Summer Can't End Just Yet! (An Unproductive Story)

I just spent my entire summer - wait for it - working!

Since I started working from home (which was about 2 years ago), I've always looked forward to summer. Not because of the outings. Not because of the sunshine. Not because school's out (which I am not affected by anyway).

It's because that's usually the time when I get to do stuff outside of work such as baking (or what looks like it), cleaning, organizing, playing with Yuri, and thinking of summer activities we can do together. This is because during this time (around May-ish), the essays on our queue start to decrease until they go down to zero. In other words, free time.

Our summer reading list - unread (and messy)

This year, though, the situation is different. Even when it's already mid-June (oh my, it is already?!), there are still so many essays on the queue. This means a lot of students are still submitting essays. And this is great! Because many essays = salary. I forgot to tell you that no work equates to no pay, too. However, I can't help but think of the things I planned to do for summer that I never got to do. Here they are:

1. The Moon Sand and Moon Dough Project

I've had the materials ready for quite some time now. I have a bag of cornstarch, flour, food coloring, and this:

Stolen borrowed sand

Yup, that's half a bucket of sand that we shamelessly stole got from Costa Marina. It was a good thing my cousins were there; they did the dirty job for me. Hahaha!

As I was saying, the materials are ready. The only thing missing is me actually mixing the stuff together. Ugh! I need to find time to make these before the weather starts becoming seriously rainy.

Baby Steps to Domesticity

I don't know how to cook.

Sure, I know how to make basic adobo or prito-prito, and I can whip up the most basic desserts and snacks, and while the interest and willingness to learn are there, what held me back from really learning how to cook are two things:

1. Our stove/oven is not in its perfect state. One can only use it using matches, and I'm a bit pyrophobic.

2. The measurements scare me.

Okay, I'm sure you weren't expecting the second reason, but if you were a keen observer, you would notice that all "lazy recipes" I posted didn't have actual measurements! In fact, what I did was only copy the recipes from the blogs I referred to (credited, of course), but what I did in reality was only estimate the measurements.

It would have been fine if the recipe only called for teaspoons and tablespoons, but what happens to recipes with actual required grams of ingredients? Scary.

But because I want to be a kitchen goddess someday and I cannot yet buy a new oven, I know I need to be a measurement maven (and only estimate when I already know what I'm doing!).

So when Tmart.com emailed me and asked me to review one of their products, I immediately chose to write about the kitchen scale.

I know, out of all the things to review, kitchen scale pa talaga? Well, the thing is I really want one and I don't have use for the other options anyway. Also, out of the options, it was the one I feel I could really use in the long run. And it's a decision I don't regret because the actual scale looked really good.

Presenting, the Tmart Kitchen Scale:

Thursday Breakfast: Imbento Brownies

Cheers to poorly-edited photos done in PicMonkey! - said the girl who has no Photoshop in her laptop.

This morning, Yuri slept in again. Because of the lack of time to prepare breakfast, I only prepared cereal with bananas. (No milk, just the way he likes it).

Follow me on Instagram: @maanlaxa

This time, though, he asked for something else. While dutifully spooning cereal into his mouth, he said, "Cake." "Ano?" I asked. He repeated, "cake." Uh-oh. Who am I not to oblige?

So after he finished breakfast and made some cuddle-time with me (I know, I know), and while he and his yaya were playing outside, I quickly surveyed the kitchen to see what I could come up with.

Since we already ran out of baking powder, a real cake was out of the question. Fortunately, we did have cocoa powder and the remains of a giant Beryl's Gourmet chocolate bar (yes, we regularly have those things), so I figured I could make some brownies. And hope for the best.

Like with all trying-hard recipes I post, this only took around 15 minutes and a microwave. Perfect for the lazy baker.

What you need:

Around 3 teaspoons melted butter

A chunk of dark chocolate, melted to look like this:

Melted chocolate. Mainit pa.

Around 2 tablespoons cream

4 tablespoons flour. Note to self: Buy mom decent flour canister. One we would actually use.

4 tablespoons Dutch Cocoa (or whichever you have)

We ran out of sugar na pala, so I used honey. 4 tablespoons

And poured the remaining of the milk. Around 3 tablespoons

I wanted to use vanilla, too, but I can't figure out where it is. That's always the problem whenever we do general cleaning. Di ko na makita yung mga gamit! Haha!

Anyway, like with all microwave-cake recipes, just mix them all into a batter. Then, I popped it into the microwave. High setting, 2 minutes. Here's a poorly-photographed slice from the brownie:

To my defense, I could not take a decent photograph because Yuri was already grabbing at my shirt to have a bite. I know it doesn't look much, and it doesn't even look appetizing, but trust me, they taste delish!

PS: All of the chocolates used in this recipe are dark. If you want something sweeter, feel free to choose your own kind of chocolates. Dance to your own tune. :-)

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Noob Baker: 5-Minute Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip Cake

Blogger confession: This post has been sitting in my drafts for, what, almost 3 weeks already! This is just to explain that since writing the initial draft, I've baked for several times na. Yabang ko lang no?

Now that we got that shameless confession out of the way, let me begin my story. Yuri is a picky eater. He doesn't care for rice much, but he loves other forms of carbohydrates: bread, pancit, cakes, biscuits, etc. He doesn't like sweets, but he does go overboard when I give him a slice of bread or cake. That's the point in my undomesticated life where I decided I should learn how to bake.

My mother is a superb baker. I kid you not. While there are very rare times when her baking fails (mostly due to our cranky oven), in the other 99% of the time, her cakes and pastries are flawless. Of course, I want to inherit her baking and cooking gene; I just didn't want have the patience to deal with an old oven and matches.

That's where I realized I can bake using our microwave oven! I've come across so many microwave cake recipes; I just wasn't interested before. What's stopping me now? So one day, when we had a bunch of bananas about to go overripe and a fresh jar of local peanut butter, I knew I just have to try.

Obviously, I was about to bake for the very first time: Peanut Butter Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips. I tweaked the recipe from here. Here are the ingredients:

The original recipe makes a cake in a mug, but that's not enough for us. So I doubled everything. I also removed the egg from the recipe.

• 8 Tablespoons Flour
• 8 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 5 Tablespoons Peanut Butter (Just a local brand from my parents' officemate)
• 2 Ripe Bananas
• 6 Tablespoons Milk (I used Oaties; I like its flavor)
• 4 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil (I used Canola)

If you notice, the photo above shows Cocoa Powder. I changed my mind after taking the photo because I wanted to make a plain peanut butter cake. I decided to use chocolate chips instead (not in photo).

Now, for the procedure. Actually, there's no procedure. Just mix everything into a microwaveable bowl! I mixed the dry ingredients first and added the liquids one by one.

Here's how the mixture looked like when I added the chocolate chips:



Then, just pop it into the oven. I was able to make enough for two medium-sized microwavable bowls. Please remember not to fill it more than halfway because the mixture will rise. Anyway, I just placed the setting on High and timed it for about 3 minutes (according to the microwave timer).

After pacing back and forth, wishing that what I just made is, at least, edible, here they are!



Lovely, peanut-buttery color!



And it's really moist and chewy ha, certainly not what I expected from a microwaved cake! Actually, my sister told me it reminds her of butterscotch brownies. Haba ng hair, sayo na ang korona!

For the taste test! It's sweet and really peanut-buttery. There is a slight hint of banana, and the chocolate chips (I used dark) balance the sweetness of the peanut butter. It had the seal of approval from my sister, who devoured the bowl in one sitting. What about my other cake connoisseur?

Please know that he sneezed in the photo above. His facial reaction is in no way related to the taste of the cake.

He liked it! Woot!

For the next several days, I baked some other stuff in my microwave. I baked a chocolate cake that had too much flour and too little sugar. Fail! But I baked another one to mask the failure haha.

 My brother and I also prepared pancakes. Well, it's not baking, but it has something to do with flour, right?

On a sidenote, I seriously love Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate, the box behind the regular Swiss Miss. It reminds me of local tablea! :-)

Of course, it would take a long time before I can copy my mother's famous Chocolate Moist Cake (no photo) or her muffins that rival Krispy Kreme's Kruffins:

Or our neighbor's fantastic special ensaymada:

Or a chocolate mousse cake, like this one from Bread Talk (which my parents got one day for absolutely no reason):

Nevertheless, it is addicting and is a great stress-reliever, so I'll keep trying! 

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