Cooking is Magic!

by SabreTheRedMane

Toasts, Jam and Royal Pancakes

“Morning, Spike!”

Spike opened his eyes, rubbed them a bit with his fists and blinked a few times.

“Yeah,” he yawned, “morning, Twilight.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled at him and lit up her horn. Lavender aura of her magic caught the thick cream-colored curtains and pulled them apart in one swift motion.

The sunlight immediately flooded the interior of the Golden Oaks Library, shining bright through the large round window. It livened and refreshed all the colors, even the dark maroon inner walls of the library’s trunk, making everything around more bright and warm.

Owlowiscious, napping atop the wag-on-the-wall, emitted a displeased ‘woo-hoo’, flapped his wings and flew down to the first floor, where curtains were closed.

Twilight dropped onto her front legs slightly, then stood straight and slowly extended her hind legs one by one, stretching her statuesque unicorn body.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Spike asked, while doing some warm ups of his own.

Twilight reached with her magic and an unfolded scroll floated up from a bedside table. It stopped in front of her face, her eyes darting back and forth as she reviewed its content.

“I’m going to study." she stated with absolute determination in her tone. "I found a couple of rather fascinating topics in that tome Princess Celestia sent here for me the day before.”

“Oh, I see." Spike nodded. "Anything in particular you want me to do?”

“Well, Spike, we have already reorganized the books a while ago, so…” she trailed off, scanning the list once more just to be sure, “no, nothing specific.”

“Got it, Twi. Well, I’ll go prepare some breakfast then.” he said, pointing down towards the kitchen, scratching his belly with his other hand.

"It would be sweet, thank you!” answered the unicorn mare, while returning the scroll to where it has been.

Spike descended the stairs, maneuvered between the bookshelves and pushed the door leading to the kitchen.

He surveyed the surroundings for a few moments, wondering.
"Well, first things first." he said approaching the stove.
Spike opened the shutter and exhaled a brief spurt of his green flame towards the firewood piled inside the burner, igniting it. A single vestige of his fiery exhalation touched the thick blackened metal of the burner’s encasing making the spot to immediately become red hot.

“Oops…” he muttered under his breath, tenderly closing the shutter, “Should’ve used the matches. Damn my laziness.”

“Gotta be careful. Twilight will go on and on with no end about those safety regulations if it gets warped again.” grumbled Spike and grabbed a large brass kettle, sitting on the sill.

“I wonder…” he mused filling it with water from the bucket and setting atop the hot plate, “what Twi would like to start the day with?”

He looked around the kitchen and noticed a jar of apple jam on a shelve.

“Well, she said she’s gonna study, so better give her some extra sugar.”

Spike's eyes darted to and fro, quickly locating the frying pan, hanging from the hook on the wall. He took it, dusted it a bit with his palm and placed the pan near the kettle, to heat it up as well.

“Let there be toasts!”

He turned to the kitchen table and pulled off the lacy napkin covering the breadbasket. Lying there was the half of a breadloaf.

“Oh, a yesterday’s one, perfect for what we want to do. By the way, that reminds me, I should buy a fresh loaf.” Commented Spike, fetching the bread out and taking a knife. He sliced the bread into four neat rectangular slices.

Returning to the stove he took a bottle of olive oil and poured some onto the pan. Waited a bit, sniffing air, and put the bread slices onto the pan, when he smelled the aroma of heated oil.

Meanwhile the kettle began to simmer, bubbling and spitting scalding hot water out of it’s spout. Spike quickly fetched the teapot, loaded it with a couple of teaspoons of fragrant minced tea leaves and covered it with the simmering water.

Having put the teapot aside, he took a wooden spatula.

“Twi likes them toasted, but not burned…” Spike whispered to himself, turning the bread over.

When the slices became appetizingly golden, he moved them onto the white porcelain plate and went to get the jam.

“Mmmmmmmm… Yummy!” Spike took a long whiff of it while opening the jar, and began to carefully spread the viscous amber mass over the toasts with a knife.

The jam thawed slightly, coming into contact with the hot bread.

Having finished the administration of the delicious apple goodness, the small dragon fearlessly licked the knife all over, not at all worrying about the sharp edge of the blade. His tongue was as good as armored, compared to what most other living things had.

“Applejack's jam is something else!" He smacked his lips together, "No wonder though, since all things apple are her inborn talent.”

Setting the knife aside, he approached the large chest in the corner and opened it. He was greeted with a bright multi-colored sparkling of scarlet rubies, deep-blue sapphires and dark green emeralds. Spike licked his lips. Here now was the treat worthy of dragon! He scooped several handfuls of gems, his intended breakfast share, and loaded a smaller bowl with them.

After that he filled two teacups with tea, sweetened it with some sugar and placed onto the tray along with the plate of toasts and the gems, picked it up and went out the kitchen.

Spike found Twilight already sitting in front of her table, a huge heavy tome opened before her. Her facial muscles were tense, as always when she was focusing on something complex and unfamiliar.

“Here you go, Twi. I’ve brought the breakfast.” Spike said, care evident in his tone, and slowly unloaded the tray.

She didn’t even twitch, engrossed with the book.

“Twilight?”

The unicorn mare gave him a quick glance.

“I’ve brought the breakfast. The toasts, as you like it.” Spike repeated patiently.

“Oh, sure. Thank you very much, Spike.” Twilight answered absentmindedly. Her aura lifted one of the teacups and left it hanging in the air near her muzzle.

Spike sighed. He held up his cup of tea in one hand, took a sip, snatched the biggest sapphire from his bowl and threw it into his mouth. With a distinct sound of crushed rock he began to slowly chew on the gems, savouring the taste while looking thoughtfully at his caretaker. Whom he has been taking care of more often than vice versa.

At moments like that Spike felt himself in a peculiar way. He wouldn’t call that feeling a ‘grievance’ or a ‘dudgeon’, no. He knew better, than to assume that Twilight is being malicious or purposefully neglectful towards him. A literal lifetime (so far) of living with her taught him otherwise. But he surely felt underappreciated sometimes.

The young mare undoubtedly had that unfortunate floutful streak within her. For a daughter of a well-born noble family and a personal student of the country’s ruler that — of course — wasn’t unexpected. But, knowing a lot of Canterlot nobles and their offspring personally, Spike usually held Twilight’s character in a much, much higher regard than theirs.

She, however, had a tendency to become overly engrossed into something that she deemed important or interesting for her and ignored everything and everyone else. Oftentimes only an intervention from her authority figures could snap the enthusiastic unicorn out of it.

Spike hoped that her new friends would somewhat influence her to be more delicate with other’s feelings.

Meanwhile Twilight stared into the book intently, oblivious of his thoughts. Her large violet eyes were quickly moving, scanning lines of text, her magic turning pages from time to time. The cup was still hanging near her face, untouched. Much like the toasts.

Spike smiled. That was just his Twilight being herself.

“Twi, I’ll go shopping for a bit.” He called her.

“Um… Yes, go ahead.” She answered quickly, without looking at him.

Spike slowly got up, approached the front door, fetched a braided sack hanging on the doorknob and went outside.

---

When he returned home around two o’clock, Twilight was still sitting by the table and completely ignored the jingling of the door bell, that sounded Spike’s return. Window curtains on the first floor were still closed.

Spike put his cargo — some office paraphernalia he got from Quills&Sofas and various groceries from the market — down and walked up to her.

Twilight was captivated by the book as much as before. Her cup of tea was as full as ever, only difference being that now it was standing on the table, beside the plate of untouched toasts.

Spike couldn’t hold a wince.

“Twi, why didn’t you eat anything?”

The flick of her ear was his only answer.

He poked her shoulder with his talon.

“If you won’t eat anything you won’t have any energy to learn, you know?”

Twilight sharply turned to the small dragon, making him recoil slightly.

“Spike, the additive quantum numbers Q and A are assumed to be conserved in strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions. The lepton numbers L, Lμ and Lτ are not involved in strong interactions but are strictly conserved in both electromagnetic and weak interactions. The remainder, S, C, B and T are strictly conserved only in strong and electromagnetic interactions but can undergo a change of one unit in weak interactions.” She blurted in one go, her mane disheveled and eyes sparkling.

If Spike didn’t know better, he would’ve become worried.

“Erm… That’s nice, Twi!” he smiled awkwardly, “Good thing that lepton numbers L, Lμ and Lτ are not involved in strong interactions!”. His tone was full of cautious cheerfulness.

Twilight nodded and returned to her frantic reading.

“It’s OK.” Spike said with a stoic expression on his face, addressing the mare’s back.

Once again he sat alongside her. Looked with regret at the cold toasts covered in jam and took one of them. He bit into the toast inquisitively.
While no longer warm and toasty, it still was satisfactory in the taste department, thanks to the trademark product of Applejack's applemancy. While preferring gems and crystals, Spike nevertheless appreciated pony cuisine. He begin to slowly chew on the toast, sipping the cold tea, looking around the room and thinking.
Owlowliscious, perched on the bookshelf, opened one eye and considered the toasts with a keen interest. Spike wasn't sure, why they didn't get the owl's attention for several hours before. Maybe because he respected Twilight's share. Or maybe because they were unmoving.
He flew over to Spike and landed on his shoulder, grasping it with his sharp talons, which, however, didn’t bother dragon in the slightest.

Twilight’s second best assistant took the toast in his beak and began to eat, holding it with one of his legs, dropping crumbs of bread onto the floor, much to Spike’s dismay.

In silence, they ate two toasts each.

“Alright!” Spike exclaimed at last, bundling his fists together with determination, “I think I know, how to distract her. Wanna go with me, Owl?”

“Hoo!” Owlowliscious rejected his offer and flew back onto the bookshelf.

Spike shrugged and headed back to the kitchen. He had a pretty good idea about what he should prepare next.

Once there, the dragon firstly added some more firewood to the stove burner and kindled the flame. Next he took a large bowl and set it on the table.

“Let’s see if…” Spike approached the magical coldbox, “Yep, we have some buttermilk.”

He took out a jug of buttermilk and poured approximately two cups worth of it into the bowl. Returned the rest back to the cold and exchanged it for a brick of butter, folded into a clean white sheet. Spike scooped two tablespoons of it into the cup and set it near the stove to melt a bit.

“I hope I remember right, how the Palace cook did it.” Said he ,cracking two large white eggs into the bowl. Their bright yellow yolks floated in the pond of buttermilk like two small suns in a miniature white sky.

The proud dragon chef whisked it all together, then sprinkled with a teaspoon of vanilla extract and added the butter.

He filled another bowl with white flour.

“Two cups should suffice.” He said returning the sack under the table.

Next he took a quarter a cup of sugar, made a depression in the center of the mound of flour with his fist and poured the sugar in.

“Now, where the hay is the baking powder…” mused Spike, rummaging through cupboard, “Oh, here it is!”

He added to the mix two and a half spoons of baking powder and a spoon of soda, half a spoon of salt and mixed everything thoroughly.

Then he took the first bowl, where the liquid ingredients were, poured them into the dry mixture and mixed together with a ladle till there wasn’t any lumps left.

The resulting batter was thick and lightly cream-colored.

The dragon took a round baking sheet, covered it with the baking paper, oiled it up and poured a ladle or so of a batter on it. Using a spatula he smoothed the batter a bit and put the sheet into the oven. It took a while till the layer of batter atop the baking sheet became a nice, lightly golden pancake.

Spike took it out of the oven with his bare hands, the other perk of being a dragon. Anypony else, except for a unicorn, would’ve burned their muzzles, hooves, wings or other limbs and would need to use some kind of utensils to take the hot baking sheet.

He checked if the center of a pancake springs back when pushed, meaning that it is ready, and placed it on a clean plate, satisfied with the results. The pancake looked positively delicious.

“Yeah, just like that!” Spike complimented himself. “The Princess always treated us with a bunch of those when Twilight was camping out at the palace library. That must catch her attention.”

Spike took a ladle from the bowl of batter and poured another batch onto the sheet and send it to the oven once again.

He repeated that four times more until the batter ran out.

After all the pancakes were ready, he brushed them with some more butter and decorated the hot tasty mound with mix of berries.

---

Twilight Sparkle looked away from the book, her nostrils flaring. It was unusual for her to get distracted from the study by something so trivial as the mere smell of—

“Oh! The Royal pancakes!”

Her aura fetched the uppermost pancake, along with berries and stuffed it into her mouth, whole in one go.

“Ahhhh, delightful! Just like they do it at the Palace!” she exclaimed through the stuffed mouth. Then took another pancake and devoured it with the same gusto as the first one, clearly enjoying the food.
“For some reason I’m famished.” She remarked.

“Yeah, I wonder why?” Answered Spike grumpily.

Twilight paused, looked at him, at the book, then at the leftovers of the breakfast she didn’t remember having.
Her face, a moment ago beaming with joy, became somber.

“I’m sorry, Spike,” she uttered, her tone sincerely apologetic, “I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Can’t say you didn’t, Twi.” Spike crossed his arms on his chest.

Twilight lowered her head and nuzzled him. Spike couldn't keep his grumpy facade for long and nuzzled her back.
"Thanks you Spike, you really are my number one assistant!” She said gratefully.

Her magic enveloped him and the small dragon found himself levitating in the air. Twilight put him atop her withers.

“Let’s go for a walk. I think I need a break. We should go to the Quills&Sofas and buy some more ink and quills.”

“I’ve already bought it, Twi” Spike remarked from her back.

“Oh. Well, then…" she pondered a bit, "then let’s go to the market square! I’m sure we need some bread.”

“Twilight, I…”

She turned her head and smiled at him sheepishly.

“Alright then, let us simply go for a walk. Maybe we’ll meet other girls in town. I wonder what they are up to.”

At that Spike perked up.

“I think we definitely should pass by the Carousel Boutique first.” He said with an emphasis.

“Well, we definitely can, If you want,” Twilight giggled. “Let’s go!”

Having said that, she trotted to the door. Spike, riding her, grasped on her mane.

Comments

[PonyFan4927]

Equal parts sweet (foodstuffs) and sweeter (WAFF interactions.)

[SabreTheRedMane]

10676991

Equal parts sweet (foodstuffs) and sweeter

Thanks!

WAFF

Um... which means?

[PonyFan4927]

10677009
WAFF stand for Warm and Fuzzy Feelings. Things that just make you go d'aww.

PS. Sorry about the double post; phone troubles.

[SabreTheRedMane]

10677013

Warm and Fuzzy Feelings

Glad it works as intended

[zx29b]

Love me some FiM Classic. Will there be a Sweetie Belle chapter? It would be fun to watch her conjure culinary catastrophes.

[SabreTheRedMane]

10677155
How else do you think Rarity's kitchen got destroyed?

[Yourtasteinhorsesisawful]

I'd almost forgotten about Owlowiscious. Overall, Princess Twilight Sparkle's© Magic Crystal Harmony Castle of Friendship™ just never felt anything like the treebrary.
Anyway, I really enjoy what's here so far, looking forward to the other chapters.

[SabreTheRedMane]

10677258
Thanks for giving this a read!