Quotes are as remembered not verbatim.
"Vince, you have snack tomorrow for CMS class," Jack kindly reminded me of this news at 9:00pm as I was reading tomorrow's history reading.
"Oh yeah, dang," I had forgotten about this commitment.
After a few minutes of brainstorming as to what I should do about this new revelation, Jack mentioned cookies. Not just any cookies, but coffee cookies.
"They'll combine your two favorite things, it'll be great!" I agreed and began searching the internet for a recipe.
"All these ask for instant coffee or espresso...." I said slightly disheartened because I have a beef with instant coffee (but not those who drink it) "oh, here's one that substitutes instant espresso with one really strong cup of coffee." We could make this happen.
After going next door to procure chocolate chips we were eagerly following the recipe.
"I'll get the coffee going and mix up the flour, baking soda, and sugar."
"Vince we don't have a double boiler to melt the choclate, but I have an idea."
"We've been ad hocing this a little already with the coffee substitution. You're just following the spirit of the baking experience tonight."
We had the dry flour mixed with the sugar and baking soda, the chocalte chips were melting down and the coffee was brewed. The last step before baking was to combine all these along with plenty of butter in a big bowl. I took charge of measuring out what I calculated to be the portions of each ingredient. Cup of butter, 3 cups flour....2 cups coffee... Until we had our mixture.
"Jack does this look a little too runny for dough?"
"Yeah maybe it needs time to cool?"
So we put it in the freezer with the idea that we would have a workable dough after 15 minutes or so.
In that waiting our brother Dan comes back from school. Dan is the kitchen guru of the house and I decided to ask him if our dough looked right. His face said it all.
"You look skeptical Dan."
"Yeah..."
"How much flour did you put in?"
"I dubled what the recipe asked for."
"Hmmm"
Dan was at the computer reading the recipie to himself and then came to the bottom where the coffee substitution was.
"How much coffee did you put in?"
With confidence I replied, "Two cups as the substitution calls for."
"No i think the substitution calls for 2 tablespoons taken from one strong cup of coffee."
"Shoot!"
"Yeah it's worded and formatted poorly, but I think that explains your batter-like mixture."
Dan being the optimist did not give up on this baking experience though. I mentioned how it looked like brownie or muffin mix and with Dan and Jack's enthusiasm we began finessing our "dough" into batter.
"Add another egg, some more flour and a little baking powder."
Following Dan's recommendations we came to a decently tasting batter. We greased our muffin pans and put'em in the oven. The result was now out of our hands.
I watched that oven like a hawk. Thinking that maybe if I show my angst to these "muffins" they would grow to be muffins.
"They're rising!"
I was restless.
In the end the cookies turned muffins rose, cooked through, and tasted great. They were not what I had intended to make at all. I don't know if I could actually repeat the process. I nearly threw the goop out when Dan discovered my blunder. We would not have gotten muffins though had we not worked together. Were it just me in the story I would have forgotten to make anything at all. Were it just me and Jack we would not have had chocolate chips. Were it not for Dan we would have had strange probably sad excuses for cookies. Just as it took many ingredients (some measured poorly according the intended recipe) it took many people to bring this together. It's not about the muffins though. It's about the relationships that brought about the possibility of the muffins.
I cannot exegete this much more beyond saying I was insufficient on my own, but in relationships with those around me we accomplished more than any of us intended.
Blessings
and may your baking, cooking, and planning be ever more than you could ever imagine.
