May
23rd
2015
Two Things from This Week's Episode · 5:42pm May 23rd, 2015
First:
I can finally put the [Alternate Universe] tag on Foreigner. And second--
Someone's finally acknowledged the vital importance of baking powder! I didn't realize it myself the first time I tried to bake a cake. I just grabbed the tin of baking powder that had been sitting in our cupboard for the past three or four years and measured it in. And the cake didn't rise at all! It was supposed to be a two-layer chocolate and pumpkin cake, and it ended up being two chocolate and pumpkin pancakes! Oh, the huge manatees!
Well, now I want cake. I wonder how old the baking powder in the cupboard is?
Mike
Congratulations, I guess?
Although hey, you were right about Gilda being in a remote location and wanting nothing to do with ponies.
When baking powder became widely available around the late 19th century, there was a divide between old fashioned cakes (variations on pound cakes, essentially) and the new-fangled cakes made with baking powder. Cakes with baking powder were considered much fancier and for special occasions.
...now I want to pull out my annotated Anne of Green Gables again.
Baking powder, the best thing to happen to baking since emmer wheat.
This makes me think there should be a tag for stories that weren't originally 'Alternate Universe,' but ended up there thanks to development in a future episode.
3092394
Yes, the tag is "Jossed". Though perhaps here it would be "Larsoned"? "Larsony"? "Thanks M.A. Larson"?
Anyway, yes, baking powder is pretty amazing, though you can get by with baking soda and buttermilk instead of liquids, or maybe cream of tartar (because you've all got cream of tartar in your kitchen, right?). Just need some acid that tastes good.
3091717
3092003
My favorite part:
Is the large "aluminum free" label on the can of baking powder. It makes me wonder if the original kind made the cakes puff up by creating some sort of internal bauxite support structure...
3091324
3092394
I wouldn't mind just putting the "AU" tag on most of my stories right from the start. I mean, you never know when a character's suddenly going to sprout a brother, or another alicorn is going to come creeping out of the woodwork.
Mike
3092470
I got some cream of tartar once:
Because everybody kept telling me it helped with the meringue on lemon meringue pie. I wasn't having any trouble with my meringues, in fact, but I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about. And as near as I could tell, it did nothing. The meringue came out just as puffy and sticky as before, so I assume that the little bottle of cream of tartar now sits alone and bereft in a cupboard somewhere.
Mike Again
3092394 I've always felt that the AU tag isn't required for stories that were consistent with canon at the time they were written (or started, in the case of long runners). Jossing is a known hazard to anyone writing fanfiction in a still ongoing universe after all.
3092471
Aluminum puts the "alum" in, well, "alum". It's generally being phased out of food due to suspicions that lifelong use might eventually build up enough to mess with brain chemistry. Any given foodstuff is safe, though.
Also the advantage to cream of tartar + baking soda is that ambient moisture can make the active ingredients in baking powder combine uselessly in the bottle rather than productively in the pastry. That's why there's usually some starch in baking powder to improve shelf life.
FIMFiction never fails to amaze and amuse me with the types of conversations one can find in the user blogs.
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I'm just amazed:
That I haven't started posting recipes here yet. Once I perfect my cherry custard pie, though...
3092764
Since MLP is my first go at writing fanfiction, I had to look up the word "Jossing." I can only image Mr. Whedon must be pickled tink--as we used to say--to have an entire concept named after him.
3092795
As fat as messing with brain chemistry goes, I've got a chocolate custard pie recipe that I can only eat before going to bed because it makes me too happy to continue coherently...
Mike