Testing out the oven

Nope, I didn’t get a new oven just finally went to get an oven thermometer after a couple of my friends telling me I should. And I wished I’ve listened to them earlier, because now I know why my cakes always doesn’t turned out right; they would be either burnt or undercooked. To my horror I thought all this while (ok it’s pretty much a guesswork when it comes to my oven) I’m baking at the ‘right’ temperature but turns out it’s not! 170 degrees Celsius supposedly turns out to be 200 degrees Celsius!

before having an oven thermometer and relying on guesswork

after having an oven thermometer no more guessing!

No wonder I always had a pretty rough time with the baking but not anymore (I hope!) Anyway it’s been a while since I last baked and even though I kept on buying more baking stuffs I finally did some real baking yesterday first roasted some new potatoes and decided to make apple sauce cake after finding out I still have a jar each of home made apple sauce and pumpkin puree made sitting at the back of the fridge. Still deciding if I should make Spiced Pumpkin Pound Cake or maybe I should start learning how to make tarts and pies. Oh well that is for another (baking) day.

So back to the recipe for today’s post basically it’s a simple, tried and tested out recipes of Apple Sauce Cake I got from Martha Stewart’s recipe collection and of course roasted potatoes, again a pretty simple and straight forward recipe with just 3 ingredients. I started first with roast potatoes after getting the temperature right and while I was preparing the cake.

Roasted Potatoes

You Need

3-4 new potatoes or red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks

2-3 teaspoons of dried rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

How To

1. Preheat oven to 165 degrees Celsius or 325 degrees Fahrenheit .

2. Mix olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper with potatoes and place them on a baking pan.

3. Bake for 45 minutes or until potatoes are brown and tender when pierced. Serve with freshly ground black peppers.

Apple Sauce Cake

I once used apple sauce for a fat free and oil free cake replacing the butter and I thought this cake will be taste something like that cake but to my surprise it tasted like a local cake which I absolutely love; honeycomb cake. But definitely not in texture, it’s moist like a butter cake. I initially wanted to add in chopped apricots but like always I forgotten about it until I already mixed the cake and ended up sprinkling the chopped apricots over the cake before putting it into the oven.And doesn’t the cake look oh so Christmassy with the bits of apricot peeking through the sheet of white snow of icing sugar? I omitted some of the ingredients, I used muscovado sugar instead of brown sugar and I replaced ground cardamom with nutmeg and I cut down on the butter.

You Need

3 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
180grams unsalted butter, room temperature plus extra for greasing
2 cups packed light muscovado sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 cups apple sauce
Confectioners'/ Icing sugar, optional
1/2 cup of chopped apricots, optional

How To
1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit . In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, with a hand whisk or if you wish, electric mixer, beat butter, brown sugar, and honey until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture; beat just until combined. Beat in applesauce and chopped apricots
3. Generously coat a nonstick 9-inch loaf pan with butter and dust with flour. Spoon batter into pan; smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (but slightly wet), 50 to 60 minutes.
4.Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Turn out of pan onto a cutting board or baking sheet; invert cake onto rack, top side up. Cool completely. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving, if desired.