Finally: THE DEED OF PAKSENARRION!

So beating ten bells out of bread dough makes it rise better, but for stuff without yeast, not so much. Huh. I am better informed! :D I have never made bread, unless you count putting ingredients in a bread maker. Which does make extremely delicious bread, but isn't quite the same as doing it by hand. And now I really want some bread. Oops.

Jill Bearup

I have looked at a few scones recipes, and neither of them uses yeast. As long as the yeast of a yeast dough is alive, it will convert sugar and starch to CO2, ethanol and energy. The trick of a yeast dough is to work the gluten so it captures and holds on to the CO2, making the dough rise. It seems scones rely on eggs and baking powder to rise. Baking powder is not a living thing. It causes a one-time chemical reaction. If you beat the dough down after that, it will not rise again. So it's all in the ingredients, really.

Simply stating that "According to psychologists, quiet contemplation and/or vigorous exercise will help you deal with anger effectively" without elaborating on the matter, seems quite risky to me. It makes possible the interpretation "Keeping it in will make your anger go away. The experts says so, so it must be true". And through that interpretation you are also running the risk of lending discredit to the scientific field of psychology. I might just be overthinking things, though. Scones are quite uncommon where I'm from, so I have no experiences making them. What are the usual ingredients, if you mind me asking? Lazy me have wanted to become a patron for quit a while, just finally got around to it. And I really like what you do.

Well, yes! Which is why I said 'According to psychologists, quiet contemplation and/or vigorous exercise will help you deal with anger effectively'. For exactly the reasons you mentioned: contemplation to put aside anger for the moment, or to discover its source, vigorous exercise (bread baking: genius!) to spend it in the moment. But the episode was already nearly 8 minutes long so I thought I'd better not get into that :D On the topic of baking, I have been told that baking bread while angry leads to good bread, but baking scones leads to terrible scones. Do you know anything about scone making, and if so, is this accurate? Thanks so much for your pledge by the way! We're now over $555! :D

Jill Bearup

I have to disagree slightly with you regarding how to deal with anger. The way you present it, it sounds like not venting anger are supposed to reduce anger. As someone with anger issues I have to disagree with that. I was quite violent and angry as a child, and simply withholding that anger led to violent outbursts in which I had no control of my actions. What helped me was discovering how to channel said anger. By using small amounts of anger productively, I was able to drain away the anger build-up. I find baking buns or bread (anything with a yeast dough) is a good anger-draining activity (the more you pound the dough, the better the result), as I can reward myself with freshly baked goods after draining all that anger. I think many sports can be good anger-draining activities. Quiet contemplation can help deal with sudden bursts of anger, but will only help if you have free storage space for said anger. Quiet contemplation can also help dissecting anger to find where that anger originates from. It's an important tool, but relying solely on quiet contemplation can be a pretty dangerous gamble. Anger needs to be controlled and managed, but simply containing it is extremely dangerous and I advise you to never give the impression that holding back anger will make it go away.

I haven't read the series since ages ago in high school, but now I want to give it another go. Great video!

Ignifer