“Okay, listen up!” Rainbow Dash called, glaring at a counter full of food and cooking tools. “I know you’re not assembled yet, but we’re going to get you in tip-top shape! It’s Pinkie Pie’s birthday today, and she’s trusting me to make sure you’re the most delicious cupcakes ever conceived. Do you copy me?”
The empty tray didn’t answer, nor did anything else the mare looked at, almost to Rainbow’s annoyance until she remembered she was speaking to inanimate objects.
You would think she was coaching for a hoofball game. She was dressed up in a full uniform, as though she were going to coach the cupcakes to bake themselves. The ingredients were laid out before her. Eggs, flour, sugar, salt– she gave a particularly intense look to the baking powder. The whole operation depended on it to make the cupcakes rise up and have their classic fluffy look. Without it, she would just have cakes, and the whole party would be ruined. Who would want just cakes when they could have cupcakes? Nopony. Needless to say, the baking powder had better do its job, or she would be having a word with the jar of it.
“Now!” the mare started again. “Are you guys ready to be assembled into the greatest cupcakes Pinkie Pie could ever hope for or dream about?” She took the silence as confirmation that they were, and continued, “Good. Now here’s the game plan: flour, sugar, salt, you’re all going into the smaller bowl. Butter, sugar, you’re going into the larger bowl. Now move out!”
She once again expected them to do something, and sighed when they didn’t, flying up to bring each ingredient to its station. A bunch of lazy bums, that’s what the ingredients were. But no matter! She’d do it for them, and with a little work, they’d still be the most amazing cupcakes anypony had ever tasted.
Before she could even begin to pour things into each bowl though, Twilight walked up behind her, asking her a very important question.
“Did you measure everything out?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Huh?”
“You have to measure everything out before you mix stuff together,” she explained. “If you add too much salt or too much baking powder, or even too much sugar, it’s not going to taste right.”
“Oh. Well, I knew that!” she proclaimed confidently. “I was just about to measure them out. Obviously. Gimme a chance, Twilight. Jeez.”
“Okay, I was just wondering why you didn’t have any measuring tools out is all.”
That was Twilight for ya. Couldn’t have a sports team– err, a cupcake making session for Pinkie Pie's party– without her talking about what strategy to go for. It was helpful though, Rainbow had to admit. As much as she wanted to brute force her way through cooking these cupcakes, just like everything else, there was some planning that had to be had.
It didn’t make it any less boring to do, measuring out each ingredient one at a time. She felt like such an egghead doing it, but if Twilight said it was important, it was important. With as smart as she was, the purple pony wasn’t one to be wrong very often.
Rainbow Dash was like lightning measuring out the food and pouring it into the bowl, although she moved slowly enough so that Twilight could see it was being measured accurately before she went back to planning out the events of the party. Rainbow Dash kept focus on her cupcakes, and when she was done measuring, quickly grabbed the first spoon she could find, racing back over and mixing the bowl like there was no tomorrow. You would’ve thought her life depended on it, she was mixing so fast.
“Whoa, slow down there, Dashie,” Applejack called, trotting up to her. “Ya don’t wanna just go racin’ in ta mixin’ this here batter,” she instructed.
“And why not?” she asked. “The faster it’s mixed, the faster it'll be done, and it’ll be mixed better than it would be if I went slowly. Besides, it’s all gonna be the same either way. A bunch of cupcakes.”
“Yeah, that’s all well and good until ya start gettin’ cupcake batter everywhere. Look around ya.”
Rainbow Dash looked at her work station, and she had to admit, maybe she was getting a little batter on the table and on her coat and feathers. But she wasn’t going to start stirring slowly, oh no! A task this important required speed!
“Ah ain’t sayin’ ya have ta go slow,” AJ continued, practically reading her mind. “But a steady pace would do ya wonders over stirrin’ wildly like ya are. It’s just like buckin’ apples. Sure, buckin’ the tree too softly won’t get any apples off the tree, but if ya buck too hard, ya might bruise the apples, and then what’ll ya have?”
Rainbow guessed that made sense, as annoying as it was. Maybe Applejack knew a thing or two about this, seeing as she did cook pretty often. Not to mention, she didn’t want to lose any batter. After all, she did make some pretty delicious batter, something she knew just from tasting a bit of what got on her wing. She wouldn’t want any of it to go to waste on the ground or on somepony else.
She did as the earth pony told her, mixing as steadily as she could as quickly as she could. In no time at all, she had a thoroughly blended mixture of batter, something that was looking, smelling, and tasting just as good as she expected it to. Soon enough, she was putting cupcake liners in the tray and pouring the mixture in. Then she set the oven to three seventy-five, slapped the tray in, and waited.
And waited. And waited and waited and waited, and then waited some more. She watched the oven carefully, waiting to see if they had risen, yet they barely seemed to be doing anything at all. She knew the recipe book said it would take forty minutes, but she didn’t think it was being serious!
“Come on, cupcakes, cook!” she demanded it, almost giving the tray a pleading look as she stared at it. “Pinkie Pie needs these, so you better hurry up! Don’t disappoint her!” She glared angrily at it, and threw her hooves up in frustration when it ignored her commands.
So it wanted to cook slow and play hardball, eh? She could play hardball. She eyed the thermostat for a moment before swooping over, a hoof on the knob, ready to turn it up. Before she could though, Fluttershy stopped her.
“You have to be patient with them, Rainbow,” she told her softly, guiding her hoof away from the knob. “Give them time to cook. They’ll be ready before you know it.”
“You expect me to let them cook for a full forty minutes?” the rainbow maned pegasus asked. “That’s too long! They need to hurry up! What if Pinkie Pie stopped by right now and the cupcakes weren’t ready yet?”
“I’m sure Pinkie would be glad to wait for cupcakes that weren’t ready yet if her friend was making them. Besides, do you think she would want to eat burned cupcakes? Or raw ones because you didn’t leave them in the oven long enough?”
“Well, no, but-”
“You gave them all the love, care, and attention they deserve,” Fluttershy told her. “Now you have to be patient while they grow. Before you know it, they’ll be done and will look amazing, and you’ll be thankful you waited so long.”
“Ugh, fine, I’ll wait,” Rainbow said dejectedly, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do for that long. This is gonna take forever.”
“You could help me by getting me more fabric from my boutique,” Rarity suggested. “It seems I didn’t bring enough with me.”
“I’m on it!” the pegasus exclaimed, quickly hurrying over and grabbing what the unicorn requested. She was back in a flash, and helped out her friends with a few other problems they needed taken care of for the party. By the time her services were no longer needed, the cupcakes were done and ready to be pulled out of the oven. It turned out Fluttershy was right. They were done before she knew it.
They looked as good as Fluttershy said they would, too, but that wasn’t a surprise. She was just that amazing of a chef. Of course they’d look and smell amazing. They were just as fluffy as she expected them to be, too– the baking powder listened to her and did it’s job. She was sure Pinkie would love them. But they weren’t finished yet. They needed one more thing.
“Now, it’s time for icing… Rarity, can you help me with this?” she asked.
“Hmm? You need help putting icing on cupcakes?”
“Well, I don’t need help putting it on, but you have an eye for fashion, don’t you?” she said. “I’m pretty sure if I do it myself, it’ll just look super sloppy, and then you’d come over here and tell me something like, ‘presentation is key to success’ and help me out anyway. So I wanna get that part out of the way now.”
“Well, I’m not certain I would have done that, but I can help you,” she agreed. “It’s not hard to do,” she said as she picked up a cupcake and an icing brush, smearing some on there. “You just have to make sure each cake gets the attention it deserves. You must make sure the icing is perfectly even, but not so much that it looks unnatural. Let the sprinkles fall in a way that looks appealing. You’d probably be better at this than I would, Rainbow. I’m much too careful. My cupcakes would look too perfect and appear store bought.”
“I would be better? I mean, of course I would be! I’m Rainbow freaking Dash! I’m the best at everything! But thanks for the help, Rarity!”
“No trouble at all, dear. Thank you for asking. It was my pleasure.”
With that, Rainbow got to work, taking only as much time as was necessary to ice each cupcake. She paid attention to where the icing was going, and gave each one a couple of shakes of sprinkles, eyeballing each one every so often before deciding that it looked good enough. By the time she was done, she had a dozen perfect looking cupcakes.
Just as she finished, Pinkie Pie stepped into the bakery, and all of her friends yelled out a happy birthday to her. After, Rainbow quickly flew up to the mare and offered her one to eat.
“I’ve been working forever on these,” she said enthusiastically. “They just got done right when you came in. They’re gonna be the best cupcakes you’ve ever eaten, I swear. They’re that amazing.”
“She has been working quite hard on them, I must say,” Rarity agreed. “Although she could do with mentioning that each of us helped her make them.”
“Well, yeah, I guess they helped a little bit,” Rainbow admitted. “But just try it! It’s gonna be great!”
The pink mare obliged her, popping one into her mouth and chewing slowly. Rainbow Dash leaned in, a wide smile on her face, waiting for her to excitedly proclaim that they were indeed the best cupcakes ever conceived by ponykind.
“Eh, they’re okay,” the pink mare shrugged, licking her lips as she finished it, paper and all. “Needs some hot sauce though. And maybe some pickle juice in the batter. That would make these the best cupcakes ever.”
Rainbow Dash glared at her friend for a second before her lips crept up into a smile. Before she knew it, she was on her back laughing at the absurdity of it. Of course, she should’ve known that hot sauce and pickle juice was what she wanted. This was Pinkie Pie after all.
“Race ya to see who can make better cupcakes then?” Rainbow Dash challenged her friend.
“Oh, you’re on!” Pinkie Pie agreed.