Complete Confectionery Catastrophe
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Pinkie Pie zipped to and fro around the kitchen, adding a pinch of baking soda to a bowl of batter in one place, taking out a pan in another, and stirring a different bowl across the room. She was moving so fast, one might have even mistaken her as some sort of omnipresent pony, able to be in multiple places at once. But she was no sort of pony, although she might as well have been.
Fueled by a constant influx of sugar and other energy-inducing substances, Pinkie Pie was a magnificent, multi-tasking master of the culinary arts of cooking confectionery creations.
Gummy sat motionless atop one of the counters with his eyes wide and crossed, until a splatter of cake batter flew onto his face. After a couple moments of seemingly intense concentration, his tongue shot out of his mouth and over his eye to lick up the sweet substance. He watched absentmindedly as the perky pink pony continued to trot around the room hastily from place to place.
"Hey Gummy," said Pinkie, taking a momentary second of solitude from her tasks, "how many pinches of salt do we put in this?"
Gummy blinked.
"Thanks!" she replied, putting three pinches of salt into the batter and resuming back to her blissful baking.
Moments later, her ears perked up moments before three knocks sounded on the door from afar.
A voice sounded from behind it. "Hey, Pinkie, it's Rainbow Dash! Can I come in?"
"Yep!" she replied as she was aggressively stirring a bowl of beige batter. Rainbow Dash entered into the kitchen cautiously, her eyes darting back and forth to watch Pinkie Pie zip around, doing several things at once.
"Sheesh, Pinkie," said Rainbow Dash, "how many different things are you cooking right now?"
"Fourteen!" she replied as she took a pan out of the oven with her back to Rainbow Dash. "Wait...thirteen!"
"Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go hang out by the lake, but it seems like you're a little busy..."
"Nonsense!" Pinkie replied as she balanced several pots and pans on her hooves and forehead, stirring a bowl on the countertop with one of her legs and balancing bouncily on the other.
Dash eyed her questionably. "You sure about that?"
"Eyup!" she replied, imitating a certain red stallion and causing Dash to crack a smile.
"Well, alright then, whenever you're ready--"
"I'm ready!" Pinkie exclaimed as she was setting several cakes and other confectionery creations on the ceramic counter top.
Rainbow Dash reared her head back in surprise and blinked. "That was fast."
A buzzer went off as soon as Dash had gotten her word through.
"YES!" Pinkie exclaimed. "New record! Awwww yeah!"
"What record?" Dash inquired inquisitively.
"Most cakes baked in an hour," Pinkie Pie replied. "I'm up to fourteen!"
Rainbow Dash laughed. Apparently Pinkie Pie was just as determined to improve her skills as much as she was when it came to flying. "Well, let's go then! I've been dying to go for a swim all day."
"Gummy!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, "man the forts!"
"...man?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I dunno who makes the sayings, I just say 'em!"
Gummy licked his eyeball in response as the two ponies left Sugarcube Corner to go to the lake.
Rainbow Dash floated on an inflatable inner tube with her eyes closed on the cool, calm waters, enjoying the shining summer rays. That is, until a looming shadow came over her, growing larger and larger.
"CANNON-PONY!" yelled Pinkie Pie as she splashed down in the water right next to Rainbow Dash, causing her to sway in the opposite direction from the wake of her dive.
Dash opened her eyes and flew out of the inner tube into the air. "Playin' it that way, huh?" she asked playfully to Pinkie Pie below her. She was treading water.
Rainbow Dash flew down towards her in a blaze of rainbow, doing circles around Pinkie Pie causing the water around her to turn into a whirlpool. After a few moments, she stopped flying and watched as Pinkie Pie was sucked down into it.
"Wheeee!" Pinkie squealed as she spun around rapidly with her hooves in the air before being sucked underneath the water. Moments later, she somehow popped back up to the surface, flying into the air for a few moments before splashing back down into the water.
Rainbow Dash flew back down to her and hovered above the surface of the water. Pinkie Pie squirted a stream of water out of her mouth and into her face.
"Okay, truce, truce," Rainbow Dash said amidst playful laughter as she covered her face with a hoof.
Pinkie Pie stopped squirting the water. "Deal!"
Suddenly, Rainbow Dash felt her stomach growling audibly. "Hey Pinkie...those cakes and stuff you were baking...any chance a hungry pegasus could grab a bite?"
"Sorry, Dashie, but all of those cakes are for parties here in Ponyville."
"Fourteen parties?"
Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes. "You underestimate the degree to which my party-planning is performed."
Rainbow Dash's stomach gurgled loudly. "Aw, but I'm so hungry and I've got a huge craving for something sweet..."
"Wellll, if you want, you can use the kitchen at Sugarcube Corner to bake something yourself. I've got fourteen parties to go deliver cakes to. Gummy can keep you company!"
"Me? Baking? Yeah, that's a funny joke," Dash replied, and then her stomach rumbled once more.
"Up to you," Pinkie Pie replied as she came up to the shore and dried herself off with a beach blanket. Her mane remained slightly wet for a couple moments before springing suddenly back to life.
"Well...I guess I could give it a try," she replied. "Wait...can't I just go out and buy a cake?"
"Can't," said Pinkie Pie, "the store's closed today, unless you want to fly all the way to Canterlot just to grab a slice of cake."
The idea seemed tempting, but Rainbow Dash was feeling extremely lazy in the current moment, and somehow baking the cake herself seemed like the easier option. Surely it can't be that hard, she thought to herself, all I've gotta do is read some instructions, stir some batter and put it into an oven, right? Psshh, this should be easy.
"Alright, I'll bake a cake my--" Pinkie Pie had already left, leaving Rainbow Dash hovering alone over the water, "...self..."
Rainbow Dash stood in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by an asymmetrical assortment of plentiful pots, pans and other fancy culinary equipment she'd never seen in her entire life. In front of her on the countertop was a note and a recipe from Pinkie Pie.
Dash read it aloud. "Dashie, here's a simple recipe that shouldn't be too hard to do. If you have any problems, just ask Gummy! He'll know what to do."
Rainbow Dash glanced over at Gummy, who hadn't moved since they left. He stared back into her eyes without so much as a blink, making typical lizard noises.
"...you freak me out, dude," Rainbow Dash said to Gummy.
"*merp*," Gummy replied enthusiastically.
"Okay, let's see this recipe," said Dash as she glanced down at a tattered piece of parchment on the counter top.
Rainbow Citrus Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch pans. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing until each egg is incorporated; stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk. Divide batter into 3 bowls.
In the first bowl, stir in lemon zest and yellow food coloring; pour into prepared pan. In the second bowl, stir in orange zest and orange food coloring; pour into second prepared pan. In the last bowl, stir in the lime zest and green food coloring; pour into third prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake layer comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
Assemble the cake: stack the layers together with the Lemon Filling in between the layers. Frost sides and top with Orange Cream Frosting. Refrigerate until serving.
"This is supposed to be a simple recipe?" Rainbow Dash groaned, and then her stomach groaned back in response. "Oh, give it a rest, will you?" she continued, rubbing her belly. "Okay...first step...preheat the oven."
Rainbow Dash looked over to the wall, glancing at several different appliances and located what she was pretty sure the right oven. "Okay...350 degrees..." she said as she turned the dial on the oven up to 350 degrees. "Hey, this isn't so hard," she said with a smile on her face as she returned to the recipe.
"Next, grease and flour three 9-inch pans." Rainbow Dash located three pans that more or less looked about 9 inches. Hope that doesn't matter so much, she thought to herself. "Okay...now where is the grease?"
Rainbow Dash mulled around the kitchen for several moments until she found a cupboard with cooking supplies in it. In front of her were several spray bottles of varying varieties, shapes and sizes. Rainbow Dash grabbed the one that had "PAM" on the label.
"What a stupid name for grease..." she thought aloud. She spent another minute trying to find the flour, baking powder and salt and found a large bowl to mix them in. "Okay...5 teaspoons of baking powder...what the hay is a tea spoon?"
Dash looked around the kitchen for something that might resemble what she thought was a tea spoon, but was fruitless with her efforts. "Eh, it's probably just a fancy-looking regular spoon," she said to herself, grabbing the nearest spoon in her vicinity, which happened to be a medium sized ladle. She dumped five spoons worth of baking powder into the bowl. "Step one, complete."
"Step two, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy."
Rainbow Dash grabbed another bowl and set it on the counter next to the other one, along with the eggs, shortening and sugar. "Now...how am I supposed to beat an egg?"
She looked at the four eggs that were sitting stationary on the counter and picked one up. She attempted to crack it gently on the edge of the bowl, which was quite the task as she had to hold it gingerly between her hooves, and ended up smashing it to pieces.
"Horsefeathers," Rainbow Dash cursed, grabbing another egg, this time trying to crack it more gently.
The egg barely cracked at all, so she tried again.
It cracked just a little more.
"Just crack you stupid egg!"
The egg once again broke aggressively, sending its gluey guts and shards of the shell down the side of the bowl.
"Well, this is a waste of effort," Dash said to herself, making no effort to gently crack the remaining two eggs into the bowl. "Who cares about little bits of egg shell in their cake anyways?"
Gummy made an innocuous lizard noise.
"Yeah? Well too bad, buddy!"
Rainbow Dash smacked her forehead. "Ugh, what am I doing talking to that thing..."
Rainbow Dash completed the remainder of the step as well as the next one with relative ease, as it mostly just involved stirring ingredients together in bowls. Suddenly, the oven beeped as it reached the correct temperature.
"Perfect timing," said Rainbow Dash, putting the different layers of the cake into the oven one by one, and then shut the door and set the timer.
"Psssh, that was easy," Rainbow Dash said to herself, crossing her hooves together. They were covered in bits of flour and egg goop. "Now...I think It's time I use the little mare's room and wash up..."
Rainbow Dash left the kitchen feeling good about herself and began to wash her hooves in the sink. Soon, she would be enjoying the fruits of her frivolous labor, and prove to herself that she was capable of more than just fancy flying maneuvers.
However, realizing that she did set the timer for 30 minutes, she figured it would alright to take a quick mid-afternoon flight around Ponyville to stretch her wings a bit.
Rainbow Dash returned to Sugarcube Corner and swung open the kitchen door, only to see a bubbling, amorphous blob of dough seeping out from the corners of the oven on the opposite wall.
"What the hay is going on?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, trotting over to the oven. Bits of dough splittered out from the seams onto her face. She opened the oven door without thinking, and instantaneously regretted her decision as an abnormal avalanche of dough spurt out past the door and onto Rainbow Dash, completely covering her and several feet on the floor around the oven.
Crawling her way out of the sticky, warm mess, Rainbow Dash surveyed the completely chaotic, catastrophic confectionery chaos that sprawled out from the oven, and then proceeded to smack her face with a hoof.
As if things couldn't have gotten any worse, Pinkie Pie showed up moments later. "Hey, Dashie, how's the cooking goi--oh my gosh! Holy Celestia, that's a lot of dough!"
Rainbow Dash looked down in shame. "I...might have messed up one of the steps..."
"No worries," Pinkie Pie replied, patting Dash's back with a hoof, "the best thing about cooking confections is that you get to eat up the multicolored mess!"
Pinkie Pie began to eat the pile of warm, rainbow-colored dough on the floor around the oven as Dash watched in awe. "Hey Pinkie...what is that thing you're doing with your words? It sounds weird..."
"Oh, you mean alliteration? It's when you put a bunch of adjectives and other words that start with the same letter before a certain word."
"Why are you doing it?"
Pinkie shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno, it's fun I guess!"
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the sound of Pinkie Pie inhaling as much air as she possibly could into her lungs.
Pinkie held her breath, and then opened her mouth to speak. "Absolutistic alliteration is so not bitterly boring because you can create crazy sentences that sound like they're from a dreadfully dull dictionary, but in reality they're elaborately and estatically exciting to express!"
"Pinkie--"
"--and then there's the added bonus that fabricating fancy sentences make you sound like a gifted, ginger genius!"
"...ginger genius?"
"Hallucinogenic, hairless horse! Icy idolatrous igloo! Juicy jumping jackalopes!"
"Now you're not making any sense--"
"Kindly killer kittens! Loony lactating leeches!"
"Okay...you can stop now--"
"Can't stop! Gotta finish! Magnificent macho maestros! Nameless, nauseated nudists! Obscene octangular octohedrons! Pretty pink police officers!"
Rainbow Dash smacked her head once more. It was starting to get red from all of the abuse.
"Quirky Quadrupedal Equines!"
Rainbow Dash chuckled at that one.
"Simultaneous sideways sambas! Tantalizing taiwanese tangerines! Ubiquitous uncomfortable underwear! Very vigilant vacationers! Wonderfully waxy wickets!"
Pinkie took a moment to process her thoughts. "Uhh...xerothermic xanthous xylophones! Yucky yugoslavian yodelers! Zestful zany zoos!"
Pinkie Pie breathed in heavily for several seconds before speaking again. "...so what were we talking about again?"
Rainbow Dash looked at her in complete shock for several moments before coming up with a snarky one-liner. "So did you eat one of Twilight's dictionaries or something?"
Pinkie Pie's eyes narrowed and she looked embarrassed. "You know about that? I didn't know anypony saw me!"
Rainbow Dash smacked her forehead once more. This time it left a bruise.