When Audrey and Kaden took their first bite of the ’sample’ they had been served, their eyes lit up.
Despite being children of powerful and wealth noble families, neither of them had ever tasted anything remotely similar to this sponge cake.
It was light, fluffy, sweet, and just oh so delicious!
Even if it was a bit hot still, and a little dry on their tongues, both Young Lady Carlson and Young Lord Patterson abandoned all noble etiquette and dug into their pieces of cake ravenously, their tastebuds singing with delight as they savoured this new and wonderous dessert.
Christina wasn’t fairing much better.
Eris had already told her may tales about Lucas new and innovative desserts such as cookies, ice cream, fruit pies, and all other manner of unfamiliar confectionaries.
The young red-head has also ntioned this sponge cake before, saying it was amazingly soft and delicious, like eating a cloud made of sweetness, but up until now, Tina hadn’t actually been able to taste any of these dishes other than a few mixed nut cookies.
Originally, Christina had thought Eris was just hyping up Lucas’ creations again. Sure, many of her Senior Brother’s inventions were amazing, but despite not having cooked before she ca to Redwood Town, the princess still knew that building a bathhouse and baking a dessert were two completely unrelated subjects.
Now that she was sampling one of Lucas’ fancier desserts for the first ti, however, Christina realized that rather than exaggerating how good it was, her Sworn Sister had actually been seriously underselling it!
Growing up in the Royal Palace, Christina had the very best chefs in the kingdom cooking her als every day, but even looking back on all the parties and banquets she had attended in her life, she was hard-pressed to rember any dessert tasting as exquisite as the one she was currently eating.
Celestina, Allina, Vanessa, and the kitchen staff from the guest villa were a bit more restrained in their reactions, but only slightly.
The Head Maid, in particular, swore that she would get the full recipe from Lucas and Sasha before they left. Even if she had to hand over her entire life’s savings, it would be worth it!
Eris, for her part, was simply enjoying the cake as usual. This wasn’t the first or second ti she had tasted it, so although it was a rare treat she couldn’t often enjoy, it also wasn’t the revelation to her that it was to everyone else in the room.
As for the two bakers responsible for introducing the kitchen to sponge cake in the first place...
"Hm, the high-quality flour really does make a difference," Lucas muttered as he carefully tasted a piece of cake, "Having the egg whites whipped up faster and more vigorously also helps to keep the texture light."
"You’re right," Sasha agreed, comnting further, "but using a mix of sugars does detract from the sweetness a bit and make it sowhat denser. Maybe we should consider changing the ratio a bit?"
"We do have so extra Maple Sugar..." Lucas pondered the issue for a mont before nodding, "Alright, lets use it all up. It’s not like it’ll be long before we can make more."
After concluding their critique of the cake they had just baked, Sasha and Lucas turned their attention back to the rest of their helpers, preparing to issue new instructions, only to find everyone in the kitchen staring wide-eyed at them, with the exception of Eris, of course.
Less than a second later, Lucas and Sashas were buried in a veritable avalanche of praise and questions.
It wasn’t until several minutes later that pair managed to calm everyone down again and get them all back to work.
When Lucas first hauled them into the kitchen to help him pull off this stunt, many had been confused while so were even a bit reluctant. Now, none of them had any complaints, especially after it was announced that the rest of the ’sample’ cake they had just eaten wasn’t going to be served at the banquet tonight.
Currently, there were 12 people in the guest villa’s kitchen participating in the sponge cake project, and the cake they had just baked was large enough to serve 30 people, so even after everyone had gotten a piece, there was still more than half of it left.
Since Lucas and Sasha wanted to modify their recipe a bit, they naturally didn’t intend to serve this ’inferior’ version tonight anymore, aning it was free for the taking.
The only reason the rest of this discarded cake wasn’t gobbled up right then and there, was because Lucas had told them it would taste even better after it cooled and whipped cream and fresh fruit were added to it.
Hearing this, all the kitchen helpers Lucas had recruited beca even more enthusiastic as they looked forward to just how much more delicious this dessert could be.
And so, for the next few hours Eris, Kaden, and Audrey asured out 40 portions of ingredients.
Vanessa and Allina whipped over 150 egg whites and sugar into stiff ringue, and an equal number of egg yolks, butter, and sugar into a velvety custard.
Christina, the Head Maid, and Sasha carefully folded the batter together and poured them into greased baking pans.
And Lucas and the rest of the kitchen staff tended to the ovens, making sure they were fed with enough wood and that they maintained a relatively stable temperature.
All of this was a lot of work, and by the ti the last cake was pulled from the oven, everyone except for Allina and Vanessa was feeling a bit tired.
Even though they were assigned the most labour-intensive part of the cooking process, whipping the eggs, for Peak-Rank Spirit Initiates like them, this barely even counted as light exercise.
While that was going on, Lucas also managed to find sothing his Master could help with.
Although it was outrageous to reduce the esteed Marquess Celestina Balfour to cutting up fruit, the woman herself didn’t seem to mind and took to the task without any complaints. Perhaps she did so out of embarrassnt from not being able to do anything else, but no one was brave enough to ask, so Celestina’s motives remained a secret.
What was left now was to spread whipped cream, stack the cake layers, and decorate them with fruit.
But first, another round of ’samples’ was distributed by Lucas and Sasha, using so of the heavy cream that the two of them had whipped up as a demonstration earlier.
Everyone soon agreed that while the plain sponge cake was scrumptious, the final product with fruit and cream was even more irresistible.
After the brief snack, the work resud.
The baking trays which the villa staff had found were quite large, approximately 70 cm x 50 cm x 3 cm. They were probably ant for roasting large quantities of vegetables of ats and were a bit too big for Lucas’ liking, but it was all he had to work with, so he made do.
As Vanessa and Allina were once again put on whipping duty, everyone else grabbed one of the baking trays that had a cooled cake layer in it and began spreading cream.
The cake layers in each of these pans was approximately 2 cm thick once they cooled, so Lucas and Sasha decided that stacking 3 layers on top of each other would be ideal.
When it ca to actually stacking the cake layers, that proved a bit tricky, but using a set of large, flat, wooden paddles designed to move items around inside the ovens, the baking crew sohow got it done.
Lay down a layer of cake, spread cream, stack a second layer of cake, spread more cream, stack the final layer of cake, spread the final layer of cream, decorate with fruit, trim the edges to make it look clean, sneakily eat said trimmings when you thought no one was looking, and repeat...
Half-an-hour later, five massive 3-layered sponge cakes had been assembled with a variety of local fruits and thrown into a giant fridge inside the villa to keep until it was ti for them to be served.
Speaking of which, when Lucas heard the manor’s bell toll 5 tis, he realized that there was only an hour left before the banquet began.
The eting this morning had started just after dawn and lasted until just before noon. That ant that Lucas and his recruits had spent the better part of the last 5 hours baking, leaving most of them covered in flour, soot, grease, and other cooking related sses.
Lucas couldn’t help wondering if this was what it was like working in a bakery, a question he would have to rember to ask Jake, Jenny, and Jessie, Baker Jerry’s older kids, who were currently making their way to Misty City together with the rest of the land convoy led by Farah.
Uncle Jerry and his wife were, unfortunately, part of the group which was sent to that tropical land, so it would probably be so ti before this family was able to reunite.
Shaking off this slightly depressing thought, Lucas focused back on the now.
Clearly, none of them could attend a high-end banquet as they were right now, so after leaving a few last instructions for the kitchen staff, Lucas, Sasha, Eris, Christina, Audrey, Kaden, Celestina, Vanessa, and Allina all left to get cleaned up and dressed for the evening.
If he was being completely honest, Lucas wasn’t looking forward to this banquet, and neither were many of his acquaintances, but they all still needed to go as there was no excuse that would allow them to be absent from the event.
Still, having all worked together on the dessert which would be served at the end of the night brought a bit of levity to their spirits. This had been a fun and relaxing activity, a pleasant change from all the stress and hardships they had been forced to endure over the past month-and-a-half.
It also gave them sothing to look forward to, both eating the cake themselves, and the reactions everyone would surely show once they tasted their creation.
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