Baking = Updating

Spent my whole afternoon making Mah Lai Ko - a great way to de-stress! One thing that I need to mention, I've never tried Mah Lai Ko and have no idea how it should taste like. Nevertheless, I was pretty confident with my Mah Lai Ko (after watching a video demonstrating the whole process). Everything went on smoothly - from beating egg whites to become fluffy (for the very first time in my life!), to folding in the dry ingredients, up till proofing for an hour. And then, something totally went wrong....The recipe I followed stressed that the mixture should be steamed on 蒸笼， or a cakepan with removable bottom lined with baking paper to allow the cake to rise properly and to prevent "granules" in the mixture from sinking at the bottom. Being a rookie that has never lined a baking mould,I successfully prepared a lined cakepan after a few failed attempts. After pouring the mixture in, there comes the problem - how am I going to transfer the cake pan into the steamer? (note that, it's bottomless, and I only got a baking paper to support the bottom) It ended up that I almost spilled the mixture. Lucky enough that the mixture was viscous, I managed to save it, but the baking paper came off the cakepan and can no long hold the mixture. After all the mess, I was so upset and thought of giving up. Skipping the upset part, eventually I managed to make another lined cake mould, poured in the mixture and popped it (lol, masterchef gary and george like to use this word) in the steamer.

And here's the product:

It raised so beautifully in the steamer, but collapsed once taken out from the steamer >.<

Look at those big holes!!!! Damn ugly urgh......Just a guess - the mixture was supposed to stand for 1 hour before steaming to allow fine bubbles to form. I probably lost the fine bubbles during the transferring-pouring-spilling-transferring-pouring of the mixture, thus affecting bubble formation and therefore the ugly texture?

It was also a bit dry...If there is next time, I would just use the whole can of evaporated milk!

Fer's comment: Dry and it tastes just like traditional chinese "steamed egg cake". (anO's comment: Lol, probably I used normal brown sugar instead of "black sugar" (I have no idea what it is) or gula melaka, thus it lacks the fragrance from sugar.)

Xiao gu's comment: Dry and not sweet enough (anO's comment: I think the sweetness is just right, that I can have the second and third serve.)

Er gu: no comment (anO's interpretation - no comment = not good)

Nevertheless, it has spongy texture - me likes very the muchie! Six of us finished three quater of it. The last quater is in the fridge now, according to the recipe author, it would taste better and more moist the next day.....*fingers crossed*

In case you dunno how Mah Lai Ko should look like, here's the author's Mah Lai Ko....
献丑了~

Lesson of the day: 天将降大任于是人也，必先若其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为

____________________________________________________

Ahh, the banana muffin I baked with jono~
An easy-baked muffin. It tastes alright, right moisture, right texture, right flavour, right sweetness. The only thing that doesn't go right is that anO doesn't like banana la.........(But I like m'sia cheap banana cake~)