Why I like to bake..

(despite having absolutely no talent in it..)

I've not shared anything here about me learning to bake. It just happened one day (in Jul), I signed up for Wilton 1 cake decoration course and never looked back. Not that I've gone far, but it has not been an easy one.

For one, I'm not a very thoughtful meticulous person. I am in short a clumsy fella.

The baking journey has not been without mishaps. Just to name a few:

1. over-beat the batter (there was no indication or hint in most of the recipes about not over-beating or under-beating for that matter. What is over beat? How do I tell whether I over-beat or not? I don't know, I still don't know. I'm still doing trial and error, and feed the fellow guinea pigs.
2. so what happened if over/under beat? I am not sure, some days, my cupcakes just rise and rise and overflow. That's what happened I guess. Strangely, when this happened, guinea pigs will say the cupcakes taste nicer.
3. halfway through measuring ingredients for a recipe and realising, to my horror, I do not have enough main ingredient (read FLOUR)! At that point of time I really feel like smacking myself. The solution would either be go out to buy or substitute with other flour or change the recipe altogether and find one that I have all ingredients for.
4. sudden inspiration to bake (and if I'm lucky to have all ingredients on-hand) and feel really miserable waiting for the ingredients to cool to room temperature. I'll cut the butter into cubes (almost chopping them like minced meat) to let them cool down warm up faster.
5. burn my fingers. The oven is hot, mind you. But my mind is not with the oven, it's with the batter/cupcakes/cake whatever. Seems like my hand really like to test the its limit. I think I'm just excited over the baking.
6. the baking duration takes way longer than stated in the recipe. The oven, seriously, one day, I'll get a good one! (please don't die on me this weekend... pwetty please?!)
7. inherited the ancient weighing scale from my MIL, I can't measure to 1g precision. But lately, when I'm in bread making, a lot of recipes called for 5g of yeast and 1g of salt. How am I supposed to measure that?!
8. to answer my question in #7.. spoil the weighing scale and get a precise digital one. which is precisely what happened last night while I tried to zero the ancient weighing scale and I overdid it. So it's officially spoilt, and I got a new digital one!

But all the above is really worth it, when IZ (self-claimed my Nos. 1 fan) gives me a thumbs up and said "nice!".

On days when my baking's a flop, he'll say "it's a little bit nice, Mommy. You can try harder the next time".

He also tell people he meets that "my mommy is a baker, she can bake everything you know!". Because of this belief, I really do believe I can bake everything. So whatever the little one wants, I'll google for recipe and try.

My little angel, I really hope I show you positive attitude and making effort in our lives. I hope you'll not give up easily and keep trying just like how you encouraged me.

Just to share some of the pieces: