Early this morning, I got a call from my “half” cousin and talked to my niece who blurted “your ube pandesal is so good Tita”…
Hmmmm.
That’s pretty convincing though… coming from a teenager who is too picky with her food. Never mind my cousin and Manong Beboy who always have a huge appetite for anything seriously palatable.
The recent pandemic had brought even the strongest country to close its door, people stayed home safe, and became renowned bakers!
Including me.
I never baked or even dreamed of using the oven. The thought of going through measurements and hassle of baking process plus the messy kitchen is just too much for me, in short baking is superbly difficult. Plus, I don’t have the patience to get into the details of something that I do not necessarily need. I remembered someone gave me an oven back in the Philippines that stayed idle in my counter top for years… until my sister laid an eye on it.
Mid-May, I needed a cake for Ande… but most restaurant and known bakeshops were closed. I thought, why not make one? Since there is really nothing to do during the closure, I even finished watching Grey’s Anatomy from Season 1 to 16!
Chiffon cake. I was born in the southern part of Mindanao, Philippines where the only cake I’ve known and eaten was a chiffon cake. There’s one bakeshop in my hometown that is known for its chiffon cake– even (until) now, I still remembered how it taste! BUT an uneventful accident shunned me away from that beloved chiffon cake.
I watched how to make a chiffon cake from Youtube. Jotted down some notes…
Armed with a hand mixer and that idle double wall oven in the house, my baking stint begun… then I realized cake flour and bread flour prices went up that you can’t even buy any from the grocery. I started buying stuff online.
Here’s my firsts… chiffon cake and Taiwanese Castella cake…
Somehow, I mastered the art and even came up of its variation…
A month or two of staying idle is way, way, way too long that I even ventured on the dough side of baking…
All because of Pinky’s help…
And when I decided to hitchhike and join the bandwagon of the “ube pandesal” craze, I patted my back and murmured— damn, I am the infamous baker!
Baking is an art which requires precise measurements, cooking temperatures and ingredients… it requires patience and careful techniques. Although the act of baking is intimidating to me, now I am the most infamous baker in the house!
I wish my Mom’s still around, she’d probably be in awe and jaw-dropping right now knowing I cannot even cook a perfect rice…. much more, bake?!?
G.
And so it goes... 