I know, I’m a fairly decent baker and a borderline cook, neither of these traits should actually have one inspired about cooking, but ideas oddly enough come more to the foolish lot than geniuses, which explains the greater prevalence of stupidity much better than anything.
Anyhow, after endless days of being disconnected with the world, I decided to quit surveying by empire like a monarch and realize that whilst a regent could actually look at his people and state with an air of contentment, when he/she’d look out from his/her palace at their kingdom; all I had for my smug gaze were bored and absolutely disinclined to heed anything expression of my pets and a couple of shoes. Since the television has been off-limits, I thought I’d bake, I know it sounds like a dumb explanation but intelligence and I are pretty much divorced.
I can picture people familiar with my cooking to slap their foreheads and go “Gawd! Help us.” But when enthusiasm strikes it takes no prisoners. So off I went armed with a tried and tested Banana Bread recipe of my sister. A 4-step process with 8 ingredients one can’t go wrong right??? Wrong.
Apparently one can go wrong, remarkably wrong at that, and whip up a disaster, all you need is a mind that “thinks” and ideas that have no business weaving themselves as thoughts flitting through your head and a few missing ingredients. As I settled to start on the project, I realized I was short on bananas, now most of us would go and get them, but lets face it; the odds of getting over-ripe bananas are pretty low to pick off a shelf and even lower is my enthusiasm to go dashing about all over the town hunting ingredients. I decided that I’d just have to make up for the moisture component and throw in coffee and convert it to Coffee bread. If one was ever to introspect and wonder where it all started going wrong then this was the point. Boarding the coffee train of thought was the start of a journey to the culinary hell, memories of which still strike terror in the core of my taste buds.
Once my head settled the issue of bananas, I discovered that my stash of walnuts had gone bad, so substituting one dry fruit for another (interesting isn’t it? One fruit-cake substituting one dry fruit for another) I zeroed in on almonds, coffee & almonds go together great so no big deal I thought. As I was creaming together the butter & sugar, another thought flitted in, (yes, my brain is a public park, where just about anyone can drop in, I guess) my mind went to the excellent coffee liqueur which was quietly aging into my cabinet, and I thought I’ll solve the whole issue of moisture and add flavour by tossing it in and crossing the coffee out. The thing about novice is that you really don’t know where to get-off. An intelligent soul who’d worked with alcohol before would’ve have firmly shown the door to this idea and requested it to get off the train but a twit like me would absolutely harbour such dim-wittedness fetch it slippers, nice rug and comfy robe and a cup of hot chocolate, basically, make it feel treasured.
So I pondered over the quantity and decided to throw in a nice glug, which turned out to be about 70mls for a single cake……….I know, *gasp the horrors* but I know it NOW, *shaking my head sadly* if only I’d known it then…., at that time it seemed like a grand idea, though I’m nothing like Egon from ‘Beau Peep’ I think I must come across as far worse than him…….anyway, so I threw in a good slug of it, whisked it all, forgot the vanilla and poured it in a nice baking tin and popped it into the oven.
Now that we’ve established the timeline of the origin of stupidity, we can proceed to the dawn of intelligence. 15 mins into the oven an aroma started wafting in that just jarred with my sensory delight I was awaiting, the whole room was reeking of alcohol……one thing that no one tells you that while alcohol added to cooking evaporates, the stink it leaves behind is unmistakable, there is no escaping the fact one slugged in this skunk. Yet hope tries to triumph against all odds, and I thought maybe as it baked the smell will disappear…… some of you may think, “why would anyone with an ounce of brain hold out to a hope like that?”….but in my defense, when you’ve spent well over 2 decades of your life, chugging rum-balls from local bakeries that have no taste of rum in them, you must be forgiven for harbouring foolish thoughts. In defense of all the bakeries, I guess they just add a drop of rum to a rum-ball, so that they can technically qualify as rum-balls while I on my trip unleashed it by the gallon.
So the stink keeps increasing, and my superior pets are walking around with their noses up in the air and sniffing about and shaking their head as to pay obituary to a master who’d metamorphosed into an alcoholic in a span of an hour. Their smug questioning looks were quite unnerving, add to that the infernal smell…….. When the oven went “ding” my heart sank down, there was no getting away with this disaster…. And it wasn’t the “yummy bread” I was dreaming of having a slice of with my post dinner coffee….If disappointment and foolishness could be crystallized into an object THIS was it. Leaving it overnight too didn’t age it for the better either and as I bit into it each time I mentally kicked my self for going once more on the vision of an unparalleled delightful taste rather than practicality.
After cooking up another disaster, one would think one would learn to cease, resist and desist all the newfangled ideas that keep popping into one’s head but the promise of a divine taste is more alluring than anything else….so on for the next experiment, it is gonna be Soya chunks in a pomegranate juice, chili, star anise and cocoa sauce….hot and sweet….should be yummy…. I think…….
Anyhow, after endless days of being disconnected with the world, I decided to quit surveying by empire like a monarch and realize that whilst a regent could actually look at his people and state with an air of contentment, when he/she’d look out from his/her palace at their kingdom; all I had for my smug gaze were bored and absolutely disinclined to heed anything expression of my pets and a couple of shoes. Since the television has been off-limits, I thought I’d bake, I know it sounds like a dumb explanation but intelligence and I are pretty much divorced.
I can picture people familiar with my cooking to slap their foreheads and go “Gawd! Help us.” But when enthusiasm strikes it takes no prisoners. So off I went armed with a tried and tested Banana Bread recipe of my sister. A 4-step process with 8 ingredients one can’t go wrong right??? Wrong.
Apparently one can go wrong, remarkably wrong at that, and whip up a disaster, all you need is a mind that “thinks” and ideas that have no business weaving themselves as thoughts flitting through your head and a few missing ingredients. As I settled to start on the project, I realized I was short on bananas, now most of us would go and get them, but lets face it; the odds of getting over-ripe bananas are pretty low to pick off a shelf and even lower is my enthusiasm to go dashing about all over the town hunting ingredients. I decided that I’d just have to make up for the moisture component and throw in coffee and convert it to Coffee bread. If one was ever to introspect and wonder where it all started going wrong then this was the point. Boarding the coffee train of thought was the start of a journey to the culinary hell, memories of which still strike terror in the core of my taste buds.
Once my head settled the issue of bananas, I discovered that my stash of walnuts had gone bad, so substituting one dry fruit for another (interesting isn’t it? One fruit-cake substituting one dry fruit for another) I zeroed in on almonds, coffee & almonds go together great so no big deal I thought. As I was creaming together the butter & sugar, another thought flitted in, (yes, my brain is a public park, where just about anyone can drop in, I guess) my mind went to the excellent coffee liqueur which was quietly aging into my cabinet, and I thought I’ll solve the whole issue of moisture and add flavour by tossing it in and crossing the coffee out. The thing about novice is that you really don’t know where to get-off. An intelligent soul who’d worked with alcohol before would’ve have firmly shown the door to this idea and requested it to get off the train but a twit like me would absolutely harbour such dim-wittedness fetch it slippers, nice rug and comfy robe and a cup of hot chocolate, basically, make it feel treasured.
So I pondered over the quantity and decided to throw in a nice glug, which turned out to be about 70mls for a single cake……….I know, *gasp the horrors* but I know it NOW, *shaking my head sadly* if only I’d known it then…., at that time it seemed like a grand idea, though I’m nothing like Egon from ‘Beau Peep’ I think I must come across as far worse than him…….anyway, so I threw in a good slug of it, whisked it all, forgot the vanilla and poured it in a nice baking tin and popped it into the oven.
Now that we’ve established the timeline of the origin of stupidity, we can proceed to the dawn of intelligence. 15 mins into the oven an aroma started wafting in that just jarred with my sensory delight I was awaiting, the whole room was reeking of alcohol……one thing that no one tells you that while alcohol added to cooking evaporates, the stink it leaves behind is unmistakable, there is no escaping the fact one slugged in this skunk. Yet hope tries to triumph against all odds, and I thought maybe as it baked the smell will disappear…… some of you may think, “why would anyone with an ounce of brain hold out to a hope like that?”….but in my defense, when you’ve spent well over 2 decades of your life, chugging rum-balls from local bakeries that have no taste of rum in them, you must be forgiven for harbouring foolish thoughts. In defense of all the bakeries, I guess they just add a drop of rum to a rum-ball, so that they can technically qualify as rum-balls while I on my trip unleashed it by the gallon.
So the stink keeps increasing, and my superior pets are walking around with their noses up in the air and sniffing about and shaking their head as to pay obituary to a master who’d metamorphosed into an alcoholic in a span of an hour. Their smug questioning looks were quite unnerving, add to that the infernal smell…….. When the oven went “ding” my heart sank down, there was no getting away with this disaster…. And it wasn’t the “yummy bread” I was dreaming of having a slice of with my post dinner coffee….If disappointment and foolishness could be crystallized into an object THIS was it. Leaving it overnight too didn’t age it for the better either and as I bit into it each time I mentally kicked my self for going once more on the vision of an unparalleled delightful taste rather than practicality.
After cooking up another disaster, one would think one would learn to cease, resist and desist all the newfangled ideas that keep popping into one’s head but the promise of a divine taste is more alluring than anything else….so on for the next experiment, it is gonna be Soya chunks in a pomegranate juice, chili, star anise and cocoa sauce….hot and sweet….should be yummy…. I think…….
2 comments:
actually you could have added 3/4 cup of milk whisked in with coffee to make coffee bread which is what I do for mine and I also substitute Almonds in coffee falvoured cake a lot of time 'cos saran likes almonds much better than walnuts.......for liqueur well that is a good lesson learnt is it not? well have fun baking sis
Ooh! How come I missed this post? Lesson learned is a nice summary if it was limited to the extent of use of alcohol while cooking. But otherwise random ideas disguising themselves as inspiration keep popping and deceiving ;)
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