Thursday, February 21, 2008

Disaster

I had the sudden urge to bake yesterday and with the many mandarin oranges in my fridge leftover from chinese new year, I thought I was quite smart to think of this - Mandarin Orange Cake

So I scoured the www for recipes and found this recipe with lots of great reviews! I was so excited that I had to go to the nearby supermarket to get the ingredients that I didn't have in my kitchen even though we had a close shave to having an accident (well, thats the problem when vehicles don't put signals).

It was 10pm when I started baking, and started to imagine hubby eating nice yummy, freshly baked cake in the morning for breakfast.

But at midnight, I was most disappointed.... my mandarin orange cake was a total disaster!!!!

Can anyone tell me what went wrong? I have so many mandarins in my fridge that I am close to desperate to make this cake, or anything similar with mandarins...

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3 1/2 whole mandarin oranges (carefully peeled to make sure there isn't much whitish strands and unseeded)

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees

2) Beat the eggs, add the oranges and dry ingredients

3) Beat on low speed until combined

4) Pour into a greased and floured pan

5) Bake for 40 mins

My version of the recipe stops here as i was too demoralised to make the sauce that comes with this cake. To me, it was so disastrous that I didn't think the sauce would help much.

My cake was quite gooey and just didn't seem edible.. too soggy i think? I'm not too sure.. But when I was pouring the mixture into my bake pan, I felt that it was a tad too watery, so i added a bit more flour

I think the main problem was the proportions and the measurements. Please remind me not to use any recipes that requires estimates. What the heck is a CUP? *arrrrggghhh*

Ok, so I consulted my smarty pants sister and she said that there was a standard measurement of a 'cup'. Ok Ok, so I'm a bit of a mountain tortoise. So does that mean that if i stick to that standard measurement of a 'cup', my cake would turn out pretty and edible??


Help anyone?


p/s: I am not blaming the recipe... I just had to vent my fustrations cause it just seemed so easy! Hubby reckons the recipe was too brief for an amateur like me. *hmph*

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4 Comments:

Blogger Zurynee said...

hi lyn, did you miss anything in the recipe? The recipe doesn't need oil or butter?

I highly recommend you get yourself a set of measuring cups meant for baking/cooking. It makes your life easier *LOL*

Zu

11:46 PM  
Blogger ting said...

hello lyn,
you could try this recipe - mandarin orange butter cupcakes! I've tried baking it before and it's really simple:)not sure if you have anymore mandarin oranges thou :p the recipe can be found here on my blog. have a go at it and good luck :)

9:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the unit cup is a volumetric measurement. You can just use a standard coffee cup and measure up to just 1.5 cm below the rim. Seeing that you use 2cups sugar which I think is too sweet. Also it might have contributed to the gooeyness.

5:59 PM  
Blogger the cook without an oven said...

Hi Zu, I've got my measuring cups!!!

Ting, do you have the receipe for the cupcakes? :)

anonymous, thanks!!! Thats a good point to take note of.. I didn't know that.. :)

12:20 PM  

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