I was your classic "C" student. My report card always said stuff like "With a little more effort...If she would try a little harder, etc." Somehow I slipped on through the system and much to my surprise, they gave me a diploma.
Are you wondering why I'm telling you this? Among the many things I flunked in school, math was the big one. Come to find out, that most things in life are based on math. Not a good thing for me. I've managed to get by all these years not knowing how to read a ruler or to try to attempt basic division or multiplication without a calculator.
Here is something else, one thing I notice that all you edumacated-college graduates like to do at parties is ask what college folks went to. Next time you go to a party take notice; within the first 15 minutes of meeting someone the question will be asked "What college did you go to?"
Okay, so here's why I'm telling you my embarrassing scholastic secrets. In order to make bread, I need to know math. For example, Sensei-John sent me home with some of his starter and a recipe to get me going.
The recipe calls for 1 5/8 cups of water. Have you ever seen a 5/8 measurement on a measuring cup? I haven't. I see the 1/2 cup measure, the 1/4 cup measure so logically to me the next measurement down that isn't on the cup should be 1/8, right? I need 5 of those. Seems simple enough, but since I flunked math, I'm not at all confident about this. I don't want to ask I-Have-A-Masters-Poppy because I think this is a way stoopid question for me to ask...and I ask lots of them. I still think it's weird that my partner is a brain-ee-ack. Don't get me wrong, I'm smart, but in that common sense street smarts kind of way.
So I decide to confirm my measurement online. So look at the chart below.
Ounces or 16ths, with decimal equivalents Ounces Fraction Decimal
1 1/16 .0625
2 1/8 .125
3 3/16 .1875
4 1/4 .25
5 5/16 .3125
6 3/8 .375
7 7/16 .4375
8 1/2 .5
9 9/16 .5625
10 5/8 .625 11 11/16 .6875
12 3/4 .75
13 13/16 .8125
14 7/8 .875
15 15/16 .9375
I see that 10 ounces equals 5/8ths. Hmmm, well, okay then. I know what your thinking, but remember, I flunked math. So I measure out 1 cup (8 ounces, see I just did math) and 10 ounces (1 cup + 2 ounces. Look, I just did more math). I said Shuddup, I know what your thinking. Reminds me of a scene in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when Kim says to her blind date "Wow, you're tall, you must be 5'14"."
I mix up my dough...and I realize something might not be right. I tell I-Have-A-Masters-Poppy that the dough is really liquidy. She says "Are you following the recipe to the letter?" I say confidently "Yeah..."
This dough needs to rise for 18 hours so it would make sense to me that it's a moist dough, but really, it's the consistency of pancake batter. I go to bed. I'm up half the night thinking to myself that my measurement just wasn't right and that I should have trusted myself. What the heck am I going to do with this dough?
I get up and there's my pancake batter...it didn't rise. So what do you do with lemons? You make pancakes!
These are really good too. They are savory. The best part is that while the leaven didn't levitate the dough, it gave the cakes those nice holes inside like a nice bread and I used Sensei-John's starter and then I fed it and it's still alive!
Jax-The-Pancake-Connesewer approves!
I will try again tonight!
Oh, I checked on Baby-Gus, II this morning. He's having a rough start. We'll check in with him tomorrow.
Chow!
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