Blog Post 2: Learning To Cook

After researching how sugar and fat can be addicting, I decided to make brownies from scratch. Having never made brownies before, I decided to simply look up a recipe and pretend it was a chemistry lab experiment. There were many different online recipes, so I finally settled on one that was made from scratch and included peanut butter. What could go wrong when there’s peanut butter? I figured this would be a great control recipe to compare with my sweeter version in the next blog post because peanut butter is more salty and should somewhat hide the sweet taste.

Step 1: Getting all the right ingredients. Since my dorm food consisted only of cereal and almonds, I decided to use my meal points and get as many ingredients as I could from the cellar. Unfortunately the cellar does not have a diverse selection of cooking materials; instead, there were plenty of various cookie and brownie pre-made mixes. Gluten free, dairy free, peanut free -- all except for the nothing-free mixes, which were all out. I settled for a bag of white sugar, brown sugar, all purpose flour, and jar of peanut butter. I also added two small shakers filled with salt and pepper to my basket just in case I needed some extra seasoning. There wasn’t any butter, but I found a tub of margarine which would act as a good replacement. After all, fat is fat, right? I scanned the cold section for eggs, but could not find any for some reason. Remembering having seen eggs at the cellar before, I asked the clerk for a carton but unfortunately he said they would not come until the following day. Oh well, I thought. I suppose I already had to get the rest of the ingredients from Safeway, so I will just add eggs to the shopping list.

Step 1.5: Getting extra ingredients not provided by the cellar. After dropping off the cellar ingredients in the Graham kitchen, I headed off to Safeway. Passing through the aisles and aisles of canned and boxed food, I found vanilla extract and semi sweet chocolate chips for baking. Moving on to the refrigerated shelves, I grabbed a small carton of eggs and headed towards the checkout line.

Step 1.75: Oops! I forgot something! As I waited in line to pay, I suddenly remembered that I had nothing to measure ingredients with. Dumping my backpack into my friend’s arms, I raced to the baking aisle and picked up the most affordable set of cups and table/teaspoons. Glancing around one last time to make sure I had everything, I jumped back in line and paid for my basket of materials.

Step 2: Washing dishes? When I got back to the Graham kitchen on my floor, I eagerly began opening all of the ingredients when my friend suddenly stopped me. “Hold on!” he exclaimed. “What are you going to mix everything in? This place is a mess.” Looking around at the piles of dirty dishes cluttered all over the community sink, I realized he was right. So there we were, washing and drying dishes even before the cooking part began.

Step 3: The art of cracking eggs. After washing a large mixing bowl, along with several other miscellaneous dishes that we thought we may need but did not end up using, it was finally time to do some real cooking. Excitedly, I smashed eggs one at a time against the counter, then quickly held it over the bowl. Although I saw my friend shake his head at my unprofessional egg-breaking style, I just kept staring at the cold and gooey egg slime that dripped through my fingers into the bowl. There is something extremely satisfying about hearing eggs crack and plop into a bowl, even if there may be a handful of eggshell bits scattered inside as well.

Step 4: Is it resourcefulness, or just simply laziness? The next ingredient to add was melted butter, but unfortunately it came in a plastic container that was not microwave safe. Also, we needed a way to measure a cup of melted butter without melting my measuring cups. Ideally, a glass measuring beaker would be able to hold butter and be microwaved until there was enough for the recipe, but we did not have one. Safeway is only a block away, but walking all the way back to buy a glass measuring beaker seemed unnecessary; there just had to be a better way. Suddenly, my friend had an idea. Pointing to a small glass cup on the far end of the sink, he said “Wash that.” Confused, I took the cup and began washing. The cup was pretty, decorated with colourful horizontal bands and a few zigzag patterns, but it certainly was not a measuring cup. When I finished scrubbing, my friend measured a cup of water, poured it into the cup, checked the water line, and then dumped the water into the sink. “There,” he said. “Now we have a measuring cup.” Scooping butter into the cup, he filled it roughly a third above the horizontal line marking one cup. I placed the makeshift glass measuring beaker with butter into the microwave, and set it for two minutes. Coincidentally, we scooped exactly the right amount of butter on the first try.

Step 5: Mixing, measuring, and more mixing. The rest of the brownie preparation went fairly smoothly. After mixing the eggs and butter, I measured the dry ingredients into the bowl and then mixed some more. Microwaving a bowl of chocolate chips, we added it with all the other bowl contents and stirred until the clumpy pile turned into a smooth frosting-like mixture. Lastly, my friend added a generous spoonful or two of peanut butter, which made interesting swirling patterns as I mixed. When all the peanut butter spirals disappeared, I added chocolate chips.

Step 6: Baking time! Finally the ingredients were ready to be cooked. I forgot to get cooking oil from the cellar, so we just poured the mixture directly into a tray. Oh well, I thought. The brownies may stick to the tray, but at least they’ll still taste the same.

Step 7: Yum… Though actually I tried the brownies before they were baked. Hopefully the eggs didn’t have salmonella.