Cakes tell stories

Step one: Follow the Recipe

After baking for a while, I've started to feel uncomfortable watching people bake without proper tools or instruction videos that don't include detailed ingredient weights, because it's hard for me to picture the process and final cake.

Still, I think a great baker goes beyond recipes, they taste, adjust, and learn through experience and creativity. As for me, my current mission is much simpler: follow the recipe properly and make something that actually work and build experience for future bakes so I can make them faster and more delicious.

I've tried baking with different techniques and tools. I've made cakes both with and without an egg beater, and I've experimented with changing some ingredients. Sometimes I joke that if I follow a recipe but only change the ingredients, will it still be successful? : D

Once, I followed a recipe to make a passion fruit mousse cake, but I decided to make a matcha mousse instead because matcha was what I had. I followed almost all the steps, only changing the main ingredient, pastry base and mold size. Since the cake seemed quite easy and I felt a bit confident, I didn't do everything very carefully the first time.

Everything felt right, but at the last minute, I added the remaining whipping cream because I didn't want to store it. The cake had two layers, and one turned out softer than the other. I kept wondering, how could the top layer be softer when I used the same amount of gelatin?

After thinking about it for a while, I realized why. It was a blunder when I added all whipping cream without noticing. Even though the amount of gelatin was the same, the amount of whipped cream was different LOL

I really like the technique used to make cream puffs, although I don't enjoy eating them that much. I'm especially fascinated by the process how the dough transforms through gelatinization, from dry flour into a partially cooked paste that later forms a hollow, airy interior when baked. It's a beautiful and interesting change, but also really technical, in my opinion.

Once, I tried to apply my physics knowledge: since the density of water is about 1 g/mL and the repcipe aslo mentioned as 250 mL (250 g water). However, when I made the dough using this conversion, it felt like there was too much water for the flour. I kept going anyway and the result was a failure. The dough turned out too limp to become a possible cake.

I made it again, this time using a volume measuring tool for 250 mL as the recipe intended and it worked. I could finally move on to the next step… LOL.

I'm not a big fan of crêpes either, and I haven't tried making them by myself yet, although I think I could do it successfully.

To me, the skills needed to make a sponge cake (or a birthday cake) include basic techniques like whisking egg whites, mixing the flour, and whipping cream. Once you follow the details carefully and succeed, baking other cakes becomes much easier, with a higher chance of success. This was also the first cake I tried and failed which became my motivation to come back, take my revenge on that cake and continue baking until now.

Sometimes, I even “review” my homework by watching MasterChef… LOL.

 

Hanoi, May 03, 2026