I’ve chartered into unfamiliar territory today … I’m baking bread. I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time now, but I was scared.
Scared you might think, what is there to be scared about? Well, let me tell you two stories and you’ll understand why I’m not exactly to be trusted around an oven.
Many years ago, Dieter (my son) was about to celebrate his 6th birthday and in addition to a cake, I planned on serving cupcakes to his party guests.
I set to work mixing the ingredients and when I was done I filled the little cupcakes papers with dough. After putting them on a tray in the oven, I went about my business, leaving Dieter in the kitchen who was watching the cupcakes through the oven door glass.
It wasn’t long before he called, “Mom, the oven is foaming”. Foaming? … that couldn’t be good.
When I went to take a took, the oven indeed resembled a bubble bath.
To cut a long story short … I had added yeast to self-rising flour, hence the strong reaction.
Needless to say, there were no cupcakes for Dieter’s birthday party and it took me the better part of the afternoon to clean the oven.
One bad experience wasn’t going to scare me off though, a few weeks later I decided to make cookies. This time I made sure to use the right flour and followed the recipe to the letter.
Once again, Dieter kept an eye on my culinary experiment and this time he gave me the thumbs up. Inside the oven, everything proceeded according to plan.
Still, the outcome was not satisfactory. When I bit into my homemade cookie, I nearly broke a tooth … the cookie was rock hard.
Since I hate to waste food, I decided to break up the cookies into pieces and feed them to the pigeons. And would you believe it ... the pigeons didn’t want them! At first they gathered around and started pecking at them, but after a few attempts they walked away. I have never seen that, I have never seen a pigeon walk away from any type of food.
Next I thought I’d feed the cookies to the ducks, maybe the water of the lake would soften them.
“You might want to think twice about doing that,” my then husband said. “The ducks might sink.”
After that, I threw in the towel. No more baking for me.
So now you might understand my trepidation where it comes to baking … I can’t be trusted around an oven.
Scared you might think, what is there to be scared about? Well, let me tell you two stories and you’ll understand why I’m not exactly to be trusted around an oven.
Many years ago, Dieter (my son) was about to celebrate his 6th birthday and in addition to a cake, I planned on serving cupcakes to his party guests.
I set to work mixing the ingredients and when I was done I filled the little cupcakes papers with dough. After putting them on a tray in the oven, I went about my business, leaving Dieter in the kitchen who was watching the cupcakes through the oven door glass.
It wasn’t long before he called, “Mom, the oven is foaming”. Foaming? … that couldn’t be good.
When I went to take a took, the oven indeed resembled a bubble bath.
To cut a long story short … I had added yeast to self-rising flour, hence the strong reaction.
Needless to say, there were no cupcakes for Dieter’s birthday party and it took me the better part of the afternoon to clean the oven.
One bad experience wasn’t going to scare me off though, a few weeks later I decided to make cookies. This time I made sure to use the right flour and followed the recipe to the letter.
Once again, Dieter kept an eye on my culinary experiment and this time he gave me the thumbs up. Inside the oven, everything proceeded according to plan.
Still, the outcome was not satisfactory. When I bit into my homemade cookie, I nearly broke a tooth … the cookie was rock hard.
Since I hate to waste food, I decided to break up the cookies into pieces and feed them to the pigeons. And would you believe it ... the pigeons didn’t want them! At first they gathered around and started pecking at them, but after a few attempts they walked away. I have never seen that, I have never seen a pigeon walk away from any type of food.
Next I thought I’d feed the cookies to the ducks, maybe the water of the lake would soften them.
“You might want to think twice about doing that,” my then husband said. “The ducks might sink.”
After that, I threw in the towel. No more baking for me.
So now you might understand my trepidation where it comes to baking … I can’t be trusted around an oven.
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