Baking - never been my forte!!

Until recently I believed that 'Baking' was never my forte. There were many reasons in past for me to arrive at this conclusion. First of all I never owned a conventional oven, secondly the cakes tried in Microwave oven never properly baked, thirdly I never had hand blender and the whisking was not even when done with hand whisker.

When I moved to US recently, I was keen on giving a final try this time in conventional oven. Primarily I wanted a fool proof recipe that wouldn't fail. Secondly a good hand blender or mixer that would do the job of whisking. When I got both, I tried my hand on making a basic pound cake. I came across many recipes but the one that attracted me was
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-basic-pound-cake.

I garnished the cake by sprinkling few cleaned seeds from Honeydew Melon.
They kept on emphasizing not to over-mix and I was curious to know the reason behind that. So borrowed a library book to dig thru the art of baking. Got know that when hand blender runs too long after adding flour to batter(that has butter, sugar and eggs), it releases gluten in flour which hardens the batter and hence the expected result is not achieved.

It is a nice feeling when a baked cake comes out of an oven without major flaws.