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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Never eat more than you can lift. - Miss Piggy

Last October or so, I decided to learn to bake. This cooking thing is still new to me, as I didn't really know what I was doing until around September 2007, and baking was beyond the realm of my cooking repertoire. When M started a new job in August, he quickly realized that it was all business - i.e. no coffee breaks, chitchat, etc. Fair enough. So I invented Cake Fridays. Every Thursday I'd scour cookbooks to find something sweet to cook, then M took it to work the next day. That way I could learn how do bake without overdoing the sweet stuff. Granted I didn't get to try most of them, but the feedback was generally good. And people began to chat a little bit more, at least on Fridays. (Though I've still only met 2 of the people at his office and his job ends next Wednesday...go figure.)

So tomorrow is the last Cake Friday. The horrors! I found a recipe in this month's Observer Food Monthly for Blueberry Batter Pudding, and since blueberries are everywhere now, I thought I'd try it. Now for the frustrating part. This is what the cake is supposed to look like.
This is what it actually looks like:
Mine's a bit - well, not great. That was my biggest issue with baking, that my end product always looked nothing like the picture in Nigella's How To Be A Domestic Goddess. Yeah, well, I got over it. Food stylists have jobs for a reason.

3 comments:

(Ralph) Ashby Barnes said...

fyi. Food magazines have been know to doctor their products to enhance the end result. I'm not talking about photo shop (although I guess that could work as well), I mean stuff like vaseline to make it look shinier. Besides, it should be more about how it tastes rather than how it looks. store bought may look great but taste like shite (sorry for profanity on your blog).

Wish I was there to sample.

Ciao Bella,
A

Jesse said...

I'd devour that in a minute. The highest accolades from a pregnant woman :)

Kristin Pedroja said...

Thank you for the votes of confidence. I posted too soon; the recipe did not mention that the pudding would then deflate. Ashby, maybe I'll try that vaseline trick. Do you think they'll notice? ;)