I started getting some of the Christmas baking done over the weekend. I’m not sure how this happened, that I became the baker, but I will admit I enjoy it. Although it does make my head hurt a bit.
Really I guess it started with a cookie exchange. Someone thought that would be a fun thing to do, so I made some cookies. The other members of the family discovered I was making cookies and suggested it would be great if I could make some for everyone. It sounded so easy. And it is. If you have the time. And can figure out a recipe. Which isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
But this weekend had even greater challenges. First, I was attacked by a mixer. I decided to forego the big stand mixer and just use a hand mixer. The beaters on this mixer aren’t exactly heavy duty. I should have gone for the stand mixer. One of the beaters decided to break while I was mixing a batch of cookies. The beater, which was a little piece of formed wire, bent, then snapped. I’m not sure where it ended up. I felt it zip past my ear, gently brushing my hair on the way past. I’m still looking for it. But it was no longer going to do any mixing, so I had to break out something more heavy duty.
The there came the chore of trying to reconcile old recipes with modern life. It shouldn’t be too hard. I mean a cup is eight ounces which is roughly two hundred fifty milliliters. Pretty simply. And it’s not hard to find other equivalents to change from Imperial metric measure. Or I can just stick with Imperial. I have plenty of teaspoons and measuring cups, some of which came from the day when these recipes were first written down.
But then you get into things that aren’t real units of measurement. Like, “throw in a handful”. Are we talking my hand? My grandmother’s hands? All hands are not created equal. Although, weirdly, a pinch is a recognized form of measurement.
Or a can of something. For instance, condensed milk. I’m pretty sure the cans were once larger. A pint would have been roughly three hundred fifty-five milliliters, which might have been roughly what they were. Or three hundred fifty. There are a lot of things that are roughly that size. But these cans are now three hundred milliliters. I swear they got a bit smaller along the way.
I wouldn’t mind if they told you. But any company that engages in some form of shrinkflation should be required to do the math to help you convert to the new size, and not just surprise you. It I knew that the can used to be one size and is now a different size, I might be able to work it out to figure out how to adjust the other amounts. But it wouldn’t be easy. If a can was three hundred fifty milliliters and is now three hundred milliliters and you put it on a train leaving Truro at sixty kilometers per hour, what temperature would you set the oven at?
It’s the sort of thing that would make all our math teachers smile and say, “I told you, you will need to know these things some day.” In some ways, it’s the revenge of the math teachers.
Adjusting old recipes isn’t easy. Throw in some secret shrinkflation and it gets even more difficult.