The Chronicles Of…

So, if you’ve been following my twitter over the last half hour or so you will see that I have just baked a batch of scones. I was hungry and wanted something remotely dessert like, ok supper like then, whatever!

I decided on the scones and went looking for a recipe, naturally I started at the “Cooking, a commonsense guide” which I got from the ladies at work when I got married, and I’ve heard older women give it to young guys all the time.

Anyway, so Nat tells me that there’s an easier recipe in the handwritten book.

So I opened up to the scones recipe and all there was was a list of ingredients. So I excused myself and said this might be a silly question but there’s no instructions what to do so… ummm… what should I do?

Just throw them all into a bowl and mix it.

So I thought no worries, I’ll throw it all in and find the largest, fastest, electric beater I can, maybe even the electric whisk, that thing can go fast!! So it’ll be done in no time…

In a moment of stupidity or something I mentioned this, and she said no, you have to mix it with a knife. A knife!!

Ok, Ok I’ll do that, but that wasn’t written down…

I went off, did that, and surprisingly it was finished in no time, so then I thought I’ll just put blobs of the mixture on a tray and whack it into the oven.

Once again I mentioned this for some reason… She may me knead it and cut out circles with a glass.

Again not written down…

Allegedly if you don’t knead it they come out with large air bubbles or something.

Not written down…

So I’m thankful for the ‘easier’ recipe, but it turned out to be a list of things to put in it, but that’s about it…

This reminded me of another time…

I was going to make pancakes for breakfast, so I went to the handwritten recipe book to find the one she got off her sister, but all I see is blank pages and other recipes.

So I ask what the deal was, she said she thought it was in there, so I went to get a piece of paper to write it down but she stopped me and told me it was so easy that there was no need to write it down, (but still every time I make them I have to ask her again), and I had to go back to her a couple of times to ask what else went in it.

Anyway the list of ingredients were:

• Blah blah blah
• Blah Blah
• 2 cups of flour
• Blah Blah
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• Blah Blah Blah

So I put all those ingredients in, then when I went to cook them they seemed a lot less fluffy then normal and when I queried this with Nat she asked what sort of flour I used, naturally I said flour, normal flour. She thought I was silly, she thought it would be obvious that I should have used Self Raising Flour, I said you never said Self Raising, she said but they’re pancakes, I said yeah?

Then in my limited knowledge I asked isn’t that what baking powder is for?

Ahhh Ha! I was right… but there was a but, you still need the Self Raising Flour.

Anyway, I think my point overall is that somethings aren’t commonsense to others even if they seem so to you, especially when the other person is out of their depth doing something not in their area of expertise or experience…