Guess work

Admittedly, experimenting with foreign recipes in Indonesia is becoming a bit of a hobby. I realize it’s not at all sustainable if I need to buy (or ask people to send) imported ingredients. In the case of these Lemon Ricotta Cookies, I bought imported lemons, but the other ingredients are from Java. Go figure. I love the fact that the task requires reliance on intuition (in the absence of measuring tools) and openness to small-scale risk (much like learning a language, except a less public one).

It was earlier this year that I tried this recipe from Giada and I loved it. Since our new place is equipped with a pseudo-oven, I wanted to try to bake something. I asked my landlord to come up to our place and show me how to use the contraption. I didn’t realize that it was as straightforward as putting the box on the burner and then turning the burner on. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

While I had all the right ingredients, I lacked a mixer, measuring tools, a zester, and parchment paper. So in place of such I items I gave the batter a good stir, relied on my best judgment, zested with a sharp knife, and lined the tray with foil. After a few minutes of testing the pseudo-oven, I found a creature baking on one of the sheets. So I gave it another good cleaning before lopping on the ricotta dough.

The end result: zesty, undercooked, lemon pancakes! They typically are much more pillow-like. The pancake-like attribute of this batch probably owes itself to the pseudo-oven. I suspect it does not heat to 375 farenheit, but I’m only guessing.