This summer, master a skill that will isolate you regardless of a pandemic!

Step 1: Look up ‘recipes for beginners’. Scratch that. Search ‘easy recipes for dummies’. If you are using an optimal search engine, open the link you find most appealing. If you are using Internet Explorer, your webpage should ideally load by the time quarantine is up, so good luck with that.

Step 2: Chances are, the first recipe you skim will either be Daedalian or use an ingredient your family has decided to deem blasphemous. It is best if you look for another.

Picture scene- “Did she say eggs?” *gasp*

Step 3: After you have traversed the right number of webpages (six and a half) for a suitable time (nine and three-quarter minutes- I timed), you should have unearthed a quick and easy recipe. This recipe must match your taste, temperament, and the ingredients you think you have in your kitchen.

Step 4: By now, you are a certified weary traveller across the realm of the internet. You deserve a fifteen (read 45) minute break from your cooking woes. Watch satisfying cake icing videos until you attain nirvana.

Step 5: Post-break, enter your kitchen energized. If you need to chop/microwave/heat a smaller portion of ingredients, do it beforehand. If you do it while cooking, you might mistake your finger for potatoes as you are chopping them. The potatoes, that is.

This will save time, energy, fingers, and band-aid.

Step 6: This is optional.

I made an eggless banana mug cake from a recipe I chanced upon on YouTube. It appears legitimate (it has tons of views and helpful comments), and is barely two minutes long.

For this, you will need a banana, but neither eggs nor a mug.

Ingredients:

  • Half a banana
  • 1 tablespoon of milk
  • 1/2 tablespoon of canola oil
  • 1/2 tablespoon of honey
  • 3 tablespoons of whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 tablespoon of cinnamon
  • 1/8 tablespoon of baking soda
  • 1/8 tablespoon of salt
  • 1 tablespoon of raisins

Try to not mix up flours (all-purpose flour should do while baking) and oils (there are many, but they all seem the same to me).

Step 7: Mash the banana. Add all the ingredients to it and mix until its texture is that of a sticky puddle you do not want to step into. I used a fork to do this. Microwave for 45 seconds.

Be sure to use an oven-friendly utensil. Keep a fire extinguisher handy.

Step 8: Several friendly and competent cooks/bakers have dispensed valuable suggestions in the comments section. These include, but are not limited to- adding an extra pinch of baking soda, microwaving the cake for one minute, substituting chocolate chips for raisins, etc.

Read the comments to your heart’s content armed with the knowledge that your cooking is as happening as your social life.

Step 9: Panic as you realize you added wrong measurements of the baking powder. Ponder the futility of life in this existential crisis. Switch off the microwave when it beeps.

Step 10: Tempt somebody at home to try a bite of your cake. Feel free to resort to coercion and bribery. After failing at this, scrunch up your nose, bid a temporary farewell to your taste buds, and wolf down the cake at a speed that befits an eating competition.

 

WARNING: Do not chuck the cake under any circumstances. Why throw away something you can write a story about?

 

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