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Chapter 4

CARROT CAKE

I awake to the smell of burning eggs.

“Oh no! No no no.” When did I fall asleep? Last thing I remember was sitting down to rest my hooves while the custard finished cooking. It’s so late and the house was so quiet. I don’t even remember closing my eyes.

Black smoke is billowing out of the pan. I use hot pads to yank it off the stove and throw it into the sink. The cold water makes everything hiss like a bag of angry snakes. I really hope it’s not ruined. It’s Ma’s good pan—the one’s she’s had since forever. Maybe if I start scrubbing now she won’t notice by the time she needs it for breakfast.

“Ça pue! Gâteau! What tarnation iz zis?”

Too late. “Sorry, Ma. I’m cleaning it up now.”

Ma’s accent gets as thick as stiff whipped cream when she’s mad. Usually, it’s funny. She tries to use Pa’s country-isms, which never sound quite right, and most times ponies can’t place where she’s from.

“Iz that ma la poêle?” She’s mixing languages now. I’m in such deep trouble.

“It’ll come off. I promise.”

She doesn’t answer and I start scrubbing harder. I can hear her clomping to the window with a faint mumble of curses flying under her breath—not that she’d ever tell me the exact translation. It isn’t until the breeze from the window she’s opened hits the back of my neck that I realize how hot it’s gotten. Hopefully the cool breeze will also cool her temper.

She gets quiet, so I glance over my shoulder to see what’s she doing. She’s not looking at me (which is probably good) but her eyes are on the mess I left on the table (which isn’t good). Contest papers, Chiffon Swirl’s recipe, and my notes are scattered along the edge. A piping bag with crusty buttercream is slowly dripping its contents onto a chair and dirty bowls are stacked in a tower of caked-on mess. The piece of Candy Pear Cinnamon Swirl cake I got this afternoon is dissected on a plate.

“Is zis why we always short on eggs?”

I look back to the bottom of the pan, which is still as black as licorice.

She tisks at me. “Put it back on ze stove.”

“But—”

“Do it.”

I do what she says. She takes a can of tomato soup from the cupboard, opens it, and pours into the still hot pan. “Zis will help it. Let it boil. Now,” She turns to me. I know I’m a good head taller than her, but right now I feel right small. “Mon cher petit Gâteau, kindly explain yourself.”

Normally, I’d tell her that I haven’t been her “dear little Cake” since I was a foal, but I’m not sure that’s what she wants to hear just now. “Custard,” is all I can manage.

“Pardon?”

“I’m trying to make custard.”

“And?”

“And it keeps coming out as watered, over cooked eggs.”

“Iz this for the contest?” She nods at the table again.

I nod at her.

At least she doesn’t look as mad. A more country twang is starting to come back into her voice. “I see.” She looks over at the pan. “ You are rushing it. The heat is too high so the eggs cook too much.”

“You know how to do custard?” I’ve never seen her bake much else besides cookies and carrot cake. I had to borrow the mixer from Alfalfa Pete.

“Wait ‘ere.”

She leaves. I start gathering up papers as fast as I can and I put the stack of bowls in the sink. When she comes back, she’s carrying a box on her back.

“I should ‘ave given you zis sooner.” She sets it down on the table I just managed to clear and pulls out a book. “Right after your cute-ceañera, I started translating this. Did I ever tell you ma mémé was a pâtissier?” Her accent is thick again, but she doesn’t look mad.

“Grandmare can bake?”

“Not your grandmare. My grandmare. In Prance, I called her mémé and in Prance she was a magnificent pastry chef.” She opens the book to the front page and points to a black and white photo of a small family in front of a bakery display. Behind them, I can see all sorts of pastries: eclairs, cakes, napoleons, croissants, and a tall -looking thing that looks like a Christmas tree made of cream puffs with a spiderweb of caramel draped like a beauty queen’s sash.

“Woah.”

“‘Er name was Le Bon Eclair and she was one of the top pâtissiers in all of Prance. Ponies would come from miles to taste her croissants and cakes. Her son, ma père,” she points to the young foal in the picture, “did not like all that baking. ‘E was not interested cream puffs and fillings, so he saved up his bits and opened a restaurant next door.” Ma flipped the page and I saw a wider shot of the street. Ma is in the middle, with her grandparents on one side and her mom and dad on the other.

“I ran between the two shops as a little foal. Mémé would teach pastry in the mornings, and Père taught me cooking at night. When Mémé passed, she left me all ‘er recipes.” She ran a hoof along the pages. “I ‘ave translated them all…for you, ma cher petit Gâteau.”

I’m not sure what to say. I just stare at the book. “All of them? These are all her recipes?”

“Oui.” She flips through the pages until she finds the one she wants. She taps it. “La crème anglaise. Come. We start now.”

“But I need to do the one they sent me.” I hold up Chiffon’s recipe.

She waves the page away. “Crème anglaise is custard.” She says ‘custard’ like her mouth just filled with dirt. “Compare the recipes. You won’t zee a lick of difference.”

I check. Ma’s right. Chiffon’s and Le Bon Eclair’s recipes match perfectly—except La Bon Eclair used vanilla bean where Chiffon uses cinnamon sticks.

Ma pulls the pot off the stove and is dumping the tomato soup down the sink. From here, I can tell the pan looks all shiny and new again. “So…” she says while she dries it out with a towel, “why did you not say something about ze contest sooner? Do you think I would not notice half the food has gone missing? You boys do not eat nearly that much.”

I’m at the fridge, pulling more out eggs and cream. “I don’t know. Pa’s really busy with he crop this season. Never felt like a good time to say anything.”

“‘E would want to know. ‘E is very proud of you.”

I’m not too sure of that. Pa’s always going on how is whole family came from a long line of carrot farmers and he’s always looking for help with the farm. He’s never really seemed all that interested to me. “Where do we start?”

“Watch closely, Gâteau. I will not have you wasting the eggs. Beat the eggs first, then you must heat the heavy cream. I am thinking you have boiled it and it cooked the eggs before zey are ready…”

It wasn’t long before the smell of burned eggs was replaced with cream and cinnamon. La Bon Eclair’s instructions were very detailed, down to how it should coat the spoon when it’s done. Three batches later, and I think I’ve got it.

For the last batch, Ma sits at the table while I measured and stirred. She picks at the pears and dips them in leftover salted caramel. She keeps holding up the contest papers and Chiffon’s recipe and muttering under her breath.

“Zis recipe,” she says loudly, “it comes from cette petite jument bleu who works at Sweet P’s, non?”
That little blue mare? I almost stopped stirring the custard and look at her from the side of my eyes. She doesn’t look upset. Why, then, has she started mixing languages again? “You mean Chiffon Swirl?”

“‘Er cake iz very complicated.”

“I think it tastes good.”

“She has some talent.”

I don’t say anything, but just keep stirring my custard.

“And very short.”

“Ma!”

I glance over and see her staring at me, which makes my face heat up. She can’t possibly know. No one knows.

“She works at Sweet P’s, non?”

“I guess. I don’t right know.”

“Haut de Carotte said you nearly bowled him over to take over ze deliveries to Sweet P’s.”

“Carrot Top doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Monsieur NickNack complained of a missing order last week. You would not know where it went, would you?”

I didn’t think it was possible for my face to turn orange. I don’t say anything and keep my eyes on the stove. How can she possibly know? It’s not like I keep a diary.

The kitchen gets real silent, all I can hear is Ma lightly tapping the table with her hoof. “Mémé taught many of the finest in Prance. I still exchange letters with some. Perhaps, this summer, you would like to travel? Learn from best, as they say? I could arrange something.”

“What? Really?” Baking lessons. Actual baking lessons. Something more besides plain, old carrot cake. “That would be amazing! Thanks, Ma.”

“It is nothing. I do not know why I had not thought of it before.” Ma gets off the chair and stretches.“I will start writing some letters and let you know. Do not forget to clean up, Gâteau.”

My custard is finally finished, so I pour it in a bowl, wrap it up so no skin forms on the top, and put it in the fridge to cool. Morning light starts seeping into the kitchen window as I dry the last pan. Have I really been up all night?

I grab Le Bon Eclair’s book and head up to my room.

A summer in Prance! How amazing would that be? A whole summer focusing on desserts and pastries. I feel a small twinge when I think what I might be leaving behind. It would only be a few months, though. I’d probably come back more interesting and more noticeable than ever.

I pass my parents’ room and I can hear Ma talking to Pa in quick, hushed tones. Hopefully she’s telling him to let me sleep in this morning.

I should go to sleep now. My eyes feel droopy and they hurt. Instead I sit on my bed and flip through La Bon Eclair’s recipes and pictures. I stop at the one that catches my eye.

Bonbon au Chocolat

I bookmark the page before pulling the covers over my head.

*****

Tempering chocolate is the worst.

Even with La Bon Eclair’s detailed instructions, I’ve managed to mess it up all ten times.

The problem is, I have to be precise. You start off melting the chocolate, then you gotta let it cool until it’s just above solid, then heat it up again—but not too hot! If it warms up too much, then white lines form when you lay it in the molds. La Bon Eclair calls it “la floriason au chocolat.” Ma’s translation calls it “blooming.”

All I know is it makes the chocolate taste grainy, takes forever to harden, and doesn’t have a nice snap when you bite into it. It’s suppose to get hard after five minutes, anyway. The clock says it’s been ten, so I dump it back into my bowl and try again.

That’s okay. It just gives me more time to practice the design.

I had to go around Alfalfa Pete’s for a double boiler because the first time I just used a plain old pan and it got the chocolate too hot. Burnt chocolate smells awful.

Thankfully the box of La Bon Eclair’s things included chocolate molds or I’d really be stuck. I also found a candy-cane striped bowtie and a matching small baker’s hat. There was also an old candy thermometer, but I’m pretty sure it stopped working decades ago.

I should really get a working thermometer. La Bon Eclair put in the temperature the chocolate is supposed to be at. When she puts in times and temperatures, I’ve learned its best not to ignore those. That’s probably why my chocolate is all wrong.

I’d ask Ma for help, except I don’t want to risk having another conversation about Chiffon Swirl. Whenever she sees me practicing for the contest, I hear her mutter ce petit problème bleu. That little blue problem. I think she’s just upset because I keep using up all the eggs, milk, sugar, and now the chocolate. I try to replace it all as fast as I can.

I wonder if Chiffon Swirl has her own thermometer.

Maybe I should ask.

Or maybe I shouldn’t.

I bet Alfalfa Pete has a thermometer.

I’ll go ask Alfalfa Pete.

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FanOfMostEverything

FanOfMostEverything #1 · Sep 13th, 2018 · 2 · ·

Ah, parental disapproval. Does Madame Carotte have plans for her son, or does she just dislike Chiffon? Whatever the case, I'd have thought she'd have said something earlier when he got cakes for cutie marks.

Also, I'm a little shocked by the idea of grandparental recipes with that kind of exactitude. My grandmother's read like "Use 2-8 onions" and "Cook the livers until they're done." And she was the most meticulous out of her sisters!

Epic Yarn

Epic Yarn #2 · Sep 13th, 2018 · 5 · ·

9168693
All I’ll say about Carrot Cake’s mom is that this isn’t the last we hear from her.

As for the exactitude—baking and cooking are completely different monsters. Most people who are really into cooking don’t like baking as much because baking is exact. Most people who are really into cooking will say things like, “I never follow recipes” or “I just throw stuff together.” That’s fine, because most chefs improvise while cooking (they’ll add more salt, or let the onions cook a bit longer, or turn the heat up to speed things along).

Baking is different. You dont know how it’ll turn out until it’s out of the oven and by then you can’t fix it, you have to start over. A professional bakery will have formulas and ratios for everything they make. You have to weigh out ingredients on a scale (so it’s the exact same every single time) and you have to be well versed in a lot of techniques. The difference between a good baker and a great one is how well they know baking techniques. If you hand a baker with a list of ingredients for, say, chocolate chip cookies with no other instructions, they’d know the technique for mixing it (cream butter and sugar together, mix in eggs a bit at a time, add dry and wet ingredients alternately, add chocolate chips, put in preheated oven at 325 or 350). The technique doens’t change much whether you’re making peanut butter cookies or oatmeal raisin. (Shortbread cookies use the same technique as pie crust, though—so be wary) They’d also know if you added nuts to the cookies, you might have to mess with the flour ratio because nuts adds extra fat and will make the cookies turn out different. Technique and precision matter when it comes to baking.

I’d venture to say that most people don’t realize that cooking and baking take very different skill sets—which is why most people prefer one over the other. Cooking is more like being an artist, while baking is more like being a scientist. They both produce really cool stuff, they just arrive there differently. Cooks may not bother too much with recipes, or at least only use them more as a guideline, while bakers will be much more protective of their recipes. Cooks tend to value fast paced, energetic work. Bakers tend to like structured, grounded work. The atmosphere of a kitchen verses a bakery is very different in my experience.

Okay, so I rambled on way too much. Sorry about that. I guess I was just trying to explain why Le Bon Eclair would feel the need to put in details. It was a bit of a heartbreak for Le Bon Eclair to have her son reject her way of life—even if he did open a restaurant right next door (which, in a way, was another form of rebellion). Carrot Cake’s mom (Mrs. Carrot) bridged that gap and mended hurt feelings, but as we can see she wasn’t really into baking either. Mrs. Carrot was more of a reluctant learner at her grandmother’s side, but learned the techniques anyway at her father’s insistence. Mrs. Carrot’s fondest memories of her grandmother are being with her in the bakery, however, so it’s not all bad.

Of course, I couldn’t put all of this into the story since this is from Carrot Cake’s perspective and I didn’t want to detract from his story. Also, his mom isn’t the sharing type when it comes to her own failings and she has…regrets.

Thanks for reading! I really do appreciate your comments. I’ll be going over this scene again to see how I can make it better/more clear.

Akwolfgrl13

Akwolfgrl13 #3 · Sep 14th, 2018 · · ·

9168924
They are so veey different but so much fun in different ways!!! I love both of them. Sometimes one over the other then i switch my opion. Love all the details about bakeing reminds me of the great british bakeing show.

Epic Yarn

Epic Yarn #4 · Sep 14th, 2018 · · ·

9169730
The Great British Baking Show is awesome!! That is absolutely my favorite food show.

I know what you mean about going back and forth between cooking and baking. Both have their perks. Professionally, I lean towards baking because I like the way bakeries are run. At home, though, I tend favor cooking…that is until I get a mad craving for baked goods or ice cream then it’s all about the sweet stuff.

Thanks for commenting on my story. I’m glad you’re enjoying it

AugieDog

AugieDog #5 · Sep 14th, 2018 · 3 · ·

Of all the:

Fine moments in MLP, my absolute favorite continues to be the Triumph of Baking Powder at the climax of the Griffonstone episode. But then I bake all my custards in the oven rather than on a stovetop, so my whole worldview might very well be skewed.