{"id":3192,"date":"2017-10-17T17:03:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T06:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greole.com\/blog\/?p=3192"},"modified":"2017-10-17T17:03:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T06:03:58","slug":"nutella-muffins-on-overcoming-mental-blocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2017\/10\/17\/nutella-muffins-on-overcoming-mental-blocks\/","title":{"rendered":"#Nutella Muffins – on overcoming mental blocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love to cook and always have. However, one aspect of cooking that I have always avoided is cake baking. For some reason, it has always scared me.  The few times that I have made attempts, the results have been woeful. So I ended up developing a huge mental block where cakes were concerned.<\/p>\n

At the moment, I am yet to start my new job. However, Nicole has spent much of this year working. Several weeks ago she asked whether I could bake her muffins to take to work. Eeeeek.<\/p>\n

Rather timidly I bought a packet mix of chocolate muffins. I followed the mixing instructions minutely, stuck them in the oven and somehow managed to turn on the grill function instead of the oven function. The result was charcoal muffins. I felt incredibly stupid and did not want to make another attempt.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I bought a Blueberry muffin mix which sat in my pantry for a couple of weeks. Eventually, I overcame my concerns and had a go at these. I was SO careful to use the oven function and not the grill. The result… perfection.<\/p>\n

“Hmmmmm,” I thought. “I wonder how hard it is to bake from scratch instead of using a packet mix?”<\/p>\n

So I looked up a recipe on Orange muffins, bought the required components, then mixed and baked them. To be absolutely honest, they were tasty aromatic but way too dense. I would mark them about a 6 out of 10. Nicole liked them but then asked that I try making Nutella muffins. So I found a recipe at Cantstayoutofthekitchen.com<\/a>. I followed all the instructions but felt that my batter (is that the right word?) was too dense. So, before baking, I stirred in about a quarter of a cup of water. I then followed the baking instructions and wow – the results looked like proper store-bought muffins. They were tasty too.<\/p>\n

I’m telling this story for a reason. In life, I have often found myself crashing into mental blocks that stop me from doing something. I think that this is a particular nemesis to creative people, as more pragmatic people seem to just go forward regardless. Anyway, the lesson in my muffin ordeal is that persistence will be rewarded – eventually. Blocks can be overcome. Never let fear of something stop you from trying, over and over if that is what it takes. I now need to apply this on a broader scale.<\/p>\n

As an aside, Nutella… SUPERB!!! I cannot believe that I had not tasted it till we visited Europe in 2015.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n

regards<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love to cook and always have. However, one aspect of cooking that I have always avoided is cake baking. For some reason, it has always scared me.  The few times that I have made attempts, the results have been woeful. So I ended up developing a huge mental block where cakes were concerned. At the moment, I am yet to start my new job. However, Nicole has spent much<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpupg_custom_link":[],"wpupg_custom_link_behaviour":[],"wpupg_custom_image":[],"wpupg_custom_image_id":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[357,358,359,360,361],"series":[],"class_list":["entry","author-soulthief","post-3192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-life","tag-baking","tag-cooking","tag-inspiration","tag-muffins","tag-nutella","clearfix"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/nutellamuffins.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greole.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=3192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}