My first baking attempt here

Note that I used the word "attempt".

I have decided before I came here, that one of the things I wanted to do, was to bake. So with this "ambitious goal", armed with a "Fast Desserts" recipe book from Li Tiang, I set out to buy some baking stuff like measuring cups and spoons, a mixing steel bowl, a cake pan, and recently a 6 cup muffin pan.

My first "experiment" was, well, 50% satisfactory. I was trying to bake a "berry shortcake". It turned out the dough (obtained from mixing flour, butter, egg yolk, milk in a series of steps) was too soft, and I couldn't "gently gather the dough together, lift out onto a lightly floured work surface, and press together into a 16cm round and place on the tray"...Instead, the dough crumbled and broke into pieces, and I ended up scooping the remains together, and tried desperately to pat and mould them into a decent round shape, and stuffed it into the oven.

I had to bake it longer than what was indicated in the recipe book as it didn't look "cooked and golden" to me...and as expected, I also have a problem trying to "slice horizontally in half with a knife", but I managed to carve out the top to spread jam and scatter fresh strawberries, and dust icing sugar on top.

The taste test thereafter (me and HL, as I didn't want to embarrass myself by giving half of it to friends or neighbours, although it was too much for us to finish) surprisingly revealed that it was actually edible, although a little too saltish...

I think the main problem with this 1st "unsuccessful" attempt, besides my obvious lack of culinary skills and intuition, is that HL bought the "wrong" butter from the supermarket. It was not butter but a 65% vegetable oil spread that "tasted like butter without the cholesterol"!

For now, I am blaming it on the "butter"....but let's see what happens when I try to bake "chocolate muffins with choc-cherry ice cream - stay tuned...