Since my sis was not around, I spent the afternoon walking around high-point and I came across a book; The Art of Baking. I was thinking whether to get it or not, cause I have tones of cookbooks stored in the bookshelf that i barely even look at it nor use the recipe. Then suddenly Julie & Julia pop into my mind. It will be such a great motivation to try out all the recipes in the book and learn some baking skills. Not that I'm hoping this blog will get such a hype, but you know to try out all the recipes in the book for once. I mean lets be honest, since when you ever cook anything out from a cookbook that you bought? maybe just one or two recipes from that particular cookbook, then forever once you will come back to that book again and cook the same thing.
So I got the book. Basically the book teaches you how to bake the beginner way, you can say baking101. It divided into different chapter and the first chapter is biscuits, meringue and tarts. And the first lessons is Chocolate Cookies. I have done it and I think is a failed. The texture of the cookies is very dry, is either I over baked it or over mixed it. I remember when I tried the Donna Hay's Chocolate Brownie Cookie, it is much moist and if I can recalled, one of the step is to mix all the ingredients till they come together. I definitely over mixed it. This is what I did. when I have put all the dry and wet ingredients together and start beating, I forgot to put sugar. So I frantically measure up the sugar and dump into the mixture. I was mixing it really really hard, the mixture is dry and there's some flour still to incorporate together. Then I thought maybe it need come moisture, looked at the recipe, doesn't require any milk or water. So I beat it like crazy until everything incorporate beautifully. But i remembered the Donna Hay's Chocolate Brownie Cookies its not that hard to get the ingredients mix up well. So I'm guessing is because i left the wet ingredients too long in the dry ingredients, and the dry ingredients sucked all the moisture, thats why its so hard to mix. Maybe I baked it too long or oven temperature is too high. So lessons one FAILED.
