The Bake-Off (30 page)

“That's more like it. All right, I'm going to peel the apples for the filling. Let me know if you need help with the dough.”

Linnie started pouring ingredients into the food processor and was preparing to separate the eggs when the edge of her rolled sleeve caught on the corner of the cutting board and jostled the table. Two eggs fell and cracked open on the carpet. When she knelt to assess the damage, she knocked over the bowl of flour, too.

Both sisters stared at the sticky spatters of yellow and white splashed across the carpet. Miraculously, the bowl of flour had landed right-side up, but a substantial amount had spilled over the side.

There goes a hundred hours of my life I'll never get back
, was Amy's first thought. All those evenings she'd spent chopping up fruit and slicing the sides of her fingers with the apple peeler. All the hours she'd banished Brandon and the kids from the house so she could whip up one more batch of szarlotka. All the pep talks from Grammy and lectures from Linnie had finally taken root, and somewhere along the way, she'd invested herself in this competition. She really, really wanted to win. And now she was going to have to settle for second place—again—because of someone else's mistakes.

She sent their runner to go check the pantry for any leftover supplies, but he returned empty-handed.

“Oh no.” Linnie clutched her temples. “Oh no oh no oh no
oh no
.”

“Hang on.” Amy kept her voice calm and controlled. She picked up the bowl, placed it on the food scale, and held her breath while the numbers came up. “We've still got usable flour in here. But we're about two cups short. How much flour is left in the bag?”

“Not enough.” Linnie folded in on herself, covering her head as though practicing for a tornado drill. “It's over. I've ruined everything. I should have been here this morning to review the checklist. I should have told the runner to hoard all the dry goods he could smuggle into his pockets. You know other teams are hoarding. The smart teams!”

Amy nibbled her lower lip. “Let's think this through. Maybe Joan and Susan have some flour left over. I'm sure they'll give us some.”

“We're their competition. Why would they help us?”

“Because they're our sisters in the muffin tin Mafia.”

Linnie remained in her crash position. “But what kind of flour are they using?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes!” Linnie looked up. “The all-purpose flour we're using has a ten percent protein content. We need to maintain the integrity of the gluten structure.”

Amy took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and closed it again. She left Linnie in a heap on the floor, made a beeline for her fellow Confectionistas, and returned victorious.

“Here's the deal,” she told Linnie. “They're happy to give us their leftovers, but unfortunately, they're using cake flour.”

Linnie's howl of despair drew startled looks from the neighboring prep stations. “Cake flour only has six to eight percent protein. The gluten strands are going to be totally insufficient. We'd be better off using whole-wheat flour!”

“Well, beggars can't be choosers. We need three batches, right? So we'll do two batches with the regular flour and keep the third batch with the cake flour separate. Let me ask you this: Is the batch with the cake flour going to look any different from the batches with the regular flour?”

Linnie considered this. “I can't be sure, but I'd assume so. The cake flour will probably make the crust look flat and clumpy.”

“Okay, then we'll use the regular flour for the pies intended for the judges and the visual display,” Amy said. “We'll use the cake flour for the crowd sampler.”

“Maybe we should just scrape whatever we can off the floor and hope no one notices.”

“You'd rather have the crowd eat carpet lint than cake flour? Forget it, Linnie. This is not one of your laboratory-controlled, high-precision speed drills. This is crunch time. We have to improvise, and I need your brain. So get ahold of yourself and
think
!”

Linnie closed her eyes for a moment and modified her breathing. When she opened them, she sounded like her supercilious, sardonic self. “My brain is in working order and at your disposal.”

“Good. We need two extra egg yolks, and we need them now. None of the Confectionistas have extra.”

“Maybe we could try a substitution,” Linnie ventured. “Liquid, flour, butter, and baking powder.”

“Will that really work?”

“In theory. We should aim for a high-fat liquid, like cream or whole milk. If I recall correctly, the ratio is four-to-four-to-one-to-one. We'll use that in the same batch we use the cake flour.”

Amy dusted off her palms with renewed resolve. “That's going to be one messed-up apple pie.”

“It'll be good enough for the rabble.” Linnie resumed cracking and separating the eggs.

Amy had to smile. “There's the Linnie I know and love.”

 

O
ne hour later, Amy had assembled the crust and apple filling and was brushing a light layer of cream across the grated dough topping the final batch of szarlotka. “This will help it bake up extra shiny and golden,” she told Linnie. “They have a professional photographer shooting each entry, and I'm hoping to use the pictures to start my food styling portfolio.”

“You're really going to pursue that?” Linnie sounded amazed.

“If I can.” Amy started to feel defensive. “Why? You think it's a pipe dream?”

“No, but you already work full-time, you're raising twins, you have a dog and a house and a husband with whom you're trying to open a dental practice. Many people would consider that a full plate.”

“I'm busy,” Amy agreed. “But the food styling would be for me. Yes, it'll be hard work, but it will only be a few days a month, and it'll be
my
project.
My
passion.”

Linnie hesitated for a second, then offered, “Well, if you need a babysitter, maybe I could come out for a weekend now and then.”

“Really?”

Linnie tugged at the strings of her apron. “Sure. Why not?”

“I didn't realize you liked kids.”

“They're not ‘kids'—they're my niece and nephew. And while I may not have much babysitting experience, I can assure you they'll be in good hands. I know CPR, I can administer basic first aid, and I'm very familiar with the developmental research of Vygotsky and Piaget.”

“But can you break up a toddler wrestling match involving biting, hair pulling, and a one-eyed teddy bear used as a weapon?”

“I'll read up on SWAT operational tactics.” Linnie glanced at the clock. “Are you done with that cream yet?”

Amy drizzled a few more droplets of cream across the textured topping. “You can't rush an artist at work.”

“You can't rush an oven, either. We have to get these in so we can get them out in time to cool. The last thing we need is a judge burning his tongue on our entry. You've got one hundred twenty seconds and counting. One hundred nineteen, one hundred eighteen . . .”

Amy raised her basting brush and flicked a bit of liquid onto Linnie's apron. “Get out of my workspace and go stalk somebody else for the next hundred and seventeen seconds.”

Linnie complied, edging toward Tai and Ty's prep station, where Ty had just returned from a lap around the ballroom to scope out the competition. “The Culinary Channel wants to interview us,” he told Tai. “I have to go right now.”

Tai spooned sticky caramel filling into fluted chocolate crusts. “Oh, okay, just let me smooth out the top here and we'll—”

“
I'm
going to go talk to them.” Ty held up his wristwatch, trying to check his reflection in the crystal. “You stay here and make the chocolate ganache.”

“But don't they want to interview me, too?” Tai asked.

“One thing at a time, sweetie. I'm sure everyone will want to talk to you after we win. But for now, I need you to finish up with the chocolate and make sure that nobody”—he glanced accusingly at Linnie—“tries any funny business.”

“Fine.” Tai leaned away when he went in for a kiss. He either really didn't notice or pretended not to.

“Just mix the chocolate and cream, let it cool for two minutes, and pour it on top of the caramel, okay?” He waited until she nodded in confirmation. “Don't touch the walnuts; I'll put those on when I get back.”

“I can handle the walnuts,” Tai said.

“No. I want them to look a certain way. Your job is the ganache. No more, no less.”

After her husband hurried off to dazzle the cable networks with his charm and good looks, Tai turned her attention to the saucepan of cream on the stove burner. She poured the simmering liquid into a metal bowl containing chunks of bittersweet chocolate, then stirred the mixture a few times with her spatula and set it aside to cool.

Linnie spied a tiny glass prep bowl perched on the very edge of Tai's cutting board. Hidden behind a stack of used bowls and a canister of Dutch cocoa, the prep bowl held what appeared to be sea salt.

“Excuse me.” Linnie cleared her throat. “Is that your salt?”

“Where?” Tai glanced around, but the bowl was out of her sight line.

“Right there.” Linnie pointed to the corner of the cutting board. “Is that supposed to go in the ganache?”

“Yes. Oh my God, yes.” Tai poured the pinch of salt into the warm chocolate cream and stirred. “I can't believe I did that. Thank you for telling me.” She transferred the prep bowl back and forth between her palms. “I'm such an idiot.”

“You're not an idiot,” Linnie said. “We're all under a lot of pressure today.” When she returned to her own prep station, Amy was waiting with flared nostrils and a rolling pin within reach.

“What the hell, Linnie? Why are you helping her?”

Linnie shrugged, unable to explain it even to herself. “She forgot an ingredient, and I pointed it out. It's not like I'm letting her share our oven space.”

“Uh-huh. I see what you're doing. This isn't about Tai; this is about Cam. Admit it: You're trying to lose on purpose because you have performance anxiety. You
want
those bastards to beat us.”

“They're not going to beat us. We don't need them to screw up their recipe for ours to be better. We can still win, fair and square.”

Amy leveled her index finger at her sister. “I don't like this side of you.”

“I had a momentary flash of human decency—it'll pass; I promise. In the meantime, please hand me the oven mitts and prepare to witness baking perfection. All my calibrations, calculations, and computations are about to pay off.”

“
A
nd now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for.” Snowley Millington consulted the index cards in his hand and waited until absolute silence settled over the assembled crowd.

Linnie held her head high and studied the rotund older man, watching for any nonverbal cues that might hint at what was coming. Mr. Millington wasn't looking at any of the contestants, though—his focus remained on the film crews camped around the stage's periphery.

Next to her, Amy started to melt down. “This is worse than
American Idol
.”

“Our third-place winners, recipients of a full suite of kitchen appliances furnished by DIY Home and Garden Superstores—”

“If we get that, we're selling that crap on eBay,” Linnie hissed.

“—are Susan Miller and Joan Whitson of Phoenix, Arizona, for their Razzle Dazzle Rhubarb Upside-down Cake.”

Polite applause ensued as Susan and Joan hurried up to the stage to shake Mr. Millington's hand and pose for photos.

Another agonizing pause. Amy started to gnaw on her fingernails.

“Our second-place winners, recipients of a trip to France and a two-week intensive pastry workshop at Le Bernard Culinary Arts Academy in Paris, furnished by McMillan Hotels International—”

“I've already been to France,” Amy murmured.

“Screw Paris; I want to get paid.”

“—are Tyson and Tai Tottenham of Fulton Falls, Ohio, for their Tempting Turtle Tarts.”

People turned their heads and craned their necks as Ty stormed onstage, making no attempt to mask his disappointment. Tai trailed behind him and shook hands with Mr. Millington as if greeting her executioner.

“Wow,” Amy said. “No one will ever accuse that guy of being a gracious loser.”

Ty stomped down the stage stairs and out of the ballroom, letting the heavy double doors clang shut behind him.

Mr. Millington waited for order to be restored. “And finally, our grand-prize winners, recipients of one hundred thousand dollars, are . . .”

“I'm going to throw up.” Linnie moaned.

“Spit it out!” Amy cried.

“Amy Nichols and Vasylina Bialek, with their Secret Sisterhood Szarlotka.”

 

F
or a moment, all Linnie could hear was Amy's voice shrieking in her ear: “We did it! We won! Oh my God,
we won
!”

Amy started hurtling over the laps of everyone between her and the aisle. Her elation was contagious, and the crowd's cheering swelled as she headed for the stage with her arms held high like Rocky Balboa in a striped apron.

Linnie followed in her wake, quiet and contained, but most of all relieved. Finally, she could stop worrying and pretending and evading. She would cash her check, go get Grammy's brooch, and leave the spotlight behind.