The Lemon Tea Cake

The other day I was making Lemon tea cake, thanks to the lockdown and exams getting postponed I got some good opportunity to enhance my bakery skills. Moreover, around that time everyone was doing some sort of bakery and why should I stand out of the herd? This was not the first time I was attempting the lemon Tea cake. So, I took all the ingredients and started the process. The last time my batter mix was bit more of liquid state. I was scared thinking I failed. But to my surprise the cake turned out quite better than my expectations, it was spongy and quite bit of Lemon-ey (Lemon-ey? What kind of word is it or is it not? whatever). Today I was somewhat more charged up to do something better than the last time. Today I did everything to make it even better. The batter was fine as per the video instructions and the smell of the lemon was even perfect.

I was pumped up as I knew this would turn out to be better than the last one. I put on the pressure cooker and started pre-heating it. I put the batter into the round shaped mould previously greased it with butter and all-purpose flour. I put the cake mould into the cooker and let it bake. I was so confident of it that I didn’t even bother to check it out. After good some 25-30 minutes, I thought of checking it, but to my surprise the cake didn’t rise as I expected. In previous attempt, the batter in spite of being in liquid state, it rose to certain height but this time it didn’t even bother to rise more than the boundaries of the mould. Of course, I was disappointed. I started watching the video again and again to see where I made the mistake. I couldn’t find it. I was annoyed, there has to be some point where I did things wrong but I couldn’t find any (I swear, not boasting).

My father while eating the cake said it’s not as good as the last one. I snapped. He asked me “Do you know where did you go wrong?” I said “I just couldn’t find any mistake, I did everything as per the instructions but still couldn’t find any mistake”. He said “Happens” and he went off.

After sometime I let it go. I followed the process but still couldn’t get the desired results and I agree that it’s a real bummer. But you got to be okay with it. Even with the most exact process you can’t get desired results. And sometimes even half exact process can get you the desired result. The character lies in keep working hard for it independent of the result. So will try the lemon Tea cake again in a day or two.