Baked my cake, and ate it too.
I finally baked my own cake. *squeals with delight* The other day I finally tried baking a cake without using a cake mix. Bwahahah. The very first time I baked a cake was last May 25th for Dad’s birthday and I used a Pillsbury Cake Mix for the base and made my own chocolate frosting. The other day though, my little sister TinTin was asking me to bake a cake since they wanted one for dessert. I finally gave in and decided to try my hand at making one from scratch. I was a bit scared since this will be my second time making a cake but my first time doing it from scratch but I’m not someone who’d back down from a cooking (or baking for that matter) challenge.
Since I liked how the recipe for Chocolate Sugar Cookie Drops from Hersheys before, I decided to use their “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” Chocolate Cake. But as usual I substituted some of the ingredients for those I had on hand. Hehe.
Modified HERSHEY’S “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
* 2 cups sugar (I used brown sugar)
* 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used local flour, what people call as primera (first class) in the local market)
* 3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa (As usual I used regular baking cocoa.:P)
* 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup milk (I used a cup of Alaska Evaporada from a local sari-sari store. Lol.)
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup boiling water
* “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING (I didn’t use this one, instead I opted to make my own coffee cream frosting. :P)
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F (175 °C). Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.
VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13×9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.
THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.
BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.
CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.
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Ok, so as usual I had to modify the ingredients because I had to use what I had on hand at the time. I also used one 10 inch round baking pan for it because that’s the only pan I have available. With the substitutions I did, the cake still came out really good. TinTin and Miguel (our youngest siblings) thought highly of the cake. They said it was much much better than what we had for Dad’s birthday, so I think its safe to say I won’t be buying that Pillsbury mix again. Lol.
I would have posted the pictures sooner but my computer hanged up a bit since its low on memory. I have to remember to save up for one since I just bought my oven. 
Popularity: 6% [?]
I need to get a passport.
I don’t have my own passport yet. Seriously. I never did apply for one before because I really didn’t have any need for it. I wasn’t likely to get out of the country anytime soon back then so I didn’t pay much attention to it. My mom is planning to take a vacation and travel to other Asian countries later this year and my cousin’s wife sort of owns a travel agency. So she told us that she can arrange the trip we wanted after we have all the needed documents. I really want to go with Mom and Angel to that trip so I’ll try to apply for my passport once we have those passport events in our local municipal hall. I’m too lazy to go to Lucena just yet.
Popularity: 6% [?]
I love window shopping.
I love window shopping. Its one of the things my mom, sister and I like to do when we go out and visit malls. We frequent the furniture sections because we really love fixing the house we are in and we always have dreamed of decorating our own home. Seeing all the colors and textures also help us piece out what we’d like our dream home to look like when we finally get the house. We have seen some home theater seating furnitures that we’d like to get for Dad someday. He loved to watch movies so having a theater room in our dream home would be on our list. We know that he comes home tired each night and that watching his movie collections is one of his stress relievers.
I frequent the bedroom and kitchen section. I always wanted to get my own king sized bed with all the soft pillows and bed covers. I like beds, too much that I try to get as much time as I can in them. xD When we went to SM Lipa for Mother’s Day, we saw a store that sells customized kitchen counters and cabinets. The set that I liked run around P100+ thousand, so I think I’d have to save more before we can afford that. 
The other week, I went to MOA with my sister since I need to look for some baking equipments. We headed to Living Well and we got some of the stuffs that I needed and fitted in my alloted budget for that trip. The 3k I had went by too fast, especially since the baking stuff I bought aren’t cheap. Lol. Better to have high quality ones than to end up buying a new one after just a few uses.
Hehe, tomorrow I might be able to window shop for furniture again since I’m meeting with my best friend in Lipa. -woot-
Popularity: 5% [?]
Summer Blues and Rainy Days and Mondays ahead.
This summer has been quite a frustration for me. I had plans to go to Puerto with a friend when Mom asked me to postpone it because we had to go to a family affair. She said our whole family will go swimming on one of the weekends this summer so I did tell my friend that I couldn’t go with them. So now its the end of summer and our family didn’t get to go out swimming. Well thats not really correct, since they all were able to go out swimming (Dad with the office people, Mom (with her friends) including my two youngest siblings, my two younger sisters got to go with their own friends in their swimming trips) and only I wasn’t able to join in any of my friends trips.
Ugh. Why did my schedule have to coincide with the family affair that I couldn’t get out of. Maybe next year in case I get to leave the country for work I can go look over some of the vacation houses offered in Outer Banks and get the rest and vacation I want. I’d rather wait for next summer than go swimming these past few days. Its been raining hard here in Batangas. T_T Rainy season here we come.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Weight Discussions
I have been talking with a friend of mine about diet pills. I do need to lose weight because my doctor said my weight doesn’t match my age. I’ve tried some pills before like Xenical which was really yucky because it seriously makes you feel bad after eating some oily foods. I hated it when it made me soil my pants. I’m too old to soil my pants every now and then so I decided to drop it. I tried some of those chinese pills but I didn’t stick with them either. A friend mentioned Leptovox but I really have decided to avoid taking pills to lose weight because I take pills for my headaches too. I don’t want to have severe side-effects from chemical reactions of all the pills I’m taking.
Besides I hate drinking pills because it hurts my throat. I seriously have to get back to the gym. or I’ll be in trouble with my aunt. Lol.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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