having lived in England for 2 and 1/2 years I grew very fond of baked goods and making my own baked goods! Scones, cakes, muffins, the English definitely loved their baked goods and so do I. I loved making everything from scratch in England and how delicious things tasted. Here in China if you buy any type of bakery from a store it's always a let down. There just isn't much flavor and something isn't right.
The beauty in England was I had a massive kitchen - my oven had a regular oven, a convection oven and a broiler compartment. While they may have been small - to the extent a 9x13 pan barely fit, having the 3 options was really nice! I also had 6 gas burners, which was amazing. The great thing was I was working from home and didn't have to start work until noon so I was able to experiment with a lot of different recipes and I loved that.
Now, I'm in China and this time I have no job, no responsibilities... what's a girl who just found a love for baking to do.... well you'd think bake but yep, it's not so much fun here. For starters we have 1 oven compartment and in fairness it's the same size as 1 of the England compartments which is okay, I got used to that, however there are twisty dials for temperature, timing and what setting you need. Not cool!
The dial on the left is the timer - the oven does not turn on unless the timer is on. (I don't understand, it just doesn't.)
The middle dial is the temperature - it's a best guess these days, there are degrees in Celsius but they never seem to actually be what temperature you're looking for. Things are burning up at low temps!
The dial on the right is the setting - do you just want a light, or a fan or the broiler? This dial needs to go all the way around to actually get some heat in the oven... another thing I don't understand but I just accept.
Okay so now we've got all the equipment basics nailed down we're ready to rock and roll! The first 3 months here I didn't buy any flour and planned not to bake. To buy any products I recognized like flour and sugar the price seemed astronomical. 2 weeks ago I caved and bought a bag of flour.
This 5lb bag ran me a little over $10USD. I cringed but desperate times call for desperate measures and I really needed a chocolate chip cookie!
Ever since I've been on a baking streak - I made chocolate chip cookies, Vegan double chocolate cookies, banana bread and this morning I tried some oatmeal blueberry muffins. The vegan cookies weren't bad - Bill ate the entire dozen in 2 days and I told him it was okay because they were healthy! The expat girls here keep telling me about this bakery store that sells flour and pans etc so I need to go exploring and try it out. We even made homemade pizza dough this weekend and man was it good!
The only caveat is I currently have to bake in the morning because our kitchen doesn't have AC so if I try to bake in the afternoon/evening the kitchen is like a sweat shop and the dining room/living room heat up as well. Plus with my heat experiences lately we're not taking any chances so mornings only.
I really need the gym to open back up so I have a morning hobby instead of baking! Oh and these muffins were fantastic with a big cuppa coffee!
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