Baking 101 with John
For some lighter and yummier side of things...
I brushed up on my baking skills(?) last Monday night with my attempt to make Sans Rival...o di ba? Ambitious!! ;-) The thought came up when, after making leche flan last Saturday night, as requested by my mom, I had a bowl of eggwhites left in the fridge waiting to spoil (as always have been everytime I make leche flan). Sayang naman when it will all get down the drain...hirap pa naman mag-separate ng egg yolks sa whites and ang mahal na ng eggs huh! So I went to browse over my collection of recipes and voila!!! A recipe for Anchor Butter Sans Rival which called for 14 egwhites! Perfect! Thats what's exactly in the bowl...and so I jotted down the ingredients which I had to buy...butter, milk and 6 more eggs (yolks only). The rest are in the fridge and my baking pantry...always ready the next time I took fancy in baking some goodies...flour, cashew nuts, cream of tartar, and sugar. The ingredients were ready for Sunday baking, I was hoping I can bake it Sunday night after our seminar at Sta. Rita, but I was so sleepy and tired because John and I still went to SM North and got our Unity Candle from Acclaim. Our dinner at Shakey's only added to my sleepy state...dami kc kinain...Caesar's salad, pizza and a tall glass of strawberry super shake! Yummy!! Kaya pagdating sa house, tulog na lang...;-)
I promised I will definitely bake it Monday...and as soon as I get home from work, I immediately got the butter outside the fridge to soften it, and after dinner I took out the rest of the ingredients to let them stand at room temperature (an SOP in baking). After washing the dishes (it was my turn everynight), I proceeded with my baking task...took out my baking pans, mixing bowls, measruring cups and hand mixer (I still have to save for my much-dreamt of Kitchen Aid stand mixer), and washed them clean. John saw me preparing and ever-helpful in everything I do, asked me what can he do to help. SO I asked him to separate the eggs and save the eggyolks (I hate this work...hehe!). I started beating the eggwhites with cream of tartar to achieve the stiff peaks needed...grabe ang tagal pala nun. My arm was getting tired of holding the mixer and making sure the cord won't get into the mix. While I was mixing this, I instructed John to brush the baking pans with butter and then dust it with flour. The butter thing he quickly did, but when it came to dusting the flour, he went "Duh? Pano un?" Cympre he doesn't know a thing about baking and its terms, so I thought of a layman's term to explain it to him, and being both in parallel fields (engineering and acrchitecture), I quickly said "Hon ung dusting eh para kang nagsasabog ng cement pag nagpapalitada...", to which he replied "Ah ok...alam ko na!" Haayy!!! Gawin bang construction ang pagbe-bake! Hehehe! But to come to think of it, baking is just like contructing a house...you need the exact quantities to make it stand....and so this started my Baking 101 lessons for John. I'm so glad because I will get to bake more often because I have a kitchen partner na to help me out. ;-)
Back to baking...when I achieved the desired consistency of the eggwhites, I asked for the cashews which John himself had measured and chopped using the grinder. After folding them into the mix, I immediately spooned it into the pans which John had dusted perfectly well (galing ko mag-explain!!). John volunteered to level out the mix using the spatula...galing!! I told him," Galing mo hon ah! Pwede ka na...pwede ka na maging mason!" Hehehe! Off to the oven the pans went...had to wait for 30 minutes for this...
Meanwhile, I creamed the butter and milk for frosting, and as soon as the cake was baked and cooled, John again did the frosting on the cake. Had a hard time coz the supposedly chewy wafer turned out a little soft, parang Mercedes de Brazo...mejo makapal kc pag-spread sa pan (k2 pans lang kc, dapat 3) and as my officemate told me, dapat daw 200 deg. F ang temperature (the recipe called for 300 deg F for 30 minutes). Eh I just followed the instructions to the letter! Anyway, I just had to make do with that...at least I know I'll be able to bake a Brazo next time! ;-)
So after frosting the meringue and decorating it with chopped cashew nuts, we freezed my own version of Sans Rival, ready to be eaten the next day.
The following morning, I checked on the Sans Rival to see if it hardened. Well, it did not...just the frosting. But the meringue was not really soft nor stiff either. I sampled a little slice and it tasted very good!! The meringue layer sort of melts in your mouth and the butter frosting was not too sweet...just right to the taste! I was very happy with my Sans Rival! John tasted it too and he liked it, so were my officemates when I brought some slices for them to judge. Thankfully, they appreciated my baked goodie despite the soft meringue. Next time I will do it again, but will decrease the oven temperature to 200 deg. F, specially for baking meringues. I also learned about this from Heny Sison's cooking show when she baked sylvannas.
Nonetheless, my Sans Rival was a hit! I felt so accomplished and proud because my family and friends liked it, but moreso because John and I baked this together and he praised me (as always) for my baking. ;-) My next project: SYLVANNAS (the Heny Sison recipe) !!!
