Crumbs and Misdemeanors

by Nancy Warren

  I smiled a little sheepishly, pleased that Benedict had stood up for me in his own weird way.

  Back in the tent, the heat was rising. I could see that everyone was worried about baking in these temperatures. I was so glad I’d dressed for comfort. Florence was anxious about her makeup slipping, Hamish that his dripping forehead would accidentally oversalt his bread. But I knew that it was me that was in real danger. Again, I thought back to Eve drawing that death card from the pack. What did it mean? Had the card been warning me about the accident this morning? I hoped so, because then the card would have done its job and I could let it go.

  There had also been the upside down wheel of fortune, and that had definitely come true as well. I was absolutely at the bottom of the wheel and had to work hard to get myself up again. I didn’t need to win this competition. I only had to bake better than one other person. To do that, I was going to have to pull myself together. Starting now.

  The judges and comedians entered the tent, and Fiona called, “Action.” The technical bake had arrived.

  Here we go again. I glanced up nervously. No swinging light. Don’t be paranoid, Pops.

  Jonathon Pine was known for his bread. Whether it was bagels, rye, or farmhouse loaf, bread was his thing. I’d already disappointed both judges in the signature round, and now I needed to shine. On my workstation, a group of ingredients and kit were covered with a dishcloth. I trembled just looking at it.

  “Good afternoon, bakers,” Jonathon said, taking a step forward. It was already really sticky in the tent, and I felt the sweat gathering on my lower back. I was so glad I had a second, identical shirt for tomorrow. “Today’s technical challenge is a chocolate and hazelnut babka.”

  A what? I looked around—did anyone else know what a babka was? Florence and Maggie were smiling and nodding, but Hamish and Gaurav appeared to be as perplexed as I was. At least I wasn’t completely alone in my babka ignorance. How was I going to make a bread I’d never heard of? What should it look like? How should it taste?

  “For those of you who need a little history lesson, I’m going to be kind,” Jonathon said.

  Jonathon Pine being kind? Now that was a turnup for the books.

  “A babka is a sweet braided bread which originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine,” he continued.

  Okay, but what does it look like? Thick or thin braids? A loaf shape or circular? I could feel the hush fall over the tent as we waited impatiently for more details.

  “That’s all the info you’ll be getting from me. Now it’s up to you to follow the instructions and get those babkas baked.”

  Oh. Great. It’s a braided sweet bread. I needed way more than that to get going!

  “Seize the dough, bakers,” Arty said. “You have an hour and a half, and your time starts now.”

  I lifted the dishcloth and stared at the ingredients as if they might come to life and tell me what to do. I’d never heard of a babka, so I was going to have to follow Jonathon’s instructions very carefully. To my horror, the sheet had seventeen steps.

  “Don’t let the long list put you off.” It was Gerry. “Just get cracking.”

  Okay, for once Gerry was right—even if he was explicitly going against my instructions to buzz off. “Do you know what a babka is?” I asked him, hoping it looked like I was reading the instructions to myself.

  “Sure,” he said, sounding confident. “It should look like a rectangle with rounded ends.”

  I tipped the hazelnuts into a baking tray and put them into the oven to roast. So far, so good. A few minutes later, they were the light golden color Jonathon had instructed, so I let them cool and then split them into two piles—one to be roughly chopped and the other finely chopped.

  “Good work, Pops,” Gerry said.

  Now for the chocolate part. I placed the butter, sugar and chocolate in a pan and let it melt very slowly over a low heat. As I stirred the mixture, I noticed my hand was shaking. Get it together, Pops. “You’re doing fine,” Gerry said. For once actually helping.

  Jonathon and Elspeth arrived at Florence’s workstation, and in her bright, confident voice, I heard her explaining more about babkas.

  “My Nona used to make a babka every time we visited her in Italy at Eastertime. She made hers with cinnamon and sugar, rather than chocolate, but the concept is the same. To me, babkas are a taste of home.”

  Oh, great, so Florence was a babka expert. What chance did that leave a novice like me?

  “That’s a heartwarming story,” Elspeth said, smiling. “Did you help her in the kitchen?”

  Florence nodded, her eyes bright and sparkling. She was in her element, the cameras zooming in, following her every move. “She taught me how to twist the yeasty dough around itself so that it curled a bit like a shy snake.”

  Elspeth laughed. “I like that, a shy snake indeed.”

  Jonathon wished Florence luck, though clearly Lady Luck was already on her side, having a party for one.

  The two judges approached me.

  I swallowed and took my melted chocolate off the heat.

  “How are you getting on?” Elspeth asked, a kindness in her voice that almost brought a tear to my eye.

  “Okay, I think,” I confessed, “but that’s because I haven’t got to the dough part yet.”

  “Have you ever made a babka before?” Jonathon asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m not the expert like my neighbor.” I gestured to Florence, who grinned. “But I’m hoping for a little beginner’s luck.”

  The judges smiled and left to speak to Hamish. Phew. That was short and sweet.

  Now for the dough. From the instructions, I could see that it was yeast-heavy, which Eloise explained to me yesterday would make bread sticky to work with. And this is where Jonathon’s instructions became more complicated. I had to add the yeast to one side of the bowl and sugar and salt to the other. I switched on the mixer, made a well in the center and poured in the eggs and milk. I stopped. The dough was supposed to be firm. Wasn’t it? I lifted the bowl to eye level. Was that firm enough? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t trust my instincts.

  Gerry couldn’t touch it, so he didn’t know either. “Looks all right,” he said.

  I increased the speed and went to add the butter already measured out in a bowl. But the heat made my fingers sweaty and I was nervous to boot.

  The bowl slipped out of my hands. Stop. I pointed my finger at the bowl as though it was a human wand, and the bowl hovered in space, but then two things hit me at once. I wasn’t allowed to use magic for improper purposes, and a camera was catching the whole disaster. Letting that bowl of butter fall when I could have saved it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. It fell to the floor with a splintering crash. My second of the day.

  “Whoa, there, butterfingers,” Arty called out into the deafening silence.

  I glanced down at the pieces of the broken bowl. My butter had splattered everywhere.

  “Plenty more where that came from,” Elspeth said. She was suddenly by my side, cradling a bowl of butter in her arms like a newborn. “Just take it slowly,” she advised. “You’ve got time. Don’t rush this.”

  I nodded.

  “And well done on not using your magic,” she whispered. “That was well done.”

  I took the butter gratefully, and stood aside as an assistant cleaned up the mess I’d made. Then I continued with the babka. The dough was sticky, but I let the mixer do its thing until it became a ball of smooth, silky, shiny dough.

  I spread the cooled chocolate mixture over the dough, sprinkled the hazelnuts, and then it was time to roll the dough into a tight spiral. This was the part I’d been dreading. I needed to be dexterous and neat. But my fingers felt like carrot stumps, and I couldn’t get the dough to obey. I pulled it this way and that as I tried to get the seam underneath.

  “That should have been in the oven already,” Gerry whispered.

  I didn’t know why he was whispering when I was the only o
ne who could hear him. But I blocked out the noise and kept my head down. Just get through this, Pops.

  I cut and twisted, making a two-strand plait, pressed, and repeated, and then sealed the lot. I stood back. It was a mess, but there was nothing for it but to slide my babka into a proving drawer. Once it had risen, I could wish it well and send it to the oven.

  The remaining time passed in a blur. I made the syrup, managed not to burn the sugar, and got my babka baked.

  Jilly called out five minutes, and I rushed to the oven. Everyone else had already removed their babkas from the oven and were drizzling their syrup over the top. I’d spent too long twisting the dough, and now I was behind. I could see that the babka clearly needed another few minutes, but that was time I didn’t have. I opened the oven door and immediately noticed my bake wasn’t as chocolatey brown as the others. What had happened?

  I took it back to my workstation, and that’s when I saw the pot of unused cocoa powder sitting oh so innocently on the side. I’d forgotten to put it into my mix. A silly, avoidable mistake. So now I had an underbaked, underflavored babka to present to the judges. Great.

  I sprinkled cocoa over the top of the bread, which gave it a better color, and drizzled it with syrup.

  “Bready or not, your time is up, bakers,” Jilly called. Her huge hoop earrings swung from side to side as she gently laughed at her own pun.

  It was time to take my babka to the table. Where had the ninety minutes gone? As with the morning, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the judging. It was torture, waiting to be told how poor my babka was. So naturally, my ears pricked up at the words “stodgy” and “messy,” but to my amazement, they were talking about Hamish’s bake.

  Hamish looked mortified, and my heart went out to him. I knew exactly what it was like to hear negative feedback from the judges. It felt so personal, like they were criticizing your family. Surely once they finished praising Florence’s babka, they’d come to mine and then Hamish could feel better about himself.

  I waited as Elspeth sliced through my bake. “The color on this is a little…” She stopped and seemed to be searching for the right adjective. “Bland,” she finally settled on.

  Ouch.

  “And by the looks of it, it’s not had long enough in the oven,” Jonathon added.

  I could only nod in agreement.

  Jonathon bit into the dough. “But it’s not bad, exactly. Just a little underwhelming.”

  Whoa. Okay. Underwhelming was not an ideal adjective, but at least he hadn’t written it off entirely. I’d take that.

  Gaurav, who’d obviously never heard of babka either and didn’t have a ghost giving him tips, had made something long and thin that looked burned.

  Jonathon complained about the shape, and Elspeth agreed. “And it tastes overbaked, rather dry,” was the final verdict.

  Maggie’s was gorgeous, and both judges complimented her on an excellent bake.

  Elspeth and Jonathon left the judging table to confer. This was the worst bit. The waiting felt endless, although in reality, I knew it only lasted a couple of minutes. I looked at my fellow bakers. Only Hamish appeared worried. He was sweating profusely, his forehead crinkled with self-doubt.

  Elspeth and Jonathon returned, and it was time for the order of the babkas to be announced.

  They began, as usual, with last place. I held my breath, steeling myself for the sting of my name being called. But to my surprise, Hamish was at the bottom.

  He looked crumpled.

  Next was Gaurav, then me, Maggie, and finally Florence was crowned the winner of the technical challenge.

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. Somehow, I wasn’t at the very bottom of the pack. In fact, I was smack in the middle. There was hope. But it was still going to be a long climb back up to the top. I was going to need every ounce of energy left in my body to put into my showstopper tomorrow. It would have to be spectacular—otherwise this could be my last weekend in the tent.

  I left the tent and walked back with the others to the inn. The afternoon was sweltering, and all I could think about was running a cool bath and soaking the day away. Florence was giddy with her win, and Maggie was quietly confident. Gaurav didn’t seem too bothered about his babka. Only Hamish and I seemed downcast. “You always know your luck will run out,” he said. “But you’re never ready for it to actually happen.”

  “Exactly.”

  In the car park, I saw Eloise loading something into her car.

  She waved at me and came over. I let the others go ahead and waited. “And?” she asked expectantly, when she was a couple of feet away. “How did it go? Did you nail it?”

  I told her the truth, that I’d made some silly mistakes and was pretty much bottom of the pack. “I’m going to have to do something miraculous tomorrow for the showstopper to save myself.”

  “What are you making?”

  “We have to make an edible bread sculpture. I want to do a basket of flowers as I’m a graphic designer and I’ve done a lot of work around gardens and flowers. It’s just so hot in the tent, the bread dough got sticky and hard to deal with.”

  Eloise looked concerned. “Yeast loves heat. It might rise too quickly, and the flour can act like a sponge when it’s humid. I’ve got some deliveries to make now, but why don’t you pop back into the kitchen later? I’ve got some fresh yeast in today. We can look in the pantry for some goodies to help your bread garden.”

  “Thank you.”

  Florence suddenly appeared. She introduced herself and asked Eloise if she had any cardamom pods to spare. “I’m worried mine might be a bit stale. The Italian grocer in Broomewode promised me he had some, but they didn’t come in. He’s really let me down.”

  Eloise shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she said curtly and then excused herself.

  Florence raised an eyebrow, but I only shrugged. “Cardamom pods must be in short supply.”

  She stared at Eloise’s back as the woman strode towards the kitchen door. “Perhaps.”

  Chapter 6

  I ate dinner in silence, barely participating in the evening’s revelry. The relief I was used to feeling after a long Saturday baking eluded me. Florence and Gaurav were in stitches as Hamish did his impression of Jonathon Pine screwing up his nose at Hamish’s babka. I was in awe of how well Hamish was handling criticism. I’d felt like I’d fallen down a deep well today and had no way of scaling the walls to get out.

  After Darius cleared away our dinner plates, I felt a soft hand on mine. It was Maggie.

  “My dear,” she said quietly, “you are an excellent baker. You had an off day. There’s still tomorrow. Like I tell my grandkids, it’s not over till it’s over. You had a terrible shock this morning. Get a good night’s sleep, and it will all look better in the morning.”

  Maggie’s words were so nice, I felt like one of her grandkids.

  Even Florence broke out of her giddy celebrations to say a few words of comfort. Then she got distracted when Darius walked by, his short-sleeved shirt showing off impressive muscles. She leaned in and said softly, “I do like a man who works out. Shall we ask him for dessert?”

  I had to laugh. She never changed.

  She took this as assent for calling Darius back over to order dessert. After making bread all day, I decided to indulge and ordered a slice of apple pie a la mode.

  It arrived promptly, and I inhaled its delicious scent. I let the buttery pastry melt in my mouth until I hit the soft stewed apple. It was lightly spiced with cinnamon. Sumptuous. And a reminder of Eloise’s stellar talent.

  Whether I made it to the next round depended on tomorrow’s showstopper. We’d been tasked with making edible bread sculptures—a total nightmare for me. I’d planned to make a flower sculpture, using some of the sketches I’d made a few weeks back when I’d had a commission for illustrations of English country gardens. The shapes of flowers was something I knew inside out. But now I was doubting myself. Was my idea going to be enough to get me through t
o the next round?

  How was I ever going to make progress searching for my birth parents if I was booted off the show? I’d already been back in Broomewode Village two days and not made even the slightest leap forward in my quest. Instead, I’d been too busy failing to bake a tasty loaf of bread.

  I’d kept an eye on the door all evening, waiting for Eloise to return so I could get my hands on that fresh yeast she promised me. But I also needed her help with getting the wow factor into my bread. Maybe she’d have some ideas as to how to take my showstopper idea to the next level.

  I finished the last spoonful of pie and ice cream and sat back in my seat, satisfied. After Eloise had treated Florence so coolly, I decided to slip away to the kitchen without explaining where I was actually going or why. I told the gang I was heading back to my room to study for tomorrow and bade them goodnight. Almost in unison, everyone told me to actually get an early night. I laughed. They had my number.

  At the bar, Eve warned that the kitchen was super busy. “Best to come back later. You don’t want to cross Sol, our chef, when he’s in a bad mood. He can turn day into night with one look.”

  I thanked Eve for the heads-up. I knew exactly what it felt like to be hot under the collar in a kitchen—no way was I going to stride in there asking for any favors right now. Instead, I’d do what I told the others and go and study. I could come back down later when it was less busy.

  Upstairs, Gateau was waiting for me, curled up in her favorite position on the armchair. I picked up one of Jonathon’s bread books and slipped in beside her, pulling a plump cushion onto my lap.

  The next thing I knew, Gateau was hissing and leapt off my lap. I groaned. “What is it, little one?”

  She hissed again in response. I opened my eyes and looked blearily out the window. The sky was dark. I must have fallen asleep.

  “Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty.”

  I groaned again. “Hi, Gerry. What time is it?”

  He floated over to my bedside table. “It’s nearly midnight, Cinderella.”