Before I bore you to death with the story of my recipe tests, I would like to take this opportunity (naks, parang artista) to thank my friends who have gone out of their way to help me get started. I know this will sound cliché as hell but this would not have been possible without their pushing me forward. I am really grateful for their putting up with me and for waking up early to accompany me to the cake supplies store, for making sure I have all the ingredients I need, for their constructive criticism and of course, for inspiring me and reminding me of the possibilities. (*tear*) Thank you very much for making this project a helluva lot easier.
So, moving on with the recipes, I decided to test my chocolate chip cookies first as they seemed to be the easiest to prepare. I got my ingredients together and equipment ready, and even borrowed the Kitchenaid from my aunt next door (I’m contemplating getting one real soon. Any sponsors?) and I got down to business. First impressions with the recipe are that it doesn’t take much time and effort to get the dough together and that the dough tasted really good raw (if you are pregnant, ill or your health is otherwise compromised, I really do not recommend consuming anything with uncooked eggs in them. Most chocolate chip cookie doughs do).
This dough was very easy to work with. So after spacing them out properly on the sheet tray so they won’t stick together when they bake and making sure that the oven was at the right temperature when I popped them in, I thought to myself, “What could possibly go wrong?” Well, a number of things.
Since I was using a lightweight aluminum tray to bake them in, the bottoms got cooked faster than the rest of the cookie, turning them too brown, some even burnt. When I had my friends taste the cookies, they could not get past the acrid aftertaste of the slightly burnt bottoms. And though I was able to pull some out of the oven before they turned rock hard, my friend Charo said that the cookies could be a little chewier. I do like my cookies very chewy so I made a batch the following day and made sure I followed the recipe precisely. After mixing the batch, I promised to myself to the dough to rest overnight, as the recipe explicitly recommended. A recommendation I obviously ignored, when I baked off the previous batch cookies only after 30 minutes or so in the refrigerator. So as I waited for the dough to rest while battling with my low emotional quotient, I decided to move on to the wonderful world of cupcakes.
Cupcakes.
I stood over the tiny cupcake tins and the fancy cupcake paper liners and thought what would people be thinking after finding out what I’m up to now. After two years of cooking school and several jobs later, my career has been reduced to cupcakes. CUPCAKES. I bet my next-door neighbor can bake cupcakes. Heck, I bet my dog can bake cupcakes. So why the hell am I making cupcakes?!
The truth is, I love cupcakes as much as the next guy. Well, as much as the next gay guy. I love how dainty they can be and how creative you can be with them. It’s not exactly Larousse Gastronomique material, but honestly, I love making them just as much as eating them. And as this is the search for the thing I’d be happier doing, cupcakes would be a good addition to the repertoire.
With the small oven and workspace that I had, I surprised myself when I was able to make a large batch of three flavors today: Vanilla, Chocolate and Red Velvet. Despite my requests to move the cupcake taste tests some other day because it was already late and I didn’t have my icings ready, my friends insisted in coming over to taste them. I was surprised yet again when they found that the cupcakes were really good. And they didn’t even have frostings yet! I say I was surprised because normally, they wouldn’t hold back on their criticisms because that’s the kind of friends they are; the kind that tells you the truth. Albeit they had a few criticisms here and there, they thoroughly enjoyed the cupcakes. Which made me even happier. But what made my evening was the dinner we had at Chef Dogan’s Turkish Grill and Restaurant in Katipunan Ave. QC. Guess what? The place is named after the chef who owns the place. And guess what!? He happens to be Turkish! And they serve up really good Turkish food.
Okay, this entry is going everywhere and right now it looks like my kitchen: a spectacular mess. I’m sleepy and it’s been a long day of cookies, cupcakes and kebabs and I’m dying to go to bed.
Good night, y’all. XOXO.
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