The bake

Not all bakes turn out great, and this is proof of that. This weekend, I suggested to my boyfriend that we make the Japanese cheesecake loaf from Baking Day by Anna Olson, a book that he gave me for Christmas. It’s one of the recipes listed under “more involved,” which is the middle level of difficulty in the book. I felt confident we could handle it.

Well, I was wrong. We messed up with the egg whites. That much I know for sure. The consistency wasn’t right. I’m just not sure if we didn’t beat the eggs enough or if we beat them too much. At the time, I was sure we had over-beaten them, that they had collapsed. Figuring there was no way to fix this (unless we started from scratch), we continued. I thought the result would be a cake that was less light and fluffy, but I didn’t realize it would turn out so rubbery. The texture made it practically inedible. I think we’ll try the recipe again, after we’ve had more success with some other recipes first.

The book

I’m currently reading A Lover’s Discourse by Xiaolu Guo. This novel is about a woman who moves from China to London, England, to pursue her PhD. Both of her parents are dead, and she feels ready to leave behind her life in China to start a new one. When she gets to London, she is a bit lost and lonely, but soon meets a man whom she falls in love with. The novel is told in the second person, as the narrator addresses her partner, recalling pieces of conversations they’ve had. Thankfully, the book is much more palatable than the cheesecake was.