What Could Go Wrong?

Writers: Anwen, Eimi
Date Posted: 1st March 2007

Characters: Daigoro, Jielta
Description: Daigoro gets a baking lesson from Jielta
Location: Vintner Hall
Date: month 2, day 3 of Turn 4

Jielta had gathered all the ingredients together and all the tools they would need to make cookies. She was going for a simple recipe, one that would be difficult to mess up. Smiling at what she thought was going to be a fun project, she knocked on Daigoro's door.

"Come on in," Daigoro waved as he cracked the door open just far enough for her to slip through. "Did anyone see you?"

"I don't think so," Jielta said with a laugh. "Though, I didn't know it was such a huge secret that _no one_
could know!"

"Someone might tell Cinale I was sneaking a woman into my cot," he said with another wink. "And with _baking_ supplies no less. She might never forgive me for letting another woman touch her kitchen."

The young woman laughed again. "Well, I won't tell anyone if you won't!"

"Trust me, I plan on telling no one." The lads ribbed him enough about his sweetheart. If they heard that he was _baking_ for her... "Right, well, where do we start?"

"Sure," she said with a smile. "How about you show me to the kitchen?"

"Right over here," he said as he lead her to his sparking clean kitchen. It was one of the perks of being married to a cook. "What do we need? Pots? Pans? Bowls?"

"We need two good sized bowls," Jielta explained patiently. "A cookie sheet, measuring utensils and a something to stir with, as well as a few spoons."

"Ok..." The Hallmaster looked around the kitchen with a long drawn out sigh. It was obvious this was not going to be easy. "To be perfectly honest... I don't know where any of that is. The kitchen is rather Cinale's domain. I just know where the mugs and the dinning table are."

"Well, they shouldn't be too difficult to find, as there's only a limited number of places they could be," Jielta said rationally. "It shouldn't take us too long to find everything we need."

"Right. Well. Let's see what we can find." They searched through cupboards and shelves until they had collected the necessary equipment. "I have to say, Jielta, I'm not even sure what all of that stuff we were sifting through _does_. Do you really need all that _stuff_ just to cook?"

"Cooking can be very simple or very complicated. Just remember that next time you eat something that tastes great!"

"Don't worry, lass. I always appreciate my cook." He gave her a knowing wink. "All right then. What do we do first?"

"Measure out a cup of butter and a cup and a half of sugar," she instructed.

"A cup of sugar and a cup of butter..." Measuring he could do. He had plenty of experience mixing ingedients when making beer.

"A cup and a half of sugar," Jielta corrected. "Then once you have them measured out and in the bowl you are going to cream them together. That just means mixing them until smooth."

"Mix until smooth. With just this?" he asked, picking up a sturdy silver spoon.

"That would work, but it wouldn't be easy," Jielta explained patiently. She was so used to cooking with people who did it all the time... she never thought about how complicated it could be! "A fork works best, at least in my opionion."

"A fork?" That hadn't been on the list of things they had gathered together. Daigoro walked over to the drawer that held the eating utensils. "Like this one?"

Jielta laughed, "Yes, a plain old fork, just like that one."

"All right. So. We mix these up..." He started stiring them with his fork very gently. "until its smooth..." But wasn't butter always smooth? "Just tell me when to stop..."

Once the mixture had taken on a smooth consistency Jielta told him to stop stirring and add two eggs.
"Next we need to use the second bowl to mix together the dry ingredients."

"That would be the flour, sugar, and salt, right?" he asked, giving the bowl a quick wipe with a towel.

"We already added the sugar," Jielta reminded him.
"Its the flour, salt and baking soda. That's used to make the cookies rise a little so they aren't just flat blobs."

That was true. But wasn't sugar a _dry_ ingredient? How silly was that? "All right. Do I use the fork?"

"Yes, you can use that fork. Just mix everything together so that everything is evenly combined. THen you need to add two eggs to the wet ingredients."

He carefully mixed the dry indredients, fighting off a sneeze as flour dust got in his nose. "Two eggs you said?"

"Yes, two eggs. Just crack them and mix them in."

"Crack them and mix them in. All right." He very carefully, lightly, hit the egg's shell on the edge of the bowl, not wanting to hit too hard and get egg shells everywhere. When he had made a satisfactory line of cracks along the side, he carefully pulled it apart until the contents of the egg spilled into the bowl. Perfect. The brewer took the second egg in his large paws and repeated the process. He frowned when small little pieces of shell broke off with the white and yoke and fell into the bowl with it. "Hmmm... Should I just dig those out with my fingers?"

Jielta couldn't help but laugh. "I think maybe a spoon would work best. And maybe you should just scoop out all of the egg you can. We can crack more."

"All of it?" he asked guiltily. A bronze flit churped accusingly from his perch atop a cupboard. "Cinale would certainly not be happy to know I had wasted good eggs," he sighed as he reached for the spoon.

"Its probably the easiest way to get all the shell pieces out."

Daigoro found fishing pieces of egg out of the bowl with a spoon was harder than it sounded. Each time he got a spoonfull of egg it slipped off as soon as he tried to lift it out. He muttered at the slippery mess under his breath. "Is there a trick to this?" he asked in exasperation. "It keeps slipping off the spoon when I try to scoop it out."

"Here, let me try," Jielta offered. Having quite a bit more cooking experiance, she quickly had the egg shell mess cleared out of the bowl. Deftly, she cracked fresh eggs into the bowl without a single shell shard falling in, the handed the bowl to Daigor for mixing.
"I guess it just takes a bit of practice."

Daigoro frowned slightly as he looked into the bowl. How did she do that so easily? It must be a talent all women possess but men didn't. "Maybe its because your hands are smaller."

"Must be," Jielta agreed readily. Why hurt his pride?

"You brought extra eggs? You're so... prepared..." He eyed her susiciously. She probably suspected he would be innept at this whole baking thing. "Well then." He took extra special care in cracking the eggs this time. Daigoro smiled triumphantly as he successfully cracked them both. "No shells," he proudly proclaimed. "So then we mix with the fork again?"

"Yup, then we mix in the dry ingredients. All very simple, right?" "No problem," Daigoro nodded, surprised at just how easy it all had been. Well, except for those silly eggs. "I have to run off to the kitchens now, because I promised I'd help cook the noon meal. All you need to do is add a cup of dried fruit to the batter. Then you use spoons to drop it onto the cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes. You can handle that on your own, right?"

"A cup of dried fruit, use a spoon, ten minutes... I can handle that,"
he nodded. Sounded easy enough! What could go wrong?

Last updated on the March 1st 2007

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