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18 February 2009

So You Want A Cheap But Meaningful Valentine's Gift

It was last Friday when I realised that it will be a Valentine's day the next day because my colleague said she want to get a Valentine's gift. I was blog-hopping then and I found the recipe for steamed moist chocolate cake. Thanks to Family First!. It looks very do-able to me. The recipe and instructions are easy enough for me to understand and I know I can get the ingredients easily from the supermarket. So, I printed out a copy of the recipe and my colleague saw it and asked for a copy too. I went and bought all the ingredients after work. On the way home, I mumbled to hubby. I said "The ingredients are not cheap and I don't know if the cake jadi or not". He said something like "Might as well buy one from the bakery". I said "I have not even started and you didn't even give me support".

Hubby was not working on that Saturday, which happened to be a Valentine's Day lar. Not that we have any plans. I didn't feel like going out to the mall and so was he. Since we all "mou-mou liu-liu", I might as well try to bake the cake lar. Meanwhile hubby entertained Ethan with a bubble-blowing session.

Everything went on smoothly until the last step when I needed to pour the self-raising flour into the mixture. I bought the flour few months back and when I opened it up, it was infested with tiny insects, which look like 'kutu' to me. OMG!!!!! So geli. I tried to sift the flour but it failed to separate the insects. Sigh.........my pot of mixture was sitting there and half way done and I don't have the FLOUR!! I quickly grab the car key and went to the nearby mini markets to buy the very important FLOUR. I went to 3 mini markets and all of them do not sell self-raising flour. ARGHHH!! How ar!! Then I thought, rather than throw the mixture away, I might as well give it a try and use normal flour and add more baking powder. That's what I did and the cake turned out well.

Thank goodness, I have a Valentine's gift at last. Ethan, who does not like cake, happened to like that cake very well. He insisted to blow candle but we couldn't find any at home. We just asked him to sing and so he sang "Happy Birthday" and insisted to cut the cake himself. He ate 2 slices of the cake!! As for hubby, when I asked him how is the cake, he said "Hmmmmmm.....". My translation of that answer is "If you must get an answer, I think it is nice". Luckily I still have a son, who is more supportive than the father.


The ingredients


The mixture in the steamer. I put the plastic timer
too close to the heat, it melted a bit :-(


Part of the mess!


Finally, the cake with a small deco that Ethan brought back
from school.

P.S. My colleague used the same recipe but she said her cake turned to be more spongy than mine. Maybe it's the self-raising flour. So, it's blessing in disguise? Since I have extra ingredients, I'm going to try to bake another one with chocolate glaze.

9 comments:

Family First said...

Thanks for trying it out and glad it turned out well at last! Wow, you are so daring to try with chocolate glaze .. I still "fear" that stage .. feel like I am not ready yet! Good luck! Maybe I will try it too soon!

Nina @ BabyBoon said...

i'm not a big fan of steamed cake because mine always turned out spongy, so yes, i think its a blessing in disguise that u use normal flour instead of self-raising fluor!! i've changed to that technique too so now my steamed cakes are not too spongy. lucky u realised that on your very first try! and its a real great looking cake too ;)

Baby Darren said...

nothing beats your own home made cake. I've tried the recipe too and decorated it with some colourful smarties...

now you make me feel hungry....hahaha

Anonymous said...

Grrrgggghhh... you actually tried to sieve the insects away. Aiyooo.. sooo gross la. LOL

Lemonjude said...

Well done on making the cake, practise make perfect. But at least this moist cake Ethan prove that is good..

You makes me want to make one too.

TheBlueRanger said...

Family First,
I'll post the result here :-)

BabyBooned,
Wah....I'm really lucky lar. I'll stick to normal flour then. Thanks for the great tips!

Baby Darren,
Yeah, I saw that post. It's a lovely cake you got there.

etc-mommy,
that was the easiest option at that panicking moment...hehe...and yes it was gross

lemonjude,
try lar...let us know when you have done it ok

Nadia said...

Looks good!!! And the card is cute too. :) Sometimes kids are more supportive than their fatherslaaaa.. hahahaha!

Leona said...

Is that you in the background (last pic)? Very pretty lah!!!

so sweet the little card that Ethan made.

Chinneeq said...

so u bake too? hmmm....we have the same interest :)