fandomhigh | Baking Workshop 6/5, Monday Morning

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cooking

Baking Workshop 6/5, Monday Morning

Piper pointed out today's samples as the students arrived. "We're gonna try some foreign cuisine today. You'll be making crepes, which are French. When you finish making them, feel free to add any filling you want to."

She glanced at the various choices sitting on the counter. "We've got strawberries, bananas, chocolate sauce, various jams, etc. You can even add more than one if you feel like it."

"I'll be around, as usual, if you have questions," Piper added, handing each student a list of instructions.

Equipment Needed

Mixing Bowl

Measuring Cups

Measuring Spoons

Frying Pan

Spatula

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

2 eggs

2 tbsp melted butter

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs.

Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine.

Add the sugar, vanilla and butter; beat until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium high heat.

Pour the batter into the pan, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe.

Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.

Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown.

Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side.

Add whatever filling you want and then roll them up.

[ooc: ingredients and instructions from here]

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Sam sighed and handed him a paper towel. "Because we wanted to conquer the kitchen? Temporary insanity?"

"Thanks. I'm gonna go with a yes on both counts, only I don't think the insanity's so temporary. For me, at least," replied Anders as he mopped up the smashed egg. "I think I'm gonna stick with easy stuff straight out of the box and into the oven from now on, after this is over."

"I'm a big fan of ordering in, myself," Sam said, measuring out ingredients for the crepes and eyeing the mixing bowl with suspicion. "Box stuff is too risky."

"As long as all you have to add is water and maybe an egg or two, I can kind of manage the box stuff," replied Anders after he went to go get another egg. He was also looking at his own mixing bowl like he was sure it would jump up and try to bite him. Or smother his face, or something. "But ordering in is pretty awesome, and Jeff's kind of has some seriously awesome stuff. Plus that way, I burn off some of what I eat walking to and from town to go buy it. I don't think you get as much exercise if you're just standing in front of the stove."

"Yeah, I'm a big fan of Jeff's myself," Sam nodded.

"So, do we dare trying to mix everything together?" She glanced at him, then at the ingredients, which looked harmless, but you could never really tell.

"It's not really the mixing I'm afraid of. It's what happens after I get it into the pan." Anders looked at Sam helplessly. "They're supposed to be so thin! Although . . ."

He muttered to himself and poked his finger at the instruction sheet as he counted the ingredients. "Yikes, seven. Okay, I think that's my new all-time high. Well, here goes nothing."

He took a deep breath and dumped all the dry ingredients into the bowl with his eyes shut, then peered cautiously into the bowl. His visible relief when nothing exploded -- so far -- was really kind of sad. But then, there were still water, eggs, butter, and vanilla to go.

Sam peeked into the bowl. "Looks okay so far." Buoyed by Anders's success, she dumped her own dry ingredients in, making a small white cloud that dispersed quickly.

"Wet now?" She coughed a bit. "We'll do it together? On three? One...two..."

Anders had cracked his eggs into his measuring cup of water and dumped the vanilla in as well. He raised the somewhat unappetizing-looking mixture in one hand and the melted (and slightly burned) butter in the other.

"Three?" he said, and poured it all into the bowl. No explosion. So far, so good.

Too bad he'd forgotten the milk, this time.

"Three." Sam poured her mixture into the bowl and started to stir. Of course, because she'd dumped it all in at once, there were lumps.

She poked at the lumps with the rubber spatula and frowned. "I thought crepes were smoother? This kind of looks like a salt map I made once."

Anders's supposed crepe batter was even lumpier, and thicker too, given the missing milk. "Heh, yeah," he said, straining a little with the effort of stirring the extra-sticky, lumpy mixture. "This looks almost like the mountains around Delphi back home. I always did mean to go up there and do high-altitude training or something. But I don't think it's gonna spread itself out in a pan really well. These are, like, flour boulders."

Sam frowned into his bowl. "Yeah, that can't be right. Maybe if you added water to it?"

"Frying pans are next, but I think you should unclip the fire extinguisher from your belt first and have it readily accessible," she said, "just in case. One of us cooks while the other holds the extinguisher?"

Anders dumped about a cup's worth of water into the bowl and stirred determinedly. The result was a much thinner batter. Too thin, really, but to him it was better than the sticky mess it had been, streaks of egg yolk notwithstanding. "Sounds good to me. You wanna go first, or should we flip a coin for it?"

Sam sighed in a way she usually did when she was walking down a corridor surrounded by armed Goa'uld.

"I'll go," she poured some oil into the pan, then set the pan on the stove to heat. "Do you know how I know when it's hot enough?" She asked as the pan began to sputter and pop.

Anders had the fire extinguisher aimed at the pan and his hand on the pin by now. "Is that a do I know as in, 'do I know how and should tell you,' or as in 'do I know your technique?' 'cause I think if the oil's flying everywhere it's probably a good sign that it's hot enough."

Sam stuck her tongue out at him. "Do you know how, smarty."

"Okay. Here goes nothing." She poured some of the batter into the pan, then stepped back as it spit oil at her. The batter blackened fairly quickly, but Sam couldn't get near the pan to turn the heat lower because of the oil. "Wow, okay, not good!"

"Not good? No. Very, very bad!" Anders stared at the rapidly charring thing in the pan that wasn't quite a crepe because that would've required them to spread the batter around thinly enough, and that wasn't happening with the Flying Hot Oil of Death.

There was a spectacular amount of smoke coming from the pan by now, but he wasn't sure whether he should hit it with the fire extinguisher just yet.

"Anders! What're you waiting for, the fire department?" Sam asked, waving away smoke and starting to cough from the smoke. She went in low, reached out for the burner knob, and was promptly splattered. "OW!"

"But we don't have a fire dep -- oh. OH! Frak! Carter, you okay?" Anders yelped as he yanked the pin out of the fire extinguisher and squeezed the trigger.

If that crepe had been in any way edible before, it sure wasn't now.

Sam's right arm was covered in fire extinguisher foam and was staring grumpily at Anders as she turned off the burner, which had been extinguished anyway. "I got a bit fried by the oil, but I'll be fine."

She backed away from the stove and reached for the fire extinguisher and a towel to wipe off the foam. "Your turn."

Piper noticed the smoke and the sound of Sam crying out in pain. She'd be a bad instructor if she ignored it. "What's going on over here? Are you okay?"

Sam was glaring at the stove, the pan, the fire extinguisher, her arm, and Anders in series. Piper was exempt, however, since this wasn't her fault.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Piper," she shrugged, holding out her arm, which was a little bit red, but not blistering or charred. "Heat under the pan got a little out of control and I got burned turning it off. Luckily, Anders was ready to help."

Piper glanced at Sam's arm just to make sure it wasn't badly burned. "It doesn't look to bad. It could have been a lot worse."

She gave Sam a sympathetic smile. "If you need help with anything, don't hesitate to ask, okay?"

Sam sighed. "I'll be fine. But maybe you want to put in a requisition for an extra fire extinguisher? Just in case?"

Piper nodded. "Probably a good idea. I kinda like the kitchen intact."

"I'll let you get back to...baking," Piper said to both Anders and Sam, wondering if baking was the correct word to use in this case.

"Maybe two extras," Anders called after Piper and winced, a guilty expression on his face. "Dammit, Carter, I'm really sorry. Shouldn't you go run some water over that or something?"

He heated his own frying pan under too-high heat and poured in too much oil, watching it carefully and occasionally tapping a fingertip against the oil. When he finally had to flinch back and stick his finger in his mouth, he figured it was hot enough, and poured in the thin, watery batter.

He tried to spread it around the pan like the instructions said, but it ended up sinking below the oil in the pan and not really doing what he wanted it to, which prompted a string of curses and graphic, colorful Caprican euphemisms from Anders -- just before a large battery bubble popped in the pan and splattered his arm and cheek pretty liberally.

"Ow! Frakking hell!" The burning caught him by surprise and he banged the pan back down on the burner hard enough to slosh oily batter over the sides. It didn't get his hand -- but it did run down into the burner and blaze up suddenly.

Yeah, at least two extra fire extinguishers.

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