Cooking

He read the ingredients from the sheet he had printed from the net and smiled. It didn't seem all that too hard to bake a cake. Mix, stir and shove into the oven. Rubbing his hands together, he was eager to start. Blake was going to be surprised, Hunter couldn't help but grin.

"Preheat the oven at 350 F," he muttered as his fingers skimmed across the directions, then turned to the oven and set the temperature, leaving it for heating up. Walking over the radio, he turned it on.

Pulling out a large clear bowl, he placed it on the counter. Facing the paper, he read the ingredients again, "Two cups of all purpose flour," he read before making a face. "What's the difference?" he asked himself and then gave a shrug as he pulled the self-rising flour out of the cupboard, the only kind sitting in the pantry. Measuring two cups, he dumped them in the bowl.

After that he placed in the two teaspoons of baking powder, baking soda, salt and ground cinnamon. Hunter used the flour cup for white sugar as well.

Taking out a wooden spoon from the cutlery drawer, he stirred the ingredients he had placed in the bowl. Pouring the oil, then cracking the eggs, he mixed them again. Pausing to test the taste of it, he nodded to himself, "Not bad, not bad," he praised himself, mentally patting himself on the back.

It was his first time with baking and so far it wasn't all that bad. He was glad that Sensei Watanabe had allowed him to use the Wind Academy kitchen. Not that there was anything wrong with his apartment kitchen, but seeing it was Blake's birthday, he didn't want his surprise to be ruined by having his brother walk in while he was baking.

If the others saw him, they would never let him live it down. Picking up the other ingredients, he added in the grated carrot, a small amount of pineapple, finely sliced almonds that took him hours to chop. A few bandages on his fingers were proof of that.

He shoved some grated coconut in as well; giving it a final mix, he poured the batter into the circled baking pan, which wasn't greased, then slid the pan into the oven, setting the timer for forty minutes.

Tori walked into the kitchen, smelling something that was cooking.

"Ummm…cake." The Blue ranger sniffed the air. "Carrot cake, from the smell of it," she mused as she found Hunter reading a book on the counter. Looking towards the oven, Tori noticed that the cake was rather large, larger than it should be, nearly pouring out of the oven.

Her blue eyes widened. "HUNTER!" she bellowed, "Just what did you use for that cake?" she asked.

"Uh…flour, egg and baking soda stuff." The crimson ranger looked up from his book. "Why?"

"Then why is it pushing out of the oven?" She pointed to the nearly cake-filled oven.

"Oh crap," he swore as he ran into the kitchen, only to see the cake batter all over the floor while the oven gargled and spat. "This was for Blake's birthday."

He ran up to the oven, slipping in the process; trying to get up he failed and fell face down, getting covered in the cake goo. "You gotta be kidding, I read the whole thing right," he whined, looking at the only female ranger, who was having a hard time keeping her face straight.

Tori picked up the book. "You did use the plain flour, right?" she asked, trying to figure out where her friend went wrong.

"Uh…no." He shook his head. "There was the self-rising flour though," he replied.

"Baking soda? Baking powder?" She looked at him with a twisted face. When he nodded, she had to smile. "You do know that self-rising flour contains the soda, right?"

"Uh…" His face turned as red as the shirt he was wearing. "No." He looked a bit sheepish.

Tori shook her head as she laughed, "Come on, let's clean this mess up," she said as she passed him a mop.

Well...that's not so bad for the first try. Let me know how you find this little theme of mine. I'm really hunting down my bunnies for my other work. Too bad I can't find them anywhere