Baking 101

I am turning 35 on my next birthday. I guess when you reach a certain age, you start thinking of other ways to entertain yourself. You start to lose some of your old fears. You start to feel that it really wouldn’t kill you if you fail in this endeavor. You start to relax.

Honestly, I am still a bit far from that relaxing point. I still have my old fears in my baggage. But I am willing to try anything. So, I enrolled in a baking class for beginners. Baking 101 at Heny Sison Culinary School.

When I was growing up, I rarely helped in the kitchen. Of course, I did my share of housework, mostly cleaning my room, tidying up, an occasional laundry here and there, some ironing, and washing the dishes. But cooking was never really my cup of tea. I guess it’s because that was my mom’s turf. Although she was not a professional cook or anything fancy like that, she has, nevertheless, intimidated me. She has her own set of ways in the kitchen. And with my own Aries-like personality, I did not particularly appreciate being told what to do or otherwise. So I just let my younger sister help her out in that arena, and I was quite happy with just eating whatever they served.

Married life presented the kitchen as a challenge for me. Thankfully, my husband wasn’t really particular with his food. He was quite “tolerant” of my initial efforts in gastronomy. And since I love to read, I found the Cooking section of the bookstore my new hangout. Eventually, I learned a few recipes, but I was not 100% confident at all. I always had to have a “cheat-sheet” on hand, just to pull me through. I now have a small repertoire of tried-and-tested recipes for our daily menu ( menudo, sinigang, tinola, mechado, chopsuey, adobo, barbecue, pasta dishes, etc.) so I just check out the cookbooks when my husband complains (“Adobo na naman!”). I also tried some recipes for kids, which I would like to write about in another post.

That said, I thought I would go through my entire life without ever having to light up the oven. If I thought cooking was a challenge, baking was impossible. I don’t know really where I got the idea that baking was for those people who were born to cook (or bake, in this case.) They are those people who were exposed to cooking at an early age, had chefs for parents, or had the real passion for food. I love to eat cakes and cookies, of course (who doesn’t?) but I never thought I would ever have to bake one my whole life. Honestly. I mean I am quite contented with Red Ribbon’s Black Forest and sylvannas or Mrs. Fields’ chocolate chip cookies, why even bother baking my own?

Chef Vicki taught us the basics of baking. We were introduced to the Main Cast of ingredients: flour (all kinds: cake, all-purpose, bread, and specialized), sugar (white, brown, powdered), fats (butter, oil, margarine), flavors (extracts like vanilla, powders like chocolate or ube), eggs (whole, egg whites, egg yolks), thickeners (cornstarch, gelatin), chemical leaveners (baking powder, baking soda), alcohol (coffee liquers like Kahlua, brandy, etc.) , nuts (walnuts, pistachio, almonds, etc.). She lectured on how to handle the ingredients, how to store it, how long it may last, and how to find substitutes. (Trivia: Did you know that there is now an egg substitute in powder form which most large manufacturers use for their baked products? Just one example is the “just add water” kind of pancake mixes in the supermarket. And those big donut companies, they use egg powders, too! Hah!)

And like actors in theatre or movies, each ingredient plays a role in the whole baking process: toughener, tenderizer, moisturizer, leavener, drier, flavoring, preservative, etc. Some even perform multiple functions like the good ol’ egg, which acts as a leavener, tenderizer, moisturizer, toughener, and of course, a source of nutrients! Talk about versatility! Talk about multi-tasking!

Since baking is a process, we need tools. The oven, mixer and weighing scale need to be of good quality because they are the “heavy equipment” of the whole business. Then there’s another group of “supporting” tools like the spatula, whisk, wooden spoon, measuring cups and spoons. Hay, it was kind of overwhelming! I felt like a three-year-old who was shown all these toys to use for pretend play and I didn’t know what to use or how to use it.

It was a good thing that Chef Vicki, despite being a really professional chef, wanted an atmosphere of fun in her class. And boy, did we have fun! I guess that’s one of the good things about being in a beginners class – we all know we are all beginners, so there’s no pressure, no competition per se, no pretensions. Let’s face it, we’re idiots! So have a good laugh! Don’t take yourself or your cake too seriously. So my groupmates and I really laughed all the way while mixing the ingredients, kidded each others’ ineptness, and just had a rollicking good fun!


We just had one set-back when we over-mixed the egg white mixture and it became difficult to fold it in the egg yolk mixture of our chiffon. The cake (Ube Chiffon Cake) still turned out quite well that my two friends, Ycel and Sandy, who were the first outsiders to have a taste of the cake, gave it the thumbs-ups! (Na-impress sila, ha!)

At the end of the day, techniques were reviewed, lessons were learned from mistakes and mishaps, and new friendships were started in Baking 101. Who says you can’t bake a cake and eat it, too? I sure did! Yum!