The correct time, after accounting for the 15-minute discrepancy, is 3:45 + 0.25 hours. Since 15 minutes equals a quarter of an hour, and the clock is already showing 45 minutes past the hour, adding another quarter of an hour takes us to 15 minutes past the next hour. So, the correct time is 4:00 (16 minutes past 3:00). In HH:MM format, this is 16:00. However, since we are looking for HH:MM, the correct time is 04:15.