2009/02/27

Field Journal Entry #1 – cookies

I had my first baking lesson today. Originally, Hannah and I planned to bake different kinds of cookies and brownies. However, unexpected cuts in our allocated time slot made it possible to meet for an hour only, instead of 1-2h. How did we react? Well, we made a decision to stick to the so-called K.I.S.S. principle (´Keep It Short & Simple´ or popularly ´Keep It Simple Stupid´). We baked just one kind of cookies with stressing out loud the possibility of different flavour alternations.

I feel obliged to comment on Hannah´s excellence and flexibility. Both of our daily schedules are really packed and it is difficult to synchronize. But Hannah managed to solve the problem by suggesting buying supplies without me. She arranged a ride with her brother to get butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla flavour, baking soda, salt, all-purpose flavour, chocolate chips and baking trays. And what was my job in this initiation step then? My task was to show up on time and bring my usual enthusiasm with me. And I succeeded.

Firstly, I was caught by surprise because Hannah did not bring any recipe. She knew all the progress by her heart as the chocolate cookies were the family Hennessy traditional ones. Even thought I originally believed it was going to make things more complicated; now I am sure it brought exclusively benefits. How come? We agreed on the key expression of our first lesson – active interaction. Not having a recipe in front of me made me to note down just the essential information and doing so, I omitted all of the tedious information ´sauce´ around. I remember assuming in my proposal a kind of a lecture or an introduction, but we skipped that. I was baking from the first second and Hannah was supervising each of my steps. If I was uncertain or unsure about e.g. the steering technique, Hannah responded swiftly and set me back on track. Everything went well and we baked 24 delicious cookies. There was that savoury scent (known as a social glue) flying across the fifth floor of the Stewart Residence Hall. Suddenly some random passersby showed up and we were more than happy to share one of our home-made yummy tummy-soothers for a piece of sincere feedback.

And what about any complications? There were a few minor problems which made us thinking. Firstly, the stove had not been tried yet and it was a pretty old model. Thus, it took fairly long time until it was pre-heated enough. This problem could have not been solved at that point but we still could take a lesson out of it. The next time, preferably, we shall start pre-heating the stove even before the start of the lesson. Secondly, two baking trays were not enough and we ended up with an excess amount of the cookie mixture. Were we supposed to throw it away? No way; that would have been a waste of our time, supplies and an environmentally unfriendly move. Instead, we decided to enlarge each of the 24 already prepared cookie balls. Having done so, we underwent the risk of having some cookies stuck together. Fortunately, only 4 cookie balls expanded into massive cookies which got stuck to each other. The rest of them were simply giant cookies baked appropriately.

I learned many important facts for my transition from European baking style. For example, ¼ cup of flour is 30g of flour, 8TBSP of butter is 1 stick or ½ cup or 4OZ or 113g of butter and that 1TBSP is 3TSP in general. Similarly, baking soda is in fact the European sodium bicarbonate. Furthermore, I could identify a Slovak recipe similar to the one of American cookies. During the Christmas time, my family and I traditionally make a similar chocolate mixture with slight differences, which is not baked but let to be frozen with a cherry inside. However, the process of mixing it is very similar.

Lastly to mention, the relationship tutor-pupil had an immense impact on the overall result. Hannah and I believe that it is important to keep neither superior, nor inferior stance while baking. The equal relationship in between both of us was crucial in order to achieve enjoyable baking time.