China on Joshy Orndorff .eth

Baking Cake in a Rice Cooker

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 06:22:39 +0000

In this simple How-To, I will show how to use a rice cooker to bake (yes bake!) a cake. The rice cooker is not superior or preferred to an actual oven, but if you find yourself without an oven, this method might save you. It’s also fun to try.

Step One -- Get the Supplies

To begin with, we have to get the supplies necessary to make the actual cake. This is pretty simple in theory, but depending on where you are it may be hard to find a cake mix.

You'll need:

1 rice cooker
1 cake Mix
2 or 3 eggs (see the instructions on the cake mix)
Oil
Icing (optional, but recommended)

There are parts of the world where it is easy to find a cake mix, and there are parts of the world where it is easy to find a rice cooker, but, in my experience, those areas do not overlap. So you might want to do a little planning in advance to be sure you can find everything you need.

Step Two -- Bake

After you have all of the supplies necessary, you can mix the cake batter as described on the cake-mix box. The directions should be pretty straight-forward, and only take a minute or two. When the badder is ready, pour it into the rice pot and put it in the cooker. At this point you have to choose a cook setting. If you have a fancy rice cooker, you may get to choose from lots of different settings for harder rice, or softer rice. And if you have a very high-end cooker, you may even have a bake setting. But if your cooker is like mine, then the only cook setting you have is “on”. While the simple on/off configuration, may limit the cookers versatility, it makes the task of choosing a setting quite simple. Push the switch to on, and get ready.

Step Three -- Continue Baking

Rice cookers are built to automatically turn off when the rice inside of them is ready. This task is accomplished (as far as I can tell) by continually testing the density of the pot’s contents. Of course cake cooks up to be a different density than rice, so the auto-shutoff mechanism may go off at the wrong time. When the cooker turns off, check the consistency of the cake by poking it with a toothpick or chopstick. If any cake sticks to the probe, it needs more baking.

At this point you have to find a way to force the cooker to stay on. You may be able to manually hold the button, or use tape. The important thing is to be resourceful. In my case, I was able to hold the switch to the on position using a huge bottle of fish oil, and an empty 630mL beer bottle. Do whatever it takes.

Step Four -- Ice and Enjoy

When you determine that the cake is done you can take it out of the cooker and let it cool. After a few minutes you can ice it, and then enjoy!

Tip: In sticking with the rice cooker theme, you may choose to eat the cake with chopsticks. Although, if you aren’t Asian this can turn out to be a mess. :)

I hope your cake turns out to be delicious!

Pearl River Cruise

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:04:06 +0000

This will probably be my last Gallery of China pictures. Toward the end of the semester I went on a river cruise with Tim, Sunny, our friend Anna, my friend Johnny, and his girlfriend. We were walking to the dock when a woman approached us and offered us a better deal to take her cruise line instead. So she crammed us into the back of her van and drove us to another dock up the river. In China that is a legitimate offer rather than a sure way to get jumped and maybe killed. We sat on the back deck of the boat. It was a fun night and the city lights looked really cool.

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Dragon Boats

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:41:37 +0000

After a few foiled attempts to see the dragon boat races, we were finally moderately successful this weekend. But the rain was not messing around. The races ended early, but I still got to see some boats in action, and get some photos.

Photos:

Opera House

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:07:29 +0000

Over the holiday break I went walking around the opera house with Sunny and Yoyo. Of course we didn’t go inside because that requires buying a ticket to the opera. And we have neither the class nor the money for that kind of thing :) But the building is really cool, so we took some pictures outside, and some pictures at other nearby locations.

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American Jazz Show

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:00:28 +0000

My friend Yoyo (that of course is her English name) found some info about a concert that was happening at one of the many parks in Guangzhou. It was a band form America who was in town on part of an international tour. It was a small band and I have no idea how they set up an international tour. Maybe it was more of a vacation and they were booking some shows to cover some of the expenses. In any case, we showed up to the park and the place looked deserted. We asked some guards and they kept pointing us in the same direction, and eventually we got there. It was a little hall/venue that seated about 200 people, and the band was pretty good. They played long jazz songs and a few sets. Our crew was Me, Yoyo, Sunny, Tim, and a new friend named Nicole.

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Things to do in America

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:57:29 +0000

I periodically think of something that I want to do when I get home, or that I have missed while I’ve been here, and I think to myself, “Oh, I should remember that for when I get home”. And I inevitably forget whatever it was. Now that I’m actually getting close to being home I decided to make a list and put it up here. I’m sure I’ll be adding to it in the next days, and If you have any suggestions for additions, let me know.

Update: Well, I didn’t quite finish all of the things on the list, but I made some pretty good headway, and did a few things that weren’t officially on the list either. That’s pretty good considering how most of my to-do lists go.

~~Eat Mexican Food~~
~~Drive the Mustang~~
~~Rescue the data from my dying hard drive~~
~~Listen to my American Pearl CD~~
Work on the ImageDesign website
~~Design and~~ print business cards for my web-design project
~~Go Sailing~~
~~Repay at least one student loan~~
~~Get a motorcycle~~ and cruise
~~Watch a video that George suggested~~ (video used to be available at http://technology.todaysbigthing.com/2010/06/14, but now that link redirects.)

GuangDong (广东) Musuem

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:35:48 +0000

This was a trip with Tim, Brian, Jasmine, and Galon to the new museum downtown. It has a lot of interesting historical displays, and natural history stuff too. The building is really new and fancy. Afterward we went out to an delicious lunch courtesy of Galon!

In retrospect, I should have gotten more people shots, and fewer museum shots.

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Baiyun Mountain (白云山)

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:20:27 +0000

This was a Saturday morning trip with Tim, Jasmine, and her friend Galon. We hiked (which was more of a casual walk) up the mountain (which was more a big hill), and hung out on top for a while. There were lots of stores, restaurants, and activities on top, and we spent a few hours there. The highlight for me was bungee jumping which is terrifying. It feels like you’re falling forever, and nothing is going to catch you even though the harness is strapped on the whole time.

I don’t have any pictures of the bungee jumping, but a video will be coming soon(ish).

Photos:

HuangPu Port

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:07:08 +0000

I went with Brian and some of his friends from his QQ group to the huangpu port. There are a bunch of little shops, restaurants, and fruit stands. There are also a lot of fields, and it feels like you’re in the traditional Chinese countryside rather than a few kilometers outside of Guangzhou. The restaurant where we had lunch in located behind several fields and banana farms, and we got to see the guy go get our goose from the field before he cooked it.

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Hong Kong Trip

Tue, 11 May 2010 10:49:59 +0000

This album is a selection of pictures from my weekend trip to Hong Kong. We took a bullet train into Shenzhen, China, which is the city in mainland China that is directly adjacent to Hong Kong. We stayed there during the nights, and went to Hong Kong during the days. The city is sweet. It is a really interesting blend of western and eastern culture. The crazy part is that almost nobody speaks “Chinese” (ie mandarin) there, so any chinese that we picked up was totally useless. There are some pretty cool pics I think. Hopefully this album isn’t too big for you to get through, but I thought the city was really cool.

Photos:

Another Walking Trip

Sun, 09 May 2010 04:59:59 +0000

This is a pretty short gallery. Basically I just went out walking one weekend when I was trying to have cheap fun. As usual I found some interesting stuff.

Photos:

Five Goat Statue and Others

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:02:37 +0000

These pictures are the fruit of another walking adventure I went on with Tim. We went to Yuexiao park and walked around for a while, and saw the famous five goat statue. I had never heard of this before coming here, but there are billboards around town showing famous things from all over the world including the statue of liberty, the Sydney opera house, and the five goat statue, so I guess it’s a big deal. We also saw the site of an ancient Chinese tomb and the stuff that was extracted from it. Some of that was cool, and some of it was a little oversold. But the tomb itself was cool. Afterward we walked around town for a while and bought some cooked ostrich eggs from a street vendor and some boba tea. Then on to poker.

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Tianhe Park (天河公园) and Brian

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:58:30 +0000

A few weeks ago a new foreign teacher came. I met him at Tianhe park and we looked around and explored a little bit.

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Tianhou Palace (南沙天后宫) and Jasmine

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:16:01 +0000

My friend Tim was invited to go with his school’s principal and her family to see a temple in the far south part of town on Tomb Sweeping Day. He invited me to come along, and we got up early on our vacation day to meet the family. Jasmine, spoke great English and served as our tour guide. Her parents did not speak English, but with body language and a little translation, we could communicate just fine. The temple is filled with superstitious tradition that will supposedly bring good luck, and Jasmine didn’t hesitate to shell out a bit of cash to ensure that she would indeed have good luck. Tim and I did. The place was gorgeous and was right on the sea.

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Shamian Island (沙面岛)

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:29:16 +0000

Saturday (3 April) Tim and I took a walking trip around an area of town that is pretty close to my house. We found a pedestrian mall, tons of jade jewelry stores, a White-person-infested Island and lots of other cool stuff. I’m not sure about the history of Shamian Island, but there are lots of English signs and white people, and the food prices are set to match those in western cultures. Obviously we didn’t eat there :) There are lots of pictures so I’ve selected a representative subset to show here.

Photos:

GrandView Mall

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 08:12:25 +0000

On Friday (2 April) I went to GrandView mall for dinner and to look around a little. The place is huge and there is an adventure floor that looks really cool, but we didn’t do much other than look because we still haven’t gotten paid. I took pictures of the highlights.

Photos:

Jeff's Birthday

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:33:40 +0000

By pure chance, I met the mother of one of my students at lunch a few days ago. We ate together and exchanged email addresses, and she told me that her brother had a son in another one of my classes. Saturday was her brother’s birthday party, and since the family was getting together they decided to invite me as well. I figured it would be a little awkward because of the communication barrier, but didn’t let that stop me. I met the whole extended family and went out to a fancy dinner. They even paid for me! It was fun and, somewhat surprisingly, not awkward at all.

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Engrish

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:17:11 +0000

This album contains all the pictures of hilarious english misspellings and mistranslations that I've seen in China. Unfortunately the camera will probably never capture the priceless interaction that goes (on a regular basis) as follows. I'm walking down the street and see an english T-shirt and read it. It inevitably says something like "Everyone, yes what? thereby you?" Or "I got more kick that you!" and I can't help but smile. The Chinese person wearing it sees me smiling and realizes how cool he must be because the white guy liked his english shirt. I love it when that happens.

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Beijing Road

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:49:24 +0000

Beijing Road is a pedestrian mall where they shut down several blocks of the road to traffic, and allow people to walk up and down the street browsing the different shops. I went there with two other foreign teachers and Zac bought a Rolex (or Faulex) from the upstairs room of some subtle little backstreet shop.

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First Night in China

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:21:20 +0000

These are pictures that I took on the street and from the fire escape of the hotel that I stayed in the first few nights that I was in China. The streets have many cool neon and LED signs that make the city look exciting. Which it is :)

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School

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:08:44 +0000

These are all the pictures that I’ve taken in and around my school. I teach at 北大附中 which is the affiliated high school of Peking University. The buildings have a really cool design.

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China on Joshy Orndorff .eth

Baking Cake in a Rice Cooker

Step One -- Get the Supplies

Step Two -- Bake

Step Three -- Continue Baking

Step Four -- Ice and Enjoy

Pearl River Cruise

Dragon Boats

Opera House

American Jazz Show

Things to do in America

GuangDong (广东) Musuem

Baiyun Mountain (白云山)

HuangPu Port

Hong Kong Trip

Another Walking Trip

Five Goat Statue and Others

Tianhe Park (天河 公园) and Brian

Tianhou Palace (南沙天后宫) and Jasmine

Shamian Island (沙面岛)

GrandView Mall

Jeff's Birthday

Engrish

Beijing Road

First Night in China

School

Tianhe Park (天河公园) and Brian