EXCUSE Me?

[aldersprig]

Written to an anonymous prompt, with nods to kelkyag's prompt.

🍰

“Evangeline, what is WRONG with your sugar?”

There were too many people in Eva’s kitchen.

“Aunt Eva, where do you keep your star anise?”

“What do you need star anise for, Bellamy Jane?”

“Her middle name isn't Jane…”

read on…

Comments

[kelkyag]

Yup, those prompts played together dangerously well. I hope anon is amused, too. :)

I have to wonder what constitutes "a little extra help" -- a bit of luck? A push back toward the straight-and-narrow? The examples are (deliberately, I assume) vague. Interesting to get even that level of detail on magic-working, though.

Nits:
"voice shifted, and she was almost Wheeling": For "Wheeling" here, I would have used "wheedling", but possibly you are using an idiom I don't recogize, in which case, please point me to background?
"tasted the batter": I would not call anything attached to pie batter. There is pie dough, for the crust(s), and filling, which may be fruit or custard or pudding or the delicious sticky doom of pecan and chess pies, but I don't think any of the fillings are batters. (Maybe the sticky sugar kind, I haven't made that.) Batters are pourable, like pancakes and cake. Doughs are stiff enough to be manipulated, like pie crust and biscuits and cookies that can be shaped (or just dropped). This may be a dialect difference.

[aldersprig]

I hope anon is amused, too! Not sure which Anon this was.

Thanks for the catches, my brain has been twisting words lately.

[kelkyag]

I am still pondering pie fillings and doughs, because I'm distractable that way. Bread dough! Usually kneadable, but the super-slack doughs for the large-grain chewy breads, not so much, but they're not really pourable either. Shepherd's pie! Gravy is not batter. Quiche? Maybe the milk-and-eggs part of the quiche filling counts as a batter, that gets poured over the more solid parts of the filling. Boston Cream Pie: yes batter, not actually pie. :) Given the Interesting hybrids out there, someone does a cake baked in a pie crust, but I think that's not pie ...

Mmm, pie. :)

[aldersprig]

sauergeek suggested pumpkin pie, and that, at least, I think of as a batter?

[kelkyag]

The pumpkin pies I have met have had custard fillings ... and I can't immediately think of a word I'd use for a custard that hasn't been cooked and set yet. Pours, yes, thickly. Pardon me while I go consult a cook book or three ...

[kelkyag]

For custard pie fillings, Joy of Cooking uses "mixture", or occasionally "ingredients" or "custard" (even for the uncooked custard), or dodges. King Arthur uses "mixture" or dodges. Humble Pie (savory pies, not just custard) uses "mixture" (including for the milk-and-eggs mix of quiches, which it also calls custard) or "filling" ... but does use "batter" for the (pourable) popover topping of one pie. I am unsatisfied with these answers.

Wordnick gives a range of definitions, of which some of the cooking-related ones require flour, and others merely suggest it as a common ingredient (along with milk and eggs). Then there's "Flour and water made into paste; specifically, the paste used in sizing cloth."

I expect a batter to contain flour or other starch, and be thin enough to pour (or dip things into, as the verb use of batter reminded me), and to cook up into a solid (airy solid? solid foam?) with a texture one might describe as having a "crumb", but I'm very unclear on the technical correctness of that.

This leaves me displeased but not sure where to look for an answer to call more authoritative.

[aldersprig]

We could ask Alton Brown? :-D