-Tonight I celebrated a small victory- I baked brownies. There are a few reasons this was challenging:
1. The directions on the mix were in Japanese. Not too hard once at home, but some on-my-feet reading in the grocery store was necessary to gather the proper ingredients. I learned the word for walnuts.
2. I had to go to the home store to buy a pan. Not a big deal, I rode my bike the 10 minutes to Ono Home after work today and bought not only a baking pan, but also a potted mum to decorate our doorstep for fall.
3. I had to use the oven. This is the biggest challenge of all. Our oven is a combo microwave-convection oven-roaster-grill-who knows what else. Regardless of language, this is a perplexing appliance with far too many options and no instruction manual. How can a microwave also be an oven? Why is it ok to put metal in this appliance? We've figured out how to make pizza and gratin with it, but learning a new function can prove to be challenging. The big decision was- do I use the automatic cake setting or follow the brownie package directions (25 minutes at 160 degrees C). I went with the directions but was confused by the pre-heat phase, so it took a little longer than 25 minutes. In the end all turned out ok, and the brownies were delicious! Yay! This is exciting because I love baking in cool weather and also because while our local grocery store has lots of tasty breads and fluffly cakes (chiffon cake is huge), we don't have a source for fresh brownies, pies, or other traditional American-style desserts. Yum!
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