Tres Leches Cupcakes

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “We’ll talk later,” Caro said to Sadie again with a smile as she handed over the apron she’d been wearing. Sadie took it without comment. Caro followed Lois to the front, and Sadie moved to the table with the muffin tins, picking up the stack of liners. Too many more requests from Caro to confide in her, and Sadie would fold completely.

  Caro left the shop a few minutes later, Lois stayed busy up front, and Sadie finished lining the tins and tidying up the kitchen, which was the best she could do without having any clear instructions. Though things still weighed heavily on her, there could not have been a better distraction than the bakery. Lois was meticulously organized, with every shelf and piece of equipment labeled and stored in a logical location. The smell of caramelizing sugar and sponge cake hung like gossamer in the air, relaxing Sadie a little more with every minute that passed.

  A timer dinged, and she pulled open the huge convection oven, and got a whoosh of warm air in her face. She closed her eyes and inhaled the delicious aroma of the 200 cupcakes—well, 192 really—baking. There was just the slightest hint of golden brown on the edges of the back cakes, so she touched a few tops and, satisfied when they bounced back appropriately, she grabbed some oven mitts from a hook on the wall and went about moving the pans to the rolling baking rack where they could cool. She was just finishing up when another timer dinged; the lower oven was finished baking too. She removed those cupcakes as well, then went out to update Lois who was finishing up with a customer who looked about ten months pregnant.

  “You took them all out yourself?” Lois said as she followed Sadie back into the bakery area—the front was empty for the moment. Lois inspected the racks of cooling cupcakes, then turned to Sadie with a smile. “You’re a quick study. Thank you.”

  Sadie gave a humble smile, but appreciated the compliment very much. “You’re welcome,” she said, grateful to have done something right. “What else do you need help with?”

  Lois looked at the clock and frowned. “You don’t, by chance, know how to make stabilized whipping cream, do you?”

  “Of course,” Sadie said, standing a little straighter. “Do you put vanilla in yours?”

  Lois smiled and brought her hands together as if in prayer. “You are my new best friend! Let me show you where everything is.”

  The stabilized whipping cream wasn’t for the cupcakes Sadie had just taken out of the oven; it was for the two hundred tres leche cupcakes that had spent the morning soaking up the three-milk glaze in the cooler at the back of the shop.

  Lois helped Sadie bring the trays out, then showed her how to fill the hollowed portion in each cake—made with an apple corer before the three-milk glaze was added—with the stabilized whipping cream. By the time Lois had finished showing Sadie how it was done, Sadie was excited to attack the project.

  “Once they’re filled, I finish them up with a swirl of cinnamon buttercream frosting and a white chocolate dot on top. The buttercream is already bagged and in the cooler. You’ll want to let it sit out for fifteen minutes before you pipe it. Are you sure you’re okay to do this on your own?”

  “This is heaven,” Sadie said, grinning widely and aching to get to work. She looked back at the cupcakes she’d be filling. “Are these for the Fiesta?” It was only Wednesday, early to complete the cupcakes not needed until Saturday morning.

  “No,” Lois said, “I have a special order tonight—two hundred each of my tres leches and dulce de leche cupcakes. The dulces are done already, boxed and ready in the cooler. But the tres leches have a few additional steps I haven’t been able to get to. I’ve got to get them to the Palace Street Gallery by five thirty.” She could not have smiled any bigger, showing how very proud she was of the job.

  “Oh, wow, a gallery?” Sadie said, fanning Lois’s excitement. “How exciting to be a part of that.”

  “I know,” Lois said, bringing her shoulders up to her ears as she grinned widely. “It’s this beautiful historic building in Old Town, which is exciting in and of itself, but the cupcakes are for Ethan Standage’s annual art exhibit. Someone told him about my signature tres leches cupcakes, and Ethan himself came in to sample them a few weeks ago. He said they were just what he was looking for.”

  “Ethan Standage,” Sadie said, too familiar with the name but trying not to react. “As in the Cold River Ranch Standages?”

  “Yeah,” Lois said, nodding. She started measuring out the gelatin for the stabilized whipping cream into a glass bowl. It was almost four in the afternoon, a slow time for any food establishment, but Lois wasn’t about to waste a second of it. Sadie grabbed a measuring cup and headed for the sink to fill it in hopes of keeping up with Lois’s practiced movements.

  “He’s an artist?”

  “A photographer. He exhibits his annual heritage line at the Palace Gallery a few days before the Fiesta every year. He’s very talented, and apparently has excellent taste in cupcakes as well, since he chose mine.” She grinned again just as a ding from the front made her hurry toward the dividing door, leaving Sadie to ponder this new discovery while working on the biggest batch of stabilized whipped cream she’d ever made in her life.

  She mixed the gelatin and set it aside while whipping the cream, all the time wondering why so many roads led to the Standage family. The second question was perhaps even more important: Was she willing to follow those roads and see where they led?

  Dulce de Leche Frosting

  2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

  4 cups sifted powdered sugar, divided

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  ¼ cup heavy cream or milk, divided

  1 (13.4-ounce) can of dulce de leche, divided (found in the Mexican food section of your grocery store, or at a Mexican market)

  Dash of salt

  In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Slowly add 2 cups powdered sugar. Add vanilla and half of the cream and half of the dulce de leche; mix until well blended. Add the remaining cream and dulce de leche and blend well. Add salt. Continue adding up to the remaining 2 cups of powdered sugar until you reach desired consistency. Mix on medium for about 2 minutes to achieve a smooth and creamy result.

  Chapter 19

  Sadie tried to talk herself out of the idea that began forming in her mind while she worked on the cupcakes, but she was difficult to convince. When Caro returned and set right back into asking about what had happened at the police station, Sadie used the gallery exhibit as an excuse to change the subject.

  “Have you ever been to one of Ethan Standage’s exhibits?” Sadie asked.

  Caro hadn’t, but talked in awe of Standage’s talent. He’d done a community presentation about still-life portraiture last year that Caro deemed “brilliant.” Sadie asked if Caro knew Benny, the foreman at the ranch.

  “Mexican guy, right?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Just by name,” Caro said. “He’s been working there since he was a kid, I think. How do you know Benny?”

  “He bailed out the guy who was arrested with me Monday night,” Sadie said. She realized her mistake when Caro got that excited look on her face and started asking more questions about the bar fight, the arrest, and Sadie’s return trip to the police station. So much for trying to change the subject.

  When Lois came back to check on things, Caro verified with her that the cupcakes were for the Palace Street Gallery. “Do you want Sadie and me to take them over for you?”

  Sadie had filled half the cupcakes and was refilling the pastry bag with stabilized whipping cream in order to fill some more. Caro’s question was the exact one Sadie had been forming in her own mind. She’d love to see this part of Ethan Standage’s life up close, and she couldn’t help but think it was some kind of gift to have this opportunity, like a little package with a tag that read “Open me!”

  “Could you really drop them off for me?” Lois asked, her eyebrows going up as her hands came together in that pleading gesture again. “I was going to take them over myself, but if I could spend another ho
ur here instead, it would give me a head start for tomorrow.”

  “We can totally drop them off on our way home,” Caro said. She looked over at Sadie, lifting her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Sounds great,” Sadie said.

  Molly showed up to run the front counter, which allowed Lois to come help them in the back. She mixed up enough cupcake batter to fill the lined pans and put them into the oven to bake before helping Sadie and Caro finish the cupcakes for the gallery. With Lois’s help—which felt like two people—they got the cupcakes filled and frosted in no time. Caro topped each peak of frosting with a white chocolate disk placed at a jaunty angle, while Lois added a sprinkle of powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon. Sadie put the finished cupcakes in the teal bakery boxes; Lois’s signature color that set her apart from the traditional pink-and-white boxes most bakeries defaulted to.

  The visit to the police station and impound lot had distracted Sadie from lunch—something that rarely happened to her—and handling all these cupcakes had reminded her that she hadn’t had anything to eat since her bowl of reheated posole that morning. When Lois offered them both a cupcake, Sadie didn’t even bother being polite about making sure Lois was sincere.

  She’d never had a “wet” cupcake before and worried it would be messy as she peeled back the liner. The cupcake, however, had absorbed the glaze pretty well and though it was a little sticky, what were some sticky fingers in comparison with heavenly deliciousness?

  “This is amazing,” Sadie said between bites. “You developed this recipe yourself?”

  Lois gave a humble shrug, but her smile revealed her pleasure at the praise. “I love playing around in the kitchen. What can I say?”

  The cupcakes were due to the gallery by 5:30; Caro and Sadie were fifteen minutes early as they drove along the front of the whitewashed building. The gallery was two stories high with tall windows set along the front and columns that supported a balcony that looked more decorative than functional. The roof had the traditional terra-cotta tiles layered across its slight pitch. Black shutters flanked the long narrow windows, while two huge clay pots displayed bright geraniums, adding just the right touch of warmth and color. They parked behind the gallery and each carried a box through the service door.

  A middle-aged white woman with platinum hair pulled back in a twist introduced herself as JoAnna, the event coordinator for the gallery. She wore a pink and white housedress but Sadie could see the hem of a fancier blue dress beneath it. She had marbled gray Crocs on her feet. Some women might judge such an ugly shoe harshly, but Sadie owned a pair of Crocs herself and knew that sometimes comfort had to trump visual appeal. She did hope JoAnna had a different pair of shoes she’d be wearing to the showing though. Santa Fe was known as the “City Different” due to an abundance of unique cultures and lifestyles, but wearing Crocs to an art exhibit seemed too eclectic even for this city.

  JoAnna directed them through a doorway and instructed them to go up the stairs against the left side of the gallery, where they’d find a table set up in the loft. “The serving room is the furthest door on the left, behind the table. Go ahead and stack the boxes in the fridge. I understand they need to be served cold, right?”

  Caro nodded just as JoAnna’s phone rang. She waved them toward the stairs as she hurried to answer it. “Palace Street Gallery,” she said in a chipper tone.

  Sadie followed Caro, but they both slowed as they entered the exhibit area so as to take it in while heading toward the stairs.

  High ceilings with intricate crown molding gave the illusion of a room bigger than it really was, and a partition in the middle provided both a focal point the crowd could rotate around as well as extra wall space to display the uniform 18 x 18 framed photographs. The gallery had knotty hardwood floors, shiny at the edges and worn in places where thousands of feet had trod. A staircase was built into the south end of the building, leading up to the loft. Each of the walls was painted in one of the traditional Southwestern colors: aqua, coral, lavender, or gold. The bold colors emphasized the white mattes surrounding each black-and-white photograph. It was a striking showcase.

  As they passed through the gallery, Sadie noted that each photo featured an artifact as the focal point. “Where does he find these artifacts?” she asked. “On Standage land?”

  Though laws had been enacted in the 1970s to prevent people from taking artifacts from public lands, if someone owned the land where items were found, they retained ownership and could then display or sell the items so long as they included the correct provenance—paperwork about where and when the item was found. Burial sites were precluded from this rule, however, and anything associated with graves was legally owned by the contemporary tribe. Based on Sadie’s understanding of how things worked, and the recent enforcements of these laws, it felt strange to see artifacts displayed so openly. Was the BLM aware of these photos? Had they investigated the pieces displayed here?

  Sadie had read about people who had slowly dismantled entire settlements of ruins located on their privately owned land, selling off the history bit by bit.

  “These aren’t from Standage land,” Caro said from a few steps ahead. “Ethan takes these intense exploration trips twice a year, repelling into slot canyons and seeking out hiding places no one else has found before.”

  “But it’s illegal to take artifacts from public land,” Sadie said, looking at the photographs differently as she and Caro rounded the staircase and moved up to the loft. If Ethan Standage was involved in artifact theft, it opened up a whole new possibility in regards to Shel and Langley’s connection to the ranch. “How does he get away with displaying his proof so publicly? I thought he was a vocal preservationist.”

  “He only photographs the items,” Caro said. “He leaves them where he found them, and he keeps the location secret. That’s kind of his motto: ‘Take pictures and leave footprints.’”

  “Oh,” Sadie said, almost disappointed to have her budding theory shot down so quickly. She looked at a picture of an elaborate woven basket as she rounded the corner of the staircase and tried to come up with another explanation about the Standage-Shel-Langley-archeology connection. Maybe Shel and Langley were preservationists too?

  Upstairs, at the far side of the open loft area, a long table was set up and covered with white tablecloths, puckered and pleated to create a textured surface. Tiered serving trays and cake pedestals were waiting to be filled. Ribbons the same colors as the walls were woven among the folds of white fabric, adding a breath of color to the display. A doorway behind the table led to a room complete with a refrigerator, countertops, and a large table—basically a kitchen without a stove, though there was a microwave.

  Sadie glanced at the cheap plastic clock above the fridge. It was 5:25. “Is someone managing the refreshment table?” she asked as Caro balanced her box in one arm and pulled the door of the refrigerator open.

  “I don’t know,” Caro said. The shelves had been removed from the fridge, leaving a big open space for them to stack the cupcake boxes. Caro put hers on the bottom, then turned to get Sadie’s.

  “The exhibit opens at six, and there’s no one here to serve,” Sadie said once her arms were empty.

  “I’m sure someone will be here soon,” Caro said, letting the refrigerator door close and following Sadie back to the loft. On their way to get the next set of boxes, they passed two young men on their way up the stairs, each of them holding a commercial dishwasher tray full of glassware.

  By the third trip upstairs, Sadie could hear JoAnna barking orders at the half dozen people dressed in black who had gathered near a display table at the front of the main floor. One of the men they’d passed on the stairs had cleared away the serving trays on part of the table and was setting out narrow, fluted glasses. His name tag read Thomas. Another man was on his way up the stairs, carrying a wooden case of champagne bottles. A sample bottle of the champagne was displayed in a silver wine bucket for the benefit of the guests. Loathe as Sadie was to admit it
, the cupcakes seemed a little informal compared to the rest of the gathering. She wondered why Ethan Standage had chosen cupcakes over gourmet cheeses or fancy chocolates.

  “Are you two keeping up the serving table?” Thomas asked when they came out of the serving area empty-handed. He did a poor job of hiding the fact that he was looking them over head to toe. Every other “worker” Sadie had seen, him included, was dressed in all black. Caro wore khaki pants and a teal buttoned-up shirt while Sadie was dressed in jeans and a blue-and-white striped T-shirt.

  “We’re just delivery,” Caro explained. Sadie glanced at the clock. The gallery would open soon. Where were the servers?

  “I see,” he said, looking a little less confused as to why they weren’t in the right uniform. He glanced at his watch and straightened a line of glasses. “I hope they hurry, then.”

  Sadie and Caro agreed, wished both men a good evening, and headed downstairs. Sadie wanted to take more time and look over the photos, but it felt presumptuous to do so. Several workers were still hurrying back and forth taking care of last-minute details, and Sadie didn’t want to get in the way. Maybe she’d come back tonight as a guest. She’d get another cupcake if she did. That alone was worth getting dressed up for. The exhibit was open to the public, right?

  “Thanks, ladies,” JoAnna said as she blew past them on her way to another part of the gallery. She’d taken off the housedress, revealing a lovely light blue dress, and had swapped her Crocs for silver pumps Sadie feared would have her limping by the end of the night. The showing went until ten.

  “You’re welcome,” Caro said to JoAnna’s retreating figure. They were almost to the back entrance when Sadie put a hand on Caro’s arm.

  “Hang on a minute,” she said impulsively before turning to follow JoAnna.

  She found JoAnna in a small office, thumbing through a stack of papers, pulling out one now and then and putting it aside. Invoices, maybe?