Donuts
The bell above the door jingled, signaling that another customer had arrived for pure happiness during the lazy hours of the autumn morning. Pony Joe smiled as he continued wiping the crumbs from his last masterpiece, pretending he hadn't noticed the entry of another customer. It was a marketing trick, really. If the customer saw that a worker was comfortable within the work space, so much so that they weren’t jumping to the whims of the customer, then they would feel more comfortable in the shop. Depending on the customer, he would wait to be called on, engage in small talk, then take the order, or take the order then engage in small talk. Either way, the customer would gain sociability and their donut(s).
“Hey, Pony Joe,” an unsteady, nervous voice called from the door. Pony Joe would have recognized that voice if he were half deaf with an amnesic disorder. Starlight Glimmer, a customer and friend from about two months ago. She had ordered two white donuts and a coffee to go, but had ended up ensnared with conversation with him for three hours. In those three hours, he had found out a great deal about lavender pony.
How she had taken over and manipulated an entire village under the guise of equality all because she lost a friend to a cutie mark. How Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, had thwarted her plans with the help of her friends and some of the villagers. How she had promptly disappeared into the mountains and spent months searching for a way to take revenge on them. Then how she had nearly destroyed all of Equestria in her crusade for revenge by destroying the friendship between the Element bearers. After two more donuts -on the house- they became good friends. After Twilight began giving her more intricate friendship lessons, however, they hadn’t seen each other.
Now, here she stood by his front door. Looking up, he gave her a welcoming smile. The unicorn had come a long way since she had last come here. Some claimed that she had actually become more powerful with her magic than her teacher. Others had claimed that her best friend was the Crystaller of the royal infant Flurry Heart and had played a pivotal part in keeping the Crystal Empire from freezing over. If all this was so, then his newest customer was one very powerful pony. Not that it mattered, really. He’d never been one for politics.
“Starlight Glimmer,” he called in his usual semi-smug tone. With a friendly smile, he waved her over. “Come over and take a seat. I’ve heard a lot about you since the last time we’ve met. Seems you’ve grown to be quite the celebrity amongst the regular folk. Still got plans to take over Equestria and just need a donut to fuel up, or come for some friendly talk?”
Starlight laughed uneasily, kicking a hoof across the front rug as she began walking up to the counter. Sitting on one of the bright red cushions, she spoke. “Actually, neither.” Before Joe could ask, she began rambling. “Twilight gave me a new friendship lesson to complete today. She said she wanted me to have some work experience besides the bit I got while controlling the masses. I thought maybe I could work on the Apple farm, but then realized that apple bucking wasn’t really my thing. Then, I also had the epiphany that I wasn’t that great with animals, fashion, and weather just makes me shiver. Ya know, Crystal Empire incident. Anyways, I liked baking, but I didn’t think I could keep up with Pinkie. You know her, right? What am I talking about, of course you do! Then, I remembered your shop and was kinda sorta hoping you could let me work here for the day?”
Her ramble ended in question, and with Pony Joe raising an eyebrow at her. Was this mare for real? He would always take help, but sweet Celestia and her sister Luna too, this was something completely different. She sounded like she was more stressed about the whole thing than when she sheepishly recounted nearly destroying Equestria. Some pony’s children…
“Alright,” he said, the smile returning to his face. “I’ll help ya out here. Go put on an apron and report back to the desk. Wash your hooves, while you’re at it. We serve high quality donuts here, which means high quality health.”
Starlight gave him a salute, then ran off into the back closet, which he was pointing at with his right hoof. After a minute or two, she came out with a purple apron with a purple flower in the center of it. Hurriedly, she clopped over to him, seemingly eager to start.
“So, uh, what do we do first,” she asked sincerely. Looking at the clock to see it was a quarter to ten, he said, “Well, we won’t be getting any customers for several hours, so instead we gotta make the batter for the donuts. Grab some milk, butter, and eggs from the big fridge in the back room.”
Starlight complied, rushing through the double doors as Pony Joe turned and began to gather yeast, salt, sugar, and flour. Bending down, he pulled out a large vat of oil to pour into a large tub connected to a gas tank. He flipped a timer on the red gas tin to fifteen minutes, allotting him enough time to get the dough prepared before the tub started to warm. Usually, he would only set it to six minutes and twenty seconds, but seeing as how he had a new “recruit”, he would have to take more time teaching her the art of the donut.
Humming an old jazz tune to himself as he worked, he flippantly opened a drawer, pulling out multiple measuring tools. He flipped the ingredients together in a large built-in bowl as the double doors swung open once again. Starlight came out of the back room with floating boxes of eggs, gallons of milk, and a large tub of butter. Mentally going through his ingredient’s list that he memorized when he was just a foal, he marked off the ingredients.
Beginning to mix the ingredients together with a swift but sturdy hoof, Pony Joe called to her, “Set the three cups of milk in a pot on the large burner and set it to a level 6 heat to scald it. Crack and beat eight eggs into a separate bowl and mix that with melted butter. By the time you’re done with that you should…”
He trailed off as Starlight, still watching him, had begun to simultaneously do all of the instructions he’d given her. A teal glow of magic surrounded the hoof holds of the milk jugs as each cup was carefully measured out and put into the pot. Eight eggs were cracked on the side of the bowl she’d pulled out in unison, their insides poured gently into the bowl. The egg shells were then carefully placed inside a trash bin under the counter that he hadn’t even pointed out. Pony Joe couldn't have stopped his jaw from dropping if it had been glued shut. Starlight raised a confused eyebrow at the tan unicorn, asking, “What’s wrong?”
Shaking his head, he remarked, “Nothin’. I just haven’t ever seen anypony do that before.” Then, with a wry grin, he stated, “If you keep working like that, I won’t have anythin’ to do for the next few hours.”
Starlight gave him a bashfully sheepish smile in return for the compliment, quietly thanking him. “What next,” she asked, still not meeting his eyes entirely. Scratching his chin thoughtfully with a hoof. He was far ahead of schedule now, and walked over to turn the tub’s burner on instantly. Turning back to her, he said, “Well, we need to mix eight cups of the powder mixture with the milk. After that, dissolve four packets of yeast into a cup and a third of warm water and stir that into the milk mixture.”
Behind Starlight, the actions were being followed through by her magic. This time, Pony Joe was able to keep his jaw under control. Barely. As she began the mixing, she seemed to realize that he didn’t have any new things to instruct her on yet, so she turned to her work. When she began mixing the dough together, he called, “Make sure to knead it until the dough is firm enough that ya can’t pull your hooves apart.” She nodded, a determined expression covering her face as she switched from mixing with her magic to roughly kneading with her hooves. After several minutes of quiet grunting and pulling, pushing, and heaving the massive glob, she lifted up her hooves and gently pulled at her hooves. They hardly moved apart.
Grinning at her success, she held up her hooves to show Pony Joe. He returned the smile, holding out two circular cookie cutters and a roller he had retrieved from a cupboard as she had worked, instructing, “Lay out the dough roughly half a inch thick and start cutting it with the larger cutter. Once you’ve cut the dough completely with it, start taking out the middle ones with the smaller ones. We’ll use those for donut holes later. Once you’ve done that, just go ahead and levitate them into the cauldron of oil. Slide the cover over it so the oil doesn’t spray. Set a thirty three minute timer after that.”
Starlight nodded in understanding as she complied. Pony Joe levitated a large glob over to himself and laid it out, expertly rolling it out to exactly the length he needed it, using his own pair of cookie cutters to cut out the donut shapes. He thoughtlessly threw the group into the cauldron, surprised to find that Starlight was still on the rolling out part. She kept rolling it out, inspecting the rolled out slab of dough with an expert eye and then muttering to herself or smacking herself in the face scornfully. She would then repeat the process, slowly getting more and more frustrated with herself and the dough. After watching the series of events cycle through three times, Pony Joe took the glob in his own green magical glow, rolling it out slowly.
“I said roughly,” he restated gently. “Not stress yourself out over a millimeter. Somethin’ I’ve learned about the donut industry is that the eyeball can make a better pastry than the measuring cup. My masterpiece, the Donut Capitol, was completely made out of eyeball and tongue. I’d sample the taste, then make little adjustments for each of the donuts. In the end, it won the Manehattan Food and Pastry Festival over five hundred other contestants. Same thing goes with your customers. Hafta eyeball ‘em in order to guess what they like. Can’t really measure how much sugar to put in ‘em without a little knowledge and a look!”
Looking thoughtful, Starlight nodded in agreement. Looking around for a moment, she asked, “So now what?”
“Well, now we make the glaze,” he answered. “Get out some more sugar, cocoa, chocolate chips, and artificial flavorings. I’ll go to the back room and grab some more milk. With any luck, we’ll have customers in two hours or so, so we need to start getting busy. Oh yeah! The cocoa and sugar are in the bottom drawer, third to the left. I’ll grab the chocolate chips because they’re in the back fridge too.”
The two rushed apart to do their designated chores, Pony Joe through the double doors into the back room. Pushing against a singular door to the fridge room, he shivered slightly at the colder air. Instinctually knowing where the milk and chips were, he grabbed them with his magic, he rushed back through the doors to the front counter. It was something as a matter of pride to have his counter as also his kitchen. If customers could see exactly how their donuts were being made, they would know they weren’t being cheated out of their bits. Plopping the entire bag of chocolate chips into the same pan as the milk had been, he turned the burner up a little. He was lucky that Starlight had forgotten to turn it off, because reheating it would have been an unwanted waste of time. He pulled out a large glass bowl out of a cupboard above the stove and dumped the entirety of the two gallons of milk he’d grabbed into the bowl. Starlight emerged from under the counter with a two pound bag of sugar and a large sixteen ounce tin of cocoa.
Levitating the ingredients onto the counter. Adding two more bowls to the mix while putting the dough bowl in the sink, he instructed her to portion the milk so that one of the bowls was slightly more filled than the other two as he checked up on the rapidly melting chocolate. Stirring it with a whisk, he pulled the melted chocolate off the stove and poured it into the milk bowl with the least milk in it. Instead of instantly stirring the two together, he bent down and moved along the bottom till he reached the bags of flour that were there just in case. Moving the leftwardmost bag of flour, he grabbed a four by eight by four black box. Discreetly putting in a code, he opened the mini fridge and pulled out the canister.
“What’s that,” Starlight asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Ah,” he sighed reverently as he held the brown wrapped canister in the light. “The secret to all of my greatest successes. Chocolate whipped cream.”
“What?”
“Chocolate whipped cream. All of my greatest creations have had a chocolate filling in them. The key ingredient for leveling out the sweetness and the thickness is this lovely homemade concoction.”
“Ooookay then,” Starlight said enthusiastically. “I guess we should add it in then.”
Eagerly adding the entirety of the whipped cream can into the bowl, he mixed it furiously with his whisk. The substance became a viscous heap of light brown filling a matter of seconds, the ingredients combining as well as a PB and J. At the same time he instructed Starlight to mix several cups of sugar and a cup in the next to lowest bowl of milk and the rest of the sugar in the fuller bowl of milk, the timer went off. Finishing up stirring the filling, he rushed over and slid the cover of the cauldron over to reveal dozens of brilliant, fluffy donuts. He lifted the golden pastries out of the cauldron, he placed a metal colander-like tool into the oil. It clipped onto the side of the cauldron, allowing only a small part of the slotted side to dip into the oil. He set the donuts back into it and flipped the timer for five minutes.
“Why’d you do that,” Starlight asked as she continued mixing the bowls with her magic.
“Allows the top of the donuts to be slightly crispy and the glaze to have more grip to cling to,” he replied shortly. “By the way, that’s what your two bowls are. Chocolate and regular. We’ll split the regular into two more bowls so we can have a glaze of strawberry, blueberry, and regular.” Then, grabbing the aforementioned bowls from the same cupboard as the other bowls, he poured some of the artificial flavoring into the bowls, followed closely by the regular glaze. Mixing the bowls in silence, they stirred until the timer went off.
Pulling the grate out with the donuts on it, he slowly set if onto a clothed part of the counter. They moved over and began spreading the glaze over the donuts with spoons produced by Pony Joe. The work overtook them, leading to comfortable silence as they glazed the donuts and spread sprinkles over each of them individually. By the time they finished the procedure, they had barely enough time to fill the coffee machine, heat up water for hot cocoa, and grab the syrups for steamers.
As Pony Joe predicted, the first customer entered three hours after Starlight had first started working. After that, a steady flow came in and out of the jingling door, leaving no time for conversation. While working, they figured out an easy and efficient way of distributing the jobs. Pony Joe already knew all the regulars and what the favorites were, so he handled the food and orders. Starlight took over the cash register, her supernatural brain able to remember the orders and sales, as well as stock. Within what seemed like minutes, it was a quarter after nine. Pony Joe flipped over the closed sign, and turned back to find Starlight standing patiently besides the counter.
“Is it really closing time already,” she asked.
“Yep,” he answered. “Time flies when you’re havin’ fun.”
“Yeah, something like that.” After a brief moment of silence, she kicked her hoof out and said, “Well, I guess it’s time to go.”
“Thanks for the help, Starlight,” he concurred, a smile on his face. He discreetly floated two dozen bits out from the open cash register, holding her eyes so she wouldn’t see. “Hope to see you soon.”
She began trotting out the door, before he called out, “Wait a minute! Didn’t you say that Twilight wanted you to have the full work experience?”
She turned back nervously, her eyes full of panic. “What did I miss? Did I do something wrong? Was I a bad employee? Were the donuts not cooked enough.”
Pony Joe chuckled as he held up a hoof to silence her. “No no no. Nothing like that. You just forgot to get paid!” Proudly, he levitated the bits up to her face. She seemed to forget to hold her jaw as it dropped to the floor. Two dozen bits was no small amount, roughly a fifth of his earnings on an average day. Continuing to smile, he placed them in a brown bag from off the table.
“Let me tell you a little secret,” he said, scooching up beside her. “All of your calculations are wrong.” Starlight’s jaw fell out of its socket as her eyes bugged out. “Nothing your fault. Every customer that comes in gets a little discount from me. If they make that little bell jingle, then they get a bit.” Then, looking outside his shop’s window and noting the darkening night, he patted her with a hoof. “Probably should get going though. It’s getting colder every night.”
Shaking her head and picking up her jaw, she managed to say a quick “Thank you” before heading out the door. As she left, the door jingled, and he floated another bit into her little sack.