sprinklefingers

i feel left out.

i got a new cookbook, and while flipping through its pages last week i stumbled upon a recipe for bacon & gruyere stuffed baked potatoes. a quick scan through the preparation notes and i saw it, ‘a metal skewer inserted into the potato will make it bake faster. and, there’s really only one person on the planet who doesn’t know this. and she writes a blog called sprinklefingers.’

okay, so maybe it didn’t say ALL of that - but it most certainly did say that a potato will bake faster if you shove a metal skewer inside. a concept of which i had no idea. and what’s weird? i never saw my mother do this - and she was the queen of getting things done fast in the kitchen.

it makes so much sense - when tapped lengthwise into a potato, the skewer conducts heat. that heat runs the length of the potato - therefore the potato is baking from the outside & the inside simultaneously. duh.

but how much time does the metal skewer shave off the usual hour plus it requires to bake the perfect potato? i can tell you:

15-25 minutes.
(which is a lot. that’s almost half. almost.)

i leave you now with this. and this. and this. it took me 12 seconds to find them with the help of my friend google. which only made me feel worse about my lack of metal skewer/baked potato knowledge. sigh.

ps: did you know that wrapping a potato in foil prior to baking will cause it to steam &  not actually bake? this is a tip i picked up from mrs. evenett. she’s the mother of the love of my life before i met my actual husband. and she lives in england, where the potatoes taste like heaven, so she should know.