Baking Brownies, Um, I mean Chocolate Cake

I make brownies every now and again. It's the recipe from the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. It is my favourite recipe because it is simple and produces excellent results with very little effort. The only problem I have with it is that I lack nerve and therefore I fail every once in a while to pull the tray out of the oven in time (in my oven that usually means 20 minutes) when I use the usual (6" by 9") heavy pan I have.

If everything goes as planned in the preparation, and I do remember to keep an eye on the clock then I usually manage to steel myself and turn the oven off on time so that I get the brownies I prefer: slightly fudgy and extremely chocolate-ly (thanks in no small measure to substituting Van Houten's cocoa powder for cooking chocolate mixed into the flour. Van Houten's cocoa also happens to be remarkably cost-effective and I have yet to taste better results from any other chocolate or cocoa).

For anyone who has never baked brownies, but has tried baking cakes, the reason why this is unnerving is that brownies are best taken out when still not quite cooked which means the skewer test does not work unlike with cakes. It seems as if one is not fully cooking the batter and one will end up with partially cooked batter instead of squidgy brownies. Usually I manage to resist the pressure to leave it in longer and get my preferred result.

However, this time, I lost my nerve again because instead of consulting the recipe and going by the book, I decided to wing it and see I could remember the recipe. I did. I managed to remember all the ingredients and weighed them all out accurately. I managed to remember that half a cup of butter meant 4 ounces of butter duly melted in the microwave. And so on. The only thing I did different was the sequence in which I usually put in the ingredients. I reversed the usual sequence of mixing in the cocoa-flour mixture and the melted butter. The result: the batter ended up looking and tasting remarkably like chocolate butter cream. It usually looks a lot darker and has a stiffer consistency.

So instead of baking it for the usual 20 minutes at 180 C, I ended up leaving it in for 25 minutes and turned off the over and left it in for another 10 minutes. To those of you who are wondering how on earth I managed to make the logical leap to conclude that baking it longer will cure the batter of this error, I can only say, I thought that since it was more creamy than it was supposed to be, I should bake it longer as it would be impossibly smudgy otherwise.

The result: chocolate cake. It doesn't taste bad at all. It's a decent chocolate cake. But it is not a pan of brownies. I shall now have to rescue it by mashing raspberries and serving that along side the cake to make up for that. That of course is simply an excuse for eating up the glorious tangy raspberries with chocolate, one of my favourite ways of eating chocolate.

An Ode to the Christmas Crib

My attempt at reviving my poetry writing exercises for practice. A Pindaric Ode anyone?

A mother young, a mother poor

Rushing round with husband dear.

For contractions came too soon for home

The star - kissed night draws clear.

Poor husband's fraught and strained

And then at last, a crack of hope

A manger, straw, ox. Now we can cope.

Cash registers ring. The date draws near.

Shoppers pile up gifts for kith and kin dear.

The turkey roasted fat. The drinks foam.

All it seems is cheer. Trees glitter, children roam.

Excess rules the day. The side show becomes the main

Event. We all join in the refrain

Of winter wonderland while places we "chope"

In the Christmas show down Orchard Road.

Has the child been forgotten in the fear

Of being alone? And Silent Night turned rowdy cheer?

And why are there, in tropical heat, foam

flecked reindeer frozen outside a mall on a dome?

Even for those who choose to drain

Belief from their lives, still acclaim

Christmas. The hope that fights the nope

Of modernist thought. And for that magic they grope.

Note: "chope" means to reserve. Translated from the Singlish to English. Orchard Road is the glittering main shopping street in Singapore.

Pack Leader

I have been fascinatedly reading a book by Cesar Millan on dog training. Being the proud and happy owner of two dogs, I have belatedly recognised I have been baby-ing my dogs when what they need is a pack leader. I was transferring my emotional needs to them and it was not bringing out the best in either myself or them. It is not that I did not realise that I should be alpha dog, but that I never realised how far I had to go and what exactly I needed to do to maintain my status as alpha dog. And most of all, that I had to let them be dogs. And that I had to be me, but clearly in charge.

I have tried training a previous dog formally before in an obedience course, but I suspect some trainers do not actually know much more than I do. At one point, the trainer took it upon himself to demonstrate how I *should* be doing it. I saw my dog yanked so hard on a choke chain he literally spun around in mid air, and the trainer who did that, did not even realise this had happened as he had made a U turn and the dog had continued to walk in the other direction. Fortunately the dog wasn't hurt but I dropped out of the course immediately simply to save my dog from further mishaps. I decided that although I may not be a so-called expert, I had probably do better trying to discipline my dogs myself at home.

But as I devoured this book by Cesar, I realised that through the marketing hype, he was actually a keen observer of not just the dogs but the human owners and the bond that exists between dogs and human beings. And it was this that really persuaded me to try it out.

So this morning, I took his advice, ensured my dogs were calm with their leashes on before I opened the gate to take them walking. And that I exited first and that they ran behind me. And I have to say, it worked like a charm. They simply accepted it, much to my astonishment.

So I'm going to keep trying new ways of working with my dogs, to test this method and see if it continues to work or if I just got lucky this morning.

A Sketch for a Smile

I was looking around for an empty table laden with my tray of lei cha fan (Thunder Tea Rice, a Hakka dish of rice with vegetables, anchovies, tofu, peanuts and a green tea mix of spices and herbs), and the middle aged Chinese man (whom I think was in his early 50s) seated at the table nearest to the stall, said cheerily to me, you can sit if you want. It was in Suntec City so the people were all largely office workers or people attending the conventions nearby.

His accent was not local. It didn't sound mainland Chinese either although I could be wrong, so he was either more cosmopolitan than I thought or someone from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China who had spent some time in the US and learned his English from US teachers as the accent had just that hint of the American.

Now, if you've lived in Singapore for any length of time, you'll realise that Singaporeans are not given to showing much cheery politeness to passing strangers. They're a kind hearted lot, but rather gruff. So I was surprised and of course accepted. It would have been terribly rude not to under the circumstances.

I sat there, wolfing down my lei cha fan, but politely trying not to meet his eye which meant I had to keep my eyes lowered since he was directly across me. I'm not the sort who's much into small talk and while he seemed nice enough, I didn't feel I should oblige him to making conversation when he'd already been so kind as to offer me a seat at his table in a semi-crowded food court.

As I was halfway through, I finally looked up and he and I made some conversation about the food we were eating since we had both chosen the same dish from the same stall. Then he reached into his black bag on the table next to his empty bowl, and he took out a piece of rough paper, (obviously recycled from a printer with one side printed and two holes punched in the side) and a black felt tipped pen. He proceeded to start sketching.

I could not at first tell whom he was sketching and asked if he was an artist. It turned out he was an engineer, apparently a mechanical and structural one (presumably he meant just mechanical). He said he was sketching the girl behind as she looked sad and he wanted to make her smile.

I glanced behind me, while trying to make it look casual, and yes, there was a young woman seated behind, Chinese Singaporean no doubt with long hair and dark rimmed glasses and pale skin. She looked serious and intent on her food.

He said he would give her the sketch when he was done and it would make her happy. She was so sad, according to him. As she was finishing, he hurried his sketch and in the meantime, while his pen was flying across the paper, he said that I should give it to her since then not just he and the girl would be happy but I would too. I was intrigued and amused. The thought did cross my mind that he might be trying to pick her up but as it was a fairly imaginative way of getting a girl's attention, and he did not seem pushy, I agreed. I became his wingman, in a sense.

I took his sketch, got up and sat in the chair across from her and put the sketch on the table in front of her, saying, this is for you. It's a portrait of you. I waited a short while for that to sink in and as she took up the piece of paper, said with a wave in the direction of the artist, and here is the man who drew it for you. He said he wanted to make you happy as you looked sad so he drew this for you.

She was surprised at first and took the paper up and took a closer look. At first she said, it doesn't look like me, which was somewhat discouraging for the hapless artist, but after staring at it for a few more minutes, a shy smile spread across her face and she looked up to the artist and asked if she could keep it. Naturally he said she could. And to those who were wondering, at no point did he try and give or ask for either of our contact numbers or elicit any personal information, so I think he really was doing it out of a desire to make us smile and nothing more.

I have to say he was right, he made three people happy. It kinda lit up my day and I'm sure it did hers too. It set me at ease and maybe that's why he did it. A gesture of grace and artistry stretched across an ordinary day and suddenly it was filled with light and laughter again. From the kindness of a stranger with whom I had the luck to share a table.