Skip to main content

It's not as easy at it looks

I had to stiffle a giggle or two last night over MasterChef's CWA baking challenge. Anyone who is a baker knows that a seemingly simple recipe is anything but.

Never baked a cake? OK - impress 100 CWA members with lamingtons, fruit cake and scones. Oh and do it outside. The result? Entertaining TV with the inevitable train wreck at the end - scones you could use as hockey pucks, raw fruit cakes and burnt [cake] bottoms.

I was curious to know if the prep team made sure the ingredients for the cakes were at room temperature? It's an important question. Baking is all about chemistry and having all of your ingredients at the right temperature allows the magic to happen. Get it wrong and your mixture curdles - and your cake won't rise properly.

Sorry to get all technical on you but I've become very passionate about chemistry lately. It wasn't my strong point at high school - I barely scraped a pass on my VCE exams, but now you'll find me pouring over technical cooking mannuals to understand how baking powder works and spending the day before getting my ingredients ready for a baking session.

MasterChef also reignited my interest in joining the CWA...who knows, maybe one day I'll win a 'Home Industries' award at the CWA State Exhibition. Now that would be worth promoting!

Happy Baking!

Comments

Andrea said…
OH Di, I couldn't agree more. Imagine pulling cakes out of an outdoor oven to be greeted by a raging wind? No wonder the finished product was below CWA standard. I wonder if the producers knew this might have happened? Well done on your blogger site. Love it.... xxx
Thursday, 01 July, 2010
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My blog is making me fat

Temptation lurks everywhere. It’s official. My blog is making me fat. It’s also keeping my house messy since I started prioritising writing and baking over vacuuming and putting away laundry. In fact it’s happening right now – I’ve slept in because I stayed up to watch the new Kennedy’s drama on ABC and then wanted to ‘quickly’ check in to see if there were any new messages or comments. Before I know it its really late and that coffee I had after lunch has kicked in, giving me caffeine-induced heart palpitations, delaying sleep even further. Mr Di-licious (bless him) allowed me to sleep in and delivered a latte to my bedside. There’s a bowl of porridge waiting for me on the kitchen bench, ready to be reheated while I turn on my laptop and think about my next post. I used to get up early and go to the gym before breakfast but lately I’ve just been too tired. You know you’ve been MIA when you get notified about a trainer leaving and you’ve absolutely no idea who they’re talk...
18 comments
Read more

Recipe rant

This is not a macaron Donna I did something yesterday that I'm not very proud of. I ranted on Twitter and Facebook about a bad recipe experience and named and shamed the culprit. This morning I felt a little ashamed for my lack of manners.  But then I got some feedback from friends and fans that they too had had a bad experience with the recipe and agreed it wasn't up to scratch. If the situation were reversed, I'd be mortified.  But then again, I'm a little voice in the blogging net-osphere. The magazine/author I targeted is a household name with 10+ years standing. I guess what really gets my goat is that the magazine blatantly promotes the fact that they test and retest the recipes to make sure that they're perfect. I followed the recipe to the letter and even I could see that the wheels were coming off early in the piece.  But I was following their recipe and I persevered. In the end I ended up with flat, grainy meringues, not beautiful macarons. ...
6 comments
Read more

Cute owl cupcake toppers

Hoot Hoot!! How cute are these adorable owl cupcake toppers? I whipped these up last week for a special surprise birthday delivery for my niece. I've been making cupcakes for Hannah's birthdays for the last three years.  Its always interesting to look back at photos of earlier decorating efforts - I've come a long way.  Last year was sort of the p ièce de résistance   - the famed Golden Snitch cupcakes for her Harry Potter themed party. This year we were getting ready for our epic drive to Byron Bay for my sister's wedding , so we didn't make it to Bendigo.  So no Di-licious cupcakes for Hannah.  At least, that's what she thought! Last week I arranged to come and stay the night with Olive and I brought along half a dozen cute owl cupcakes - SURPRISE! We both agree that the embossed ones make the greatest impact but the plain pink ones are cute too. I re-purposed a scrapbooking card embosser to create the embossing effect (cheaper th...
8 comments
Read more