Bakery I, II and Cake Decorating Courses by Tesda

Six months ago a friend asked me to enroll in a Tesda sponsored baking class with her. Her family had a bakery and they wanted to add cakes on their list of goodies available. I dutifully tagged along with her, depleting my wallet in the process in what proved to be a rather uneducating experience. But it was fun.

I didn't say it was educating because it wasn't really. We were given a list of ingredients and tools to bring - they only provide the classroom and oven - then the procedure was listed off in the board and we simply follow it. No discussion of the scientific part of baking whatsoever.

Even the instructor sometimes forget to list one particular ingredients or it was listed in the wrong quantity. They were also trying to save on the gas so we have to bake everything in one go, those that finished early will have to let their batter stew awhile until the instructor was ready to preheat the oven. The result; I had to go home one too many times bearing cakes with burnt edges, or one that didn't fully rise or one that had rose beautifully but fell once taken off the oven.

The only redeeming part of the whole ordeal was the fun part - eating! Three cakes recipe per week in fact. Well actually there's also breads, cookies and pies in there too but we mostly bake cakes. Three months in and I started buying new clothes because my old one were becoming slightly constricted around my middle. Losing weight will definitely be in my New Year's resolution!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal, as it happens, is one of my favorite thing and Oatmeal Chantilly Bars is my ultimate oatmeal recipe. But I figured it'll never hurt to try another oatmeal recipe and maybe find another worthy of the the title.

Well they turned out really good, just as advertised - slightly crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. However me and my Chantilly bars have a long journey ahead of us :)

Recipe is over at EatMeDelicious. I made two batches, the first one I baked for 15 minutes, which turned out crunchy and the second batch stayed at the oven for 10 minutes and come out perfect.

The next day the crunchy lot had soften slightly, just enough that they tasted just as good the latter batch on the first day. Again, perfect!

Double Peanut Pie

I'm not overly fond of peanut butter. I mean I eat it sometimes in a sandwhich and I love a hint of it on my barbeque and caldereta but it's not a favorite. That and the fact that I don't like pies in general was the main reason I won't be making this again. Plus I thought it was too sweet. But in case anyone is interested, the recipe is as follows.

Ingredients
3 pcs. eggs
1 c. dark corn syrup
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/2 t. vanilla
1 c. crushed peanuts
a recipe of pate brisee

Procedure
In a bowl, beat eggs with corn syrup, peanut butter and vanilla in medium speed until smooth. Stir in crushed peanuts and pour mixture into prepared crust.

Bake for 55 minutes in 350F preheated oven. Cool. Served with whipped cream.

Oh here's a story, instead of peanut butter, our instructor listed the recipe as butter so of course we showed up in class with half a cup of butter. When the procedure was up on the board we can only wince at yet another mishap on the part of our instructor. The worst part, she said we could go ahead and use it. WTF?!? Luckily I spied a bottle of peanut butter that morning in her locker - a project in her food processing class and I convinced her to let us buy it. She agreed but quoted a sky high price. We had no choice though.

Siopao - Steamed Buns

I burnt my fingers with these buns. Steamed buns or Siopao in the Philippines is usually filled with either Chicken/Pork Asado or Bola-Bola (Meatballs) but since I'm not really good at cooking and this is my first time making Siopao, I filled mine with Bukayo - strips of candied young coconut. The result was a very light, soft buns that was worth the painful sting on my fingers.


Ingredients
1 c. warm water
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. yeast
3 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 t. salt
2 tbsp. oil

Procedure
Dissolve yeast in water, add sugar, salt, oil and 1/4 c. flour. Let stand until bubbly. Add remaining flour and mix until dough holds together. Place dough on a lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in size.

Punch down and turn dough onto a lightly floured board and knead for a minute. Divide the dough into two and form each into a log. Cut each log into 6-7 pieces and roll into a ball. Take one ball, flatten it with your hands, pulling the sides to form a circle. Place filling in the center and pull up the sides and twist at the top to seal.

Place each bun, sealed side down on a wax paper. Let buns rise for another 30 minutes then cook them in a steamer for about 12 to 15 minutes.

Siopao can also be made with baking powder as the leavening agent or both yeast and baking powder. The result is a little on the cakey side, springy and tend to dries up quickly. Its the kind of siopao sold almost everywhere. I like that texture in puto-pao or mantao (they have no filling) but for siopao I prefer them leavened only with yeast like the one found mostly in chinese dimsum shop.

Revel Bars

This was a real pain to cut but boy was it worth it! The chocolate part turned out very gooey fresh from the oven and turned fudgy after I refrigerated it. Really yum. This recipe called for cocoa instead of semi-sweet chocolate which was a good thing because chocolates are a little expensive to buy here in the Philippines and not always available in smaller areas.


Ingredients
3 c. quick cooking oats
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. butter
2 c. packed brown sugar
2 eggs
4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 c. cocoa
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 c. chopped walnuts

Procedure
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Mix in eggs and 2 tsp vanilla. In another bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into butter mixture.

In a medium saucepan, heat sweetened condensed milk and cocoa over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in 2 tbsp. butter, walnuts and 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Pat 3/4 of the oat mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread chocolate mixture evenly and crumble the remaining oat mixture over the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in preheated oven. Let cool on a wire rack, then cut into bars.

There was this oatmeal bar I used to eat like crazy during my college years called Chantilly Bars. I've been searching the recipe everywhere with no luck so when I first read the ingredients list of Revel Bars I got excited thinking this could be it. It wasn't and it kinda ruin the whole thing for me. A day later I got over it and ate a lot of the bars. But I'm still in search for that Chantilly Bars recipe, anyone?