Effects of High Humidity on Baking

I've asked this question before at a food forum a while back when I first moved to Bali, but unfortunately I didn't get definite answers though one person did offer recipes from PR. Most of the suggestions geared towards other facts affecting baking. At least the people at my favorite food forum had some good general tips and weren't insulting like some of the comments I ran into when I googled. I'm coming back to this issue again because I noticed that the results I'm getting still aren't that great compared to back in US. Of course the quality of the ingredient, oven temperature, quality of the recipe, etc. can have huge effects on the result of the cake so I have focused on and more or less fixed those issues (oven thermometer, best ingredients possible, use proven recipes, etc.), but I'm not 100% satisified with the results of the cakes.

My concern was further validated when I bake the family's favorite Japanese cheesecake for my parents in US. The recipe was exactly the same as the one I used in Bali, but the result was 100% better. Flavor was still more or less the same, but the texture was so much better. It was fluffy, light, yet moist without being wet. It was perfect.

I noticed some common features seen with my own baking here, especially recipes that used chemical leaveners:

-Baking time is a lot longer than it supposed to be.
-Crust is almost always a lot lighter in color instead of golden brown.
-Crust tends to be sticky even though the cake is done.
-The cake doesn't rise properly which makes the cake heavy and coarse.

Interestingly enough other people living in high humidity environment also have similar issues so I know my observations are valid. To get around some of the problems, I've pretty much go with mostly sponge cake recipes, but the problems still present to a certain degree.

Well, I suppose the temporary solution is to avoid certain recipes and hope eventually I'll get my own climate controlled kitchen instead of baking out in the open. I do want to know the science behind this issue and how to adjust my recipes/techniques to compensate the high humidity.

Haha, I'm treating this like the science experiements I used to do.

長崎蛋糕

A few weeks ago on our way to (and then back) Cape Cod for my brother's wedding, we stopped by our favorite Japanese shopping center across the Hudson River from NY (you can see Columbia University from the shopping center). I was admiring all the Japanese sweets (well, food in general) the place had to offer. Besides the usual obanyaki that my dad always buys whenever we go to this store (childhood favorite of his), there were some ultra fancy sweets as well.

Now I want to make the Japanese style sponge cake called Kasutera, or Castella, or 長崎蛋糕. It's interesting that this cake is a 16th Century Portuguese import to Nagasaki. I think the honey cake recipe my mom gave me is actually related to kasutera, but I want to try a few recipes out as well as find some actual kasutera while in Japan.

Mitsuwa Marketplace
595 River Road
Edgewater, NJ 07020

Extra Donut!

Ba and I went to the local donut shop today. We wanted to get half a dozen because Ma isn't much of a donut person so that would leave us two eating all the donuts. Ba wanted one chocolate donut and I wanted two chocolate cream. I then asked for three French cruller. I was tempted to say four because there were four left on the rack. The lady serving us put four French cruller into the box, but we didn't think about it until we got home. It turned out we got seven donuts instead of six. I wonder if she did that intentional or not.

Yay, French Cruller!

I did a weekend trip to NYC about a week ago. I should post something about it here soon because we ate a lot of good food there.

Wow, 3+ months already?!

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog for months now. I was rather busy for the past few months though so I actually have a real excuse. Hehe. Now that I'm in US, I should be able to post more entries in this blog. So far I've been eating a lot of home cooking. Good stuff! I really miss having veggies and salads, something that I definitely don't get enough in Bali.

Quick Reviews - By the Docks (crab cakes) and Margaret Kuo (Chinese food)

I've been wanting to write up reviews for some the restaurants we went to while I was in US, but I'm lazy to write up full articles. Instead I'll just write a few short blurbs.

Ma, Ba, and I went to an outlet mall in Lancaster, PA to do some shopping, and for dinner they decided to drive all the way down to Baltimore, MD for crab cakes. Ba took us to one in Aberdeen a few years back which was pretty good, but fairly recently his colleagues recommend this place By the Dock Restaurant and Lounge (3321 Eastern Blvd, Middle River, Maryland 21220). This place was packed with people even around five in the afternoon. This place is famous for their crab cakes so we ordered two single crab cake dinner (one fried and one baked) and crab stuffed with shrimp platter. The waitress even suggested that I order the baked one for extra crab flavor (more crab meat and less filling) The dish came with baked potato, a gigantic crab cake, and salad. The portion was huuuuuuuuge! Even though we skipped lunch, we still couldn't finish all the crab cakes. The crab cakes were very flavorful and choke full of real, fresh crab meat. At around $16 per plate, it was a very good deal. I also ordered the French onion soup which was very hardy and very, very tasty, full of beefy, oniony, cheesy flavor. Definitely the best crab cakes in MD, and I loved it even though I'm generally not a fan of crabs.

My sister took us to Margaret Kuo's (175 E. Lancaster Ave. Wayne, PA), a very fancy Chinese restaurant, to celebrate her promotion at work. We ordered a bunch of dimsum and other Chinese snacks and well as sukiyaki from their upstairs Japanese section (The Akari Room). All the dishes were very well made and tasted very fresh. The dishes are like the refined version of snacks found in other Chinese restaurants. The sukiyaki consisted of lots of veggies, noodles, tofu, and thinly sliced Kobe beef. I noticed the cooking sauce was different compared to the ones I had before, and the waiter said the broth they used for the sauce is vegetable broth instead of bonito broth. All this tastiness came at a very high price, but it was well worth it considering the ambiance, the service, and the food were all top notch. I think we were treated extra well because we spoke Chinese. Haha. I was amused by a couple things in the restaurant. The gong was sounded to announce the arrival of Peking duck and the waiter carved the duck in front of the table who order the dish. We also had a very friendly chat with the manager (who is also a Taiwanese?) of the restaurant. She recommended the turnip cake, and when she found out my mom can make Chinese snacks (particularly the turnip cake), she asked for the recipe.

Too bad Wid missed both the awesome crab cakes and the Kobe beef sukiyaki because he had to go back to Bali early.

Beef Ribs at Warisan

The four of us (Wid, his bro, bro's wife, and I) went to Warisan to check out their beef ribs after we heard good things about this dish. We ordered the three person portion of the dish which came with 1.75 kg Black Angus beef ribs, salad, and French fries. We also ordered the French onion soup, warm shredded duck salad, a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, dessert platter, and some sort of cold vegetarian lasagna with balsamic vinaigrette which turned out to be a salad layered with flat noodles (looked like wonton skin to me). The onion soup was all right (I had better, like the one from By the Docks in Maryland) but I think their garlic soup is still much better. Too bad the garlic soup isn't in their regular menu anymore.

The main even was the beef ribs and they were wonderful!! I have to say it's the best beef I had in Bali so far. The meat was tender, juicy, and very flavorful, both smoky and beefy. The raw material itself was high quality and the chef did an excellent job of cooking the meat. The red wine complemented the meat perfectly. I also thought they did an excellent job of cooking the French fries. The desserts were great as usual and it's always good to end a meal on a high note.

The meal for the four of us ended up costing around 2 million rp. Most of the cost came from the beef (990,000 rp) and the wine (440,000 rp), but it was well worth the price because we had an excellent time and the food was fantastic. This meal was definitely much better than my previous experience at Warisan (they ran out of duck confit and the duck dish I ended up ordering was so salty that I couldn't eat it). I still don't know what happened with the previous time because all the other times we've been to Warisan, we had really excellent food.

I told Wid's dad about our experience and now he wants to try the beef. Hehe.

Maranatha

For future reference:

Maranatha
Jl. Gatot Subroto No. 100 Ka(?) 3
Denpasar, Bali

Tel: 0361-236337

Excellent pao/bao place. I ate the mung bean one and Bonnie was eyeing the pao the whole time. Silly doggie, buns aren't for dogs.