Testing, testing...

You may have noticed that my oven and I do not get on very well. It doesn't like it when I try to my own thing. It refuses to work at the temperature I want it to cook at, and seems to work on it's own time scale. Hence my baking efforts since arriving in Japan have ended up either burned, undercooked, or flat as a pancake, and quite frankly it's embarrassing. I CAN bake, honestly. But here I am, apologising about the state of every offering I put before my guests...

So I've started experimenting. The oven came with a handbook packed with recipes that are pre-programmed into the oven. I have to say, the photos do not really do anything to tempt me into trying them out. But today it was getting near 10 o'clock and I had three hungry boys in the house, so I decided to try out the scone recipe (I made scones my way (actually, Mary Berry's way) a few months ago and they were dreadful - it took 40 minutes for them to cook through, and by that time they were dry as a bone). Half an hour later...



...they turned out perfectly! In fact, they were really light, absolutely scrummy! So I then decided to try out Nigella's Coca Cola cake using the automatic cake setting (using steam). Not so good. Came out rather flat and dense, and had to cook it for an extra 15 minutes. (Still got eaten, though - can't have cake go to waste, now can we?) Grrrrr.

Anyway, I would like to reassure any of you who are unfortunate enough to find yourselves round my place at tea time that I WILL master the use of this oven, eventually, oh yes I will! Mama & Me mums, you will not always have to smile politely and eat around the burnt bits. Really, I can bake:



See?