Writing What You Don't Know: The Assistants

One thing I noticed: people who left Iran as refugees from the 1979 revolution often make a point of referring to themselves as Persian, not Iranian, when speaking English.

 

@raybot hey that's neat. I was figuring on them having pureblood prejudices but didn't even think about muggleborn students having their own prejudices.

@Morven that's super helpful! My oc's (who I think I'm naming azar) parents left Iran before she was born (and I'm making her birthyear be 1995)

plus it also makes sense, since the wizarding world seems more old fashioned anyway, to refer to iran as Persia

 

maybe kintsugi kitchen is the better thread for this question, but w/e

please tell me about the weirdest or worst mistakes someone could make while baking a cake, esp as an amateur

(baking at the wrong temperature is the only thing coming to mind, and that doesn't fit for the situation)

 

This wasn't cake but could be adapted to it- adding way too much liquid because it was hard to stir. (When I was like eight me and my best friend made cookies, and the icing called for two tablespoons of milk, and she thought that CLEARLY wasn't enough and added like half a cup.) Or other cases of "ignores ingredient volumes."

Oh, or baking soda in place of baking powder, that's a good one.

 

(Baking powder has baking soda and a dry acid, so when you add water you get the vinegar-and-baking-soda carbon dioxide bubble reaction, which is what makes the cake rise. Baking soda instead of baking powder = your cake is flat and kind of bitter.)

 

A guy I know put magnesium chloride in his coffee instead of sugar once.

 

If you forget to add sugar, your cake does not rise, and comes out like a flat cookie that is not sweet. (I have done this. >_<)

Not adding baking powder is a classic - again, your cake doesn't rise, so it's really dense and weird.

Having really large or really small eggs, so that the dry ingredients end up in the wrong proportions. (eggs are usually estimated in recipes to be 2 ounces, so if you have, say 3-oz eggs where you are, but didn't weigh them, you'll end up with way too much egg for your everything else. I used to deal with this by using eggs as my weights, but that implies an old-fashioned balance-scale.)

Similarly, having your eggs be spoiled and not noticing until you crack them into the mixture.

Leaving bits of eggshell in the cake. (Not a huge deal, but still.)

Using the wrong kind of flour! (for example, don't use bread flour in cakes, know whether you are using plain or self-raising flour and adjust your baking powder accordingly, etc. You have more leeway with sugar and butter, but unsalted butter would be kind of weird, and I think icing sugar would also just flat-out ruin your cake. Margarine is doable but makes the cake... different, and weirdish.)

Not cooking your cakes for long enough or cooking them for too long - both are mildly disastrous. As is not pre-heating the oven.

Not greasing the cake tin, omg. (if you don't grease - and preferably flour - the cake tin, then your cake sticks to the tin and tears when you try to get it out.)

Not leaving the cake to cool before you try to do anything with it - especially if you're trying to ice it.

Using essential oils to flavour a cake and putting in more than a few drops. (Don't do the thing! Really! Don't!)

Not sufficiently mixing the ingredients - it gets hard and boring but seriously you don't want a clump of burnt flour in your finished cake because you got tired of mixing.

 

- Being in a rush and thinking that you can bake it twice as fast if you double the temperature
- Not letting it cool long enough before removing it from the pan
- "why would you use salt in a cake?" [omits it]
- confusing salt and sugar
- using banana as a substitute for eggs AND oil (did this IRL because I had neither; the result was edible but extremely dense)

For standard drop cookies, leaving out the vanilla extract (if it's a recipe that calls for that) will result in cookies that look fine but taste like flour.

 

I have a fair number of cookie horror stories too, like the time my roommates mixed up wax paper and parchment paper.

 

-not letting the cake cool enough before applying butter cream icing. that stuff melts right back down again.
-putting in cloves before baking. seriously. don't. bake. cloves. they become bitter
-taking the cake out too early (deflates) or too late (burns)
-applying glazing before you bake the stuff (lemon juice glazing becomes bitter)

 

oh nooooooo

 

I kinda want to make a cake with salt instead of sugar For Science™️.

 

I don't recommend it unless you're okay with wasting food.

Another mistake: deciding that more is better with a flavoring (such as rosewater, orange blossom water, or lavender) that needs a delicate touch and adding in two to four times as much as is appropriate (which is like, 2 tsp instead of 1/2 tsp). It turns out that when your confection smells like it was made in a perfumery, it doesn't taste so good...

 

Or go full Fuuka and mix up bottles and add balsamic vinegar instead of vanilla extract or something.

 

fun random fact: back in the middle ages women burnt the tip end of cloves and then used the resulting ashes/charcoal for eyeliner!

P.S. Aside from my life experience, I apparently have a terrifyingly deep well of random knowledge, like this fact. I will sometimes jump in with said random knowledge. Do not try to stop me.

 

Being like one of my friends and deciding that since vanilla SMELLS SO GOOD you should TOTALLY drizzle it on top of your cake.

 

I once forgot to add flour to a cake (to be fair, it never actually became a cake after that).

 

Why? I always use unsalted butter in cakes...