I don't even know the answer to that. I'm also pretty sure that I don't have a crazy but cool grandpa who knows a forgetting trick that he told me he learned from a witch doctor/voodoo person in Vietnam or wherever but he actually developed in collaboration with some super shady government agencies that don't actually have a name or official records. But then again, if I did, would I remember? ASHLEY BELL WILL LIVE
Anyways, this is a post that I've been wanting to write for a while but haven't had the time to do. Also, blogger has been weird about letting me get into my blog. I will refrain from concocting a conspiracy theory about the all-seeing and all-powerful Google.
Have you ever baked anything from scratch? If you have, then you know how recipes usually have the preparation time included. These times are great for some of you because your baking experience goes like this:
Stated preparation time: 20 minutes.
Actual preparation time: 20 minutes. Add an extra 2 or 3 if you need to borrow some sugar or flour from a neighbor.
There are those of you reading who may think, "Yes, this is exactly how my baking goes. It doesn't always taste the best and I say this even though Paul Hollywood from the Great British Bake Off tasted my baking and says he wishes I were his child, but yeah, this is how my baking goes."
You lucky dog, you.
Well you dear protege who also probably has no kids and keeps track of your entire life in a carefully color coordinated planner with accompanying alerts and notifications through a smart phone, the reality for most of us goes something more like this:
Stated preparation time: 20 minutes
"Great! I can start this at 3:00, have it in the oven by 3:20ish and it'll be ready by 4:00! Plenty of time!" Haha, you poor, optimistic, naive little baker. You know nothing of the ways of the world. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
So you start.
2 minutes of prep time before realizing you don't have enough sugar.
3 minutes to bundle up for 20 degree weather, run across the street to ask the neighbors for sugar, get the sugar, then run back.
1 minute of prep time, then you realize both sets of measuring spoons have conveniently gone AWOL when you know you just saw them in the drawer this morning.
2 1/2 minutes of digging through the sink, the cabinets, the kid's toys (because your young siblings steal kitchen appliances for weapons or microphones or what have you), then asking other people if they have seen the vanished spoons. Of course, no one knows where they went.
3 minutes of washing dishes, because where else could the spoons be but the bottom of the sink? Sure enough, they are stuck in the drain.
3 minutes of prep time before the young siblings realize you are making something and want to help.
We're only six minutes into prep time people. And it doesn't get better.
1 minute of arguing with them that it will take longer with their help than without before you realize that your siblings are extremely stubborn and it will actually take longer to argue them out of helping than it will to just let them help. So they are added to the crew of your bakeship, which will be known as the USS Bakerprize. Whether it will actually be a prize is dubitable at best.
2 minutes of prep time before one sibling complains that the other is pushing him off the chair they are sharing because there is minimal counter space in your kitchen probably because the original owner didn't realize how important LOTS of space is to a successful kitchen operation probably because he didn't ever run a kitchen operation due to the abundance of fast food restaurants close by. No judgments, just speculation.
2 minutes of trying to calm both siblings down the nice way before you revert to the harsher but more effective method of threatening to send both away if they don't work it out. But your siblings are as belligerent as they are stubborn, so they continue fighting and you banish them to the basement to play with the cave troll which cries in fear and hides behind the water heater upon sight of your siblings having previously encountered these small terrors in battle. How else would you get a cave troll into the basement?
3 minutes of prep time before you need the nutmeg but SURPRISE you can't find it.
2 minutes of rummaging through ALL the cabinets, not just the baking cabinet where it should be, then running down to the pantry in the basement where extra supplies are stored in addition to some dried fruit for the cave troll who was turned vegetarian by your siblings. You ask your Mom if she bought nutmeg recently and she replies that yes, she did, she bought a massive container yesterday. You plead with her to come look for it because your Mom's Confirmation Saint is St. Anthony and he ALWAYS makes sure she finds what she's looking for. Sure enough, she opens the baking cabinet (the first place you looked) and pulls it out. Your Mom gives you an exasperated look and mutters something under her breath about eye exams.
3 minutes of prep time, and then the screams of a young child become audible. It's coming from upstairs where some of your siblings and the neighbor kids are playing dolls. You have a large enough family that odds are, it's your sibling screaming, but it sounds more like one of the neighbors. None of the other older siblings or parents are responding, so you take it upon yourself to investigate.
3 minutes of traveling upstairs, coaxing out of siblings and neighbor kids conflicting versions of the story from which you extrapolate that someone hit the now screaming neighbor child, but the attack wasn't completely unprovoked. You make an executive decision establishing a neighbor ban that will continue indefinitely, except it's not really a ban because your siblings just play outside in the freezing cold with them because besides being belligerent and stubborn your siblings are descendants of Jack Frost and Elsa.
4 minutes of prep time. The end is in sight. It's possible you could get this in the oven before the heat death of the universe.
PSYCHE!! Did you really think you'd get off that easy? While you were getting out the muffin trays your youngest sibling currently at home climbed up onto the chair left by the earlier helpers and has taken an egg in each hand. He is poised to hurl them and win the gold medals for farthest egg toss and most kitchen destruction done in a single motion.
2 1/2 minutes of trying to gently pry the fragile eggs from his unrelenting baby fists. This of course fails and egg covers him, the chair, and you. A washcloth with soap for him (luckily he never wears any clothing but a diaper, even when it's 60 degrees in the house), paper towels for the chair, and you ignore the blood and gore on your own clothing because you are so close and that's just the messy nature of war. I mean baking.
A final 2 minutes of prep time, the batter is in the trays and you can put them in the oven!!! except you can't because you forgot to preheat the oven in the chaos. But you take a deep breath, smother the Klingon side of you that has been threatening to emerge this entire time, and preheat the oven.
Actual Preparation time: 39 minutes, 19 of which wasn't even spent baking.
But it's okay, because a day may come when the courage to bake fails, when your forsake your butter and break all the cooking utensils, but it is not this day. An hour of crying and burnt muffins, when the walls of the oven come crashing down! But it is not this day! This day you fight! I mean bake!
The oven is preheated and you slide your muffins in, confident of the fluffy, delectable treats they will soon be.
Then you remember that you forgot to double the baking powder.
