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“Oh settle down, Zee. Ingredients are cheap. It’ll be way less expensive than buying me junk food every week!”
The striped jackal grumbled at the mention of his excessive spending on chocolate, chips and candy.
“At the rate you eat it all, you’re going to get fat...”
Gadget paused in his steps and jerked backward, gluing his ear onto the side of Zero’s muzzle.
“Sorry, my hearing isn't as good as yours. What did you say?”
“... I said we’ll pick up lots of that. As in, baking ingredients.”
Gadget stood back to analyze his darker half’s flat expression with a squint, before continuing down the aisle.
“Okay… I see the first few things on the list in this aisle. Then there’s baking soda? Here’s baking powder, close enough.” He threw a bottle into Zero’s basket and continued on. The jackal stared at it, before switching it out with a box of baking soda. He wasn’t going to trust Gadget’s judgement any more than his own when it came to the ingredients.
“We have eggs, but not brown sugar or chocolate chips. What is semi sweet chocolate? Sounds gross, all chocolate should be fully sweet.” Without looking, he grabbed a bag of bittersweet chips and threw them at the increasingly annoyed jackal.
“Gadget. Don’t just grab whatever without looking, or assume you can use something similar. Last time I checked, you couldn’t even set the oven temperature, let alone make that kind of judgement…”
“Hey! I can boil water at least.”
Zero sighed.
—————
After painfully tracking down the rest of the ingredients, they were home and ready to start.
“You’re learning how to use this thing today.”
Zero pointed to the ‘set temperature’ button on the oven.
“Press this, and then use the arrows beside it to pick the temperature you want - which is 350.”
“You mean 350 celsius? They’ll be incinerated.”
“Gadg… no.”
Without any further questioning, he scrolled past 350 and set the temperature to 450C, and then began pulling out various measuring utensils. Zero grabbed a two-cup measuring glass and packed it to the top with flour. Gadget eyed him.
“Is that how much the recipe says to use?”
His darker half glanced at the compacted flour.
“It says one cup.”
“Ok… well you’ve got two in there.”
“This is one cup in my hand.”
Gadget’s brow ridges scrunched together in astonishment. He snatched it out of black hands, dusting both canines in flour, and scooped out half of it.
“Now you’ve got one cup. Who’s the master chef here? Not you!”
Zero’s expression was unamused. He analyzed the recipe, and picked up a ring of measuring spoons. Using the largest one, he jammed it in the box of baking soda and leveled the top off.
“That’s how you make a perfect measurement. You would have just left a lump on top.”
The wolf stared at the recipe, and took the spoons away from his mate.
“You’ve got a tablespoon - the recipe says half a TEAspoon.”
The jackal swiped them back.
“I just looked, and it says 2 tablespoons, you little mutt.”
Zero bopped the other canine on the head, and dumped the baking soda in a bowl with the flour. Gadget laughed, and sprinkled a pinch of salt on top. The long-maned mobian put a stick of butter in the microwave and waited, then removed the warmed butter and dumped it on top, splashing some of it on both their chests. He faltered immediately after.
“Was I supposed to put it in now? Sticks come in 3⁄4 cup measurements right? Well, it’s done. Everything needs to be mixed together anyway.”
Gadget measured out a cup of white sugar, and Zero balked.
“I knew we would forget something! We didn’t buy any brown sugar…”
“Oh well, what’s a difference in colour gonna do? Make the cookies lighter?”
He dumped it in the bowl. The long-maned canine had a bad feeling welling up in his chest. He checked the instructions for the next step.
“One egg and one egg yolk? The instructions say to just add two eggs though.”
Gadget nudged his head under the jackal’s armpit to peer at the recipe.
“Well let’s not waste part of an egg, just put it all in there!”
“That is true. What will one egg white change, anyway? Next is the chocolate chips. It says 7 ounces.”
“The bag we bought is 454 grams. What is that in ounces? It looks like a good amount to put in.”
By that point, Zero had lost his rectitude and had simply been agreeing with all of his partner’s decisions. Gadget mixed everything with gloved hands, and began balling the mix up.
“Hold it there, fluffy cheeks. It says to chill the dough for an hour before cooking.”
“Well we already have the oven on… the dough isn’t hot, why does it need to cool down?”
Zero groaned, but began balling mix up alongside the eager wolf. They crammed their cookie dough lumps on the ungreased pan, leaving little space, and placed them in the oven for 10 minutes.
______
All of the balls had melted into one mass. The cookies - scratch that, singular cookie, was burnt along the ridges. Both canines stood there in disappointed silence. Cautiously, they both pulled a piece off and bit down. Their expressions contorted in disgust.
“...”
“...”
“This is the most bitter thing I have ever tasted.”
“We did end up incinerating them. Let’s just go back and stock up on premade stuff…”