Sunday, November 13, 2005

Orange Sponge Cake

Work is starting to get stressful these days. I am starting to feel the strain but i guess my dear is under more strain than me. He worked till really late hours and now even during weekends. Try my best to avoid stepping on his toes these days. I know how irritated i will get if i got to work so many hours. SO i decided to be a sweet gal to bake a cake specially for him since he is too busy for me and also that he can have something he can eat when he is hungry at work. I oso thot baking will be a refreshing change from the daily rountine and can keep my mind off work.

I picked this orange sponge cake recipe online, thinking he mite like it.


Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon orange zest
  • 1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 6 tablespoons orange juice


Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Heat the oven at 165 deg C.
Grease and flour 9 inch round pan

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Seperate eggs while cold and leave to room temperature


Image hosted by Photobucket.com
My pathetic orange zest and yummy orange juice from 1 orange.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Beat egg yolks, sugar, orange zest until light and fluffy.
I guess I kinda screwed up here. I din noe how light and fluffy the recipe is referring to. I kept beating and beating and had a bad feeling i overbeat it.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Mix flour and baking powder together. Alternate add flour mixture & orange juice to egg yolk mixture.
The mixture got kinda thick and dry. I felt as if i was making cookie dough instead of a cake.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
WHisk egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into batter. Pour batter into PAN. Bake for 50-60 mintutes.
Thank goodness it began to look more like a cake mixture by this stage.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The batter is all ready to go into the oven.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
After a whole day of work, i dun fancy cleaning up. The beating of the egg yolks and the egg whites have totally drained me before i got to this stage. My fingers even felt kinda numb. But i still got to clean all up as i have made the mess. It will be all worth it if the cake turns out nice and that dear loves it.


Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The cake! i was pretty happy that it din turn out like stone like my first cake. Because i had a really bad feeling it might. However, in the end, the cake did turn out a bit hard. It felt more like a pound cake instead of a sponge cake. Yet, the taste was kinda light and not-bad. Mum was luffing at my butterless pound cake. She was amused by my farnie cake.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Packing up my cake to gif to my dear the next day. Sad to sae he din get to eat till like 2 days later. I baked on wed nite and he ate in on sat. He could not eat it in office because then he have to offer this awful cake to his colleagues.
In short, my plan backfired. :(

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Desptie the hardness, my cake looks and taste pretty sane. See.. the airholes looks pretty evenly spread out. Maybe i shld start going for baking classes to master baking a perfect cake. or is there any1 out there who can tell me where have i gone wrong?

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Bought chocolate banana cake today frm Awfully chocolate to make up to my taste buds and my dear from my cake failure. Unfortunately due to some misunderstanding, he will not be able to taste it tonite. Anyway, the cake isnt very nice. I shld just stick to its plain or rum and cherry one. The banana cake cannot beat that from bakery depot.