It seems last week FanFiction deleted the link to Distiller's; it's now on my profile. Sorry!

Without further ado:

In the morning, John stole some of Sherlock's 'baking' ingredients and decided to try making a cake. If he had Harry over for cake, that would definitely get her off his case. Right? Right.

The recipe online promised to be fail-safe. John felt this was a step in the right direction. He started with the first step - gathering the ingredients. He didn't have self-rising flour - surely normal flour would do? And he had granulated sugar - the difference between it and caster sugar couldn't be that big. Sugar was sugar, flour was flour.

Well. Right. John rubbed his hands on his pants and looked at the directions. "Weigh your three eggs with their shells. Take that weight and measure the same amount each for the sugar, margarine and flour. Weigh the flour last. (For example, if the eggs weigh 200g, then the flour should weigh 200g, the sugar 200g, and the same for the margarine.)"

John raised an eyebrow at the old scale he'd found in the back of a cupboard. It was probably fine. Right?

After a bit of fiddling he had the thing calibrated and was measuring his eggs. 171 grams. Brilliant. So. Sugar.

A moment later he had his sugar, margarine and flour in their separate bowls in front of him. Next step.

"For the flour, remove 55g -" Well then, what was the point of measuring it, then? John grumbled to himself - "from the weight you measured to match the weight of the eggs. Add 55g of cocoa powder. Combine the flour and cocoa."

John could do that. Basically he had to take out 55g of flour and then fill it back up to 171g total, with cocoa. Except he didn't have any cocoa.

"Sherlock," he said, poking his head through the door into her bedroom - it was open, he figured it was fair game. She wasn't there. He looked round, but it seemed she had shut herself in her kitchen again, which meant he was probably going to get yelled at if he opened the door, because she was trying to keep the area "controlled". Shit. Maybe Mrs. Hudson?

Mrs. Hudson was more than willing to help when he went downstairs and asked. "Oh, yes, dear!" she fluttered. "Here you are, it's no problem. What are you making?"

He told her, and she nodded. "I didn't think you had any baking supplies, though, dear."

"I don't," John admitted. "I'm nicking some off Sherlock's latest experiment. Did she tell you about it?"

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. John chuckled. "Well, she'll probably bombard you with bread and pastry recipes when she's done, so I'll let her brag about it."

"Do you need anything else, then?"

John scrunched his nose. "I don't suppose you know the difference between normal flour and the self-rising stuff?"

Mrs. Hudson proved to be very informative on this topic, and soon John was heading upstairs with a canister full of self-rising flour as well as the cocoa, due to Mrs. Hudson assuring him the cake simply would not turn out if he used the regular flour. It turned out baking was much more complicated than he'd expected.

"Right," he said as he stomped into the kitchen. For all the fail-safe claims of the recipe, he apparently had very nearly mucked it up, and he was only on the - third? fourth? - step of the process. "Let's do this again."

He measured out the flour again, removing the 55g and putting the cocoa in. He stirred the two together with a spoon, trying not to let it puff out the bowl, and failing, and noting the brown powder settling into his jumper with exasperation. Right. Next step.

"Preheat the oven to 170 C/Gas 3. Grease two 23cm sandwich tins and line with baking parchment."

John didn't have any sandwich tins and he didn't know what baking parchment was. Back down to Mrs. Hudson, then.

She gave him some tins to borrow and some baking parchment, explaining how to line them, and John trudged back up the stairs, cutting the baking parchment and layering the tins with difficulty before setting his oven. Okay. This was going well, for not knowing anything about what he was doing. He had this under control.

John remembered the first time he'd had to do a chemistry lab, and hadn't known what half the things were called. By the end of the semester, though, he'd understood all the different parts of a syringe and what a bunsen burner did. It just took practice.

"Put all the margarine and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Cream together with an electric mixer until pale, creamy and fluffy."

John didn't have an electric mixer. He was starting to sense a theme to his baking problems. However, he did have a fork and the strength left over from army pushups. He began to mix the butter and sugar. It took him a while before he could get all the chunks out of the butter, but he managed it and eventually it started to reach a strange fluffiness. He figured that would work. Manly baking meant using his biceps.

"Crack ONE egg into a small bowl (in case something is wrong with the egg)-" What could be wrong with an egg? It's an egg, John thought - "then add it to the margarine/sugar mixture. It is important that you do not over whisk at this point, just use the mixture on the lowest setting until the egg has become a part of the mixture. Repeat this process with the second egg and, after that, the third egg."

Seemed simple enough; John's arm was a bit sore, and gently mixing in the eggs was nice. Good.

"Sieve a couple of tablespoons of flour-cocoa mixture at a time into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients. Keeping the electric mixer turned off, give the mixture a quick stir (this will help prevent any of the flour flying out when you turn the mixer on!). Turn the mixer on now and mix everything together very well. Try to get air into the mixture as well as this will make the sponge lighter."

John translated this into no-mixer instructions - put the flour stuff in a bit at a time, and stir it all together at the end. Brilliant. He didn't know what 'sieve' was - hopefully it wasn't important. It probably was, but he wasn't going back down to Mrs. Hudson again.

"Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. To make sure it has finished baking, use your fingers to very lightly press on the top of the sponge. It should feel spongey and spring back up."

Right, good. John finished the last step and shoved the tins in the oven, putting an alarm on his phone so he'd remember to take it out. He made a cuppa, then wandered into Sherlock's kitchen, which was now 'ventilating'.

"Hi," he said, leaning against the wall and smirking slightly. "How's your experiment going?"

"Well enough," Sherlock replied, looking over a book - was that a Betty Crocker cookbook? "How's yours?"

"Doing well," John said, feeling absurdly proud of himself. "Was able to figure it out."

"Good," Sherlock said. "I wondered how you would do without the sugar."

"What?" John asked, confused. Sherlock looked at him.

"I needed your sugar. I left you my salt. There was a note."

John's eyes widened and he darted back to his kitchen, licking his finger and catching a few of the crystals that remained in the bowl he'd used for the sugar.

Salt. Shit.

There was a piece of paper on the floor. John clenched his fists, then unclenched them, then bent down to pick up the paper.

I need the sugar, I'm out and it's mine anyway. Here's some salt if you need it.

"Buggering bloody shit," John said angrily, tearing up the paper and turning off the oven.

Should you wish to attempt to make John's chocolate sponge cake - preferably with sugar instead of salt - the recipe is linked on my profile!

Reviews always make me smile, too, so if you try it you should tell me how it tastes. :D