Saturday, December 15, 2007

Blunder

I went to Williams-Sonoma yesterday to spend the rest of our wedding gift certificates. I put the trip off for a long time because it's dangerous when I go into WS. This time, I found the sale bin. Baskets and baskets filled with discounted pumpkin-flavored food stuff! I kept hauling out $2 mixes and oils and sauces, making a pile beside me on the floor.

The sales staff came over every few minutes to take my pile to the register and tell me about products that were not on clearance, but I kept my focus on the important things: pumpkin spice bread kits. I bought four. I had grand plans for them for upcoming holiday parties.

When I got home, I engaged Corey in the baking process. He argued with me for a bit about the amount of butter in a stick. Surely it couldn't be 125 grams when his cell-phone calculator reveals it to be 112.5? How could this be? Something was amiss in the recipe!! He got out the food scale and everything. (This is a man who measures out the amount of water needed to boil pasta)

As I hissed at him to just hand me more butter, I stopped paying attention. I added four times the amount of water I was supposed to! Instead of making just one loaf of pumpkin bread, I had to make all four! Worse, Corey had to get the scale back out and scoop more Smart Balance (we don't actually use butter, you see). And we only had five total eggs where we needed eight.

I called my mother. She talked me through it. How is it, at 26.6 years of age, that I cannot manage an egg crisis on my own? Why does my mom know that five eggs will turn out ok when the recipe calls for eight? When do I get this knowledge?

Fifty minutes later, I had four huge wedding-gift ceramic loaf pans filled with crusty pumpkin bread, and I had to stuff three of them in the freezer so they wouldn't get stale before my parties. I try to look at the bright side of my carelessness. At least I won't have to watch Corey use his nanometer on the Smart Balance before the next parties. Instead, we can just squabble about appropriate thawing time and relax.

4 comments:

Emily said...

OH MY! WS has CLEARANCE!? On Pumpkin Bread!? And you had Gift Certificates?? I am amazing jealous.

Also, does smart balance actually bake like butter??

Katy said...

smart balance indeed does! this is my first smart balance baking. i'll be trying it with cookies this week, so i'll let you know if they're different than bread. WS hides the clearance in the middle of the store. usually the clearance bins are UNDER a table cloth draped over a table of non-clearance things. if you just squat on the floor and dig, you'll find GEMS!

Soupie said...

This is a man who measures out water for pasta

P said...

I can't believe you don't use real butter!