Failed choco pear cake

I started baking again... yay! The cake above looks good right? Unfortunately it didn't taste good. ;(

I had some friends over for dinner a few weeks back and I happened to have 2 very ripe, soft and juicy pears sitting in the fridge, so i thought of baking a chocolate pear pudding cake. I have done this cake twice before and both times turned out delicious.

However, this time round, I did not have some of the ingredients: self-raising flour, milk ... etc. But I had plain flour. Eh... no milk, but maybe I could put more eggs and melted butter instead?

I thought to myself: how bad could a chocolate cake be? And so I experimented.

Result: Epic fail. The cake did not rise, it was too oily (too much butter!) and dense.

My friends were too polite and nice to reject the cake and all of them ate their portions. I felt so bad to serve my guests a horrible cake. ;(

No more experimenting!

How much is "1 cup"???

The measurement of "1 cup" really baffles me! I just had a failed attempt at making Banana Cake. ;( Since it was a failed attempt, I'm too embarrassed to post any pic.

The recipe called for 2 cups of plain flour. My measuring cup indicated that 1 cup = 200 ml. But when I googled "1 cup", WikiAnswers and many various websites indicated 1 cup = 236 ml or 240 ml. Then there were also websites that indicated 1 cup = 250 ml. Well, I figured that 10 ml shouldn't make too much of a difference. So I used 480 ml (2 cups) of flour.

But as I was folding the flour into the wet mix, I knew that something was wrong. The mixture was too dry... but I didn't know what I should add to a dry mixture. More eggs? More yogurt? More milk? I had no clue...

Since I was already "committed" to making the Banana cake, I might as well finished it, dry mixture or not, I simply just put it in the oven and hoped for the best...

As expected, the cake turned out to be too dry. So... maybe I should have used 200 ml = 1 cup instead?

I am so confused.... I guess I just have to try another time to figure it out!

Bleeding Blueberries Muffins! I like...

Check out my little strawberries muffin cups. They are so cute, aren't they?!

Got some leftover dark choco chips... don't waste.

How do you like your muffins?

Above pictures are my 2nd batch of muffins. The 1st batch tasted pretty horrible because I didn't cream the butter and sugar before I mixed all the ingredients. The result: sticky muffins.... which I really don't like. But I gave them to my neighbours anyway. Haha!

I like my muffins soft and buttery, almost like little butter-cakes in a cup. So, for my 2nd batch, I ensured that the butter and sugar were sufficiently creamed. All light and fluffy before I folded in the remaining ingredients.

Blue berries and dark choco chips actually worked! Heh... and I got what I wanted. Light, buttery little muffins... Yum. So much happier with the 2nd batch.

Now... I have some apples sitting in the fridge, as well as a spare packet of walnuts. I'm thinking of making apples+roasted walnuts muffins for breakie tomorrow...