake. Seriously, I had a whole thirty minutes to goof around and look at the homework I wasn’t doing grow in number; if you’re not going to do anything wash some dishes and clean the counter, otherwise you’re going to come back to a kitchen that looks like this;

I ended up making a Peasant bread today, not that I knew that until I sat down to write this, though ^^, It’s probably the easiest most beginner friendly bread. The recipe came from thefreshloaf.com (Lesson One) but I cut it in half because my family is not a bread family. 

1.5 cups flour (I used All Purpose!)  1 teaspoon of salt 1 teaspoon of yeast A little over half a cup of water.

I also added a teaspoon of sugar even thought I wasn’t supposed to ^^, I thought it would give the crust more color? (Is that a thing??) See, I took a culinary chemistry class two semesters ago, but my memory is very spotty at best... Anyway, no matter what it actually did, point is I added it!

(Unfortunately I did not get progress shots because I wasn’t thinking I was going to be doing a write up about it. I’ll change that tomorrow ^^)

So first things first, I am not a tactile person, never had been. I would refuse to do finger painting in elementary school, and I’m still squeamish and only clean dirty plates with two fingers. I just hate touching awful things. 

Tacky bread dough? That’s an awful thing. 

I committed myself to a kneading recipe because I thought that, overall? I’d be happier with it? Because from everything I’ve read it seems like kneading the dough is supposed to be a meditative thing, a soothing thing. There’s that repetitive motion, the rocking of your hands across the counter. The soft pliant dough is meant to fold under your fingers, gentle but still firm. You’re supposed to knead until there’s a dull ache in your arms, a grounding pain, a twinge that says yes, look at you! You’re here, you’re alive, and you’re amazing. It’s supposed to really connect you to your bread. 

It’s just. It’s just goop though. 

And it stays goop for like, longer than you’d think. Longer than I anticipated, anyway. The recipe said to knead for ten minutes, right? So you’d expect it to start being more doughy around, what, five minutes? 

No. 

It was goop the whole time. 

Still, it’s quieter than the kitchenaid, so hopefully I’ll learn to tolerate the experience. 

My bread remained sort of goopy even after the first rise- which, by the way, I was able to cover with my old Legend of Zelda kitchen towels! I’ve been saving them this whole time because I didn’t want to put them in the kitchen with the other hand towels, lest they get absolutely ruined. I’ll just keep them for bread rising, it’ll be nice ^^

Anyway, after the second rise I could poke it and the bread would bounce back so I figured that was good enough and set it on the pan to bake. 

I know that steaming is a thing you do with bread, to make the crust nice and crispy, so even though that’s like a few steps too advanced according to the website I was using, I put a little baking sheet with water on the second rack. Ended up baking the bread for 25 minutes with the water pan in, then I took the water pan out and baked for another 15 minutes. And then I had Bread!!

I think there was too much water content in the bread because even after second rise it was a lil sticky, and my attempts to score the top just ended with the knife dragging the dough around, and it was a really sharp knife... still, not a bad first attempt! It looks dense but it’s much lighter than I thought it was going to be. And I thought it was a little undercooked when I cut it open at first but if it was the residual heat cooked it all the way through while it sat on the counter! So overall, a great start to this baking thing ^^

Lessons to learn; 

1. Just because the recipe is halved doesn’t necessarily mean the cook time is. 

2. If the dough is still super uber tacky after the first rise you can actually add a little more flour to it, just be careful not to knead it again. 

3. Don’t wrap the bread in tinfoil because it’s “cool enough” and you’re worried about it going stale. Wait for it to cool completely, or else the steam will soften the crust. (My poor crust T-T)

4. Go to bed at a reasonable hour if you plan to be up at five in the morning!