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Hi Mamta - how are you? I haven't contaced the fuorm page for ages! But I can't do without your receipes and guidance!!!

I was wondering if anyone has used their microwave to bake? I would like to try to make a Goan sweet called Bebinca and wanted to use the microwave and broiler - as it is a layered "egg yolk cake" that requires baking and then broiling (grilling) at every layer.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks Glenys

Nice to see you here again Glenys.

I had never heard of Bebinca cake, so just googled for it. In my view, microwaves are not generally good for baking cakes. When they first came out, I did a microwave cooking course as evening classes. The tutor there made a cake in it, which we all tried making at home over the next week. To me, it did not have the same 'baked' flavour of a normal cake and was always too dry. So, personally, I wouldn't make a cake in microwave. Let's see what others think.

Mamta

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly Mamta. I just noticed my spelling is terrible on the first line - please excuse me but I was typing in a hurry.

I am from Goa and Bebinca is a delicacy cake - that consists only of egg yolks, sugar and coconut milk and nutmeg. It is layered - so each layer is baked, then grilled and the cooled, which makes it a tedious process. So, of course I was looking for a short cut. But you are right, I don't think the taste would be the same. I don't know how our gransdmothers had the patience to do all this without any mod - cons!

Take care and I'll keep in touch.

Enjoy your cake when you have baked it :-)!

I remember too when microwave ovens first became widely available and it seemed nearly 'mandatory' to do some training to prevent yourself blowing up the machine.

For baking I've found things just come out looking rather anaemic without the depth of flavour of conventional cooking. However when in a hurry they make a good chocolate cake (and fish too, but obviously not at the same time!)

The only thing I would add is that microwave technology has moved on a lot in the last couple of decades and some of the newer models have all kinds of clever programmes that allow you to get better results for food that was once not worth making in microwaves (such as cakes).