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Today’s the day.
Our culinary finals for pastry baking.
I adjust my headband, making sure to keep my hair from my eyes. Touching your face or hair is an automatic failure.
From across the room, I feel a pair of eyes on me. I shudder, hair raising on the back of my neck. Those eyes can only belong to one person: Miles fucking Compton. I toss my eyes to the drop ceiling, trying to keep it together. I can’t stand him — a fact that hasn’t changed in three years. He’s a decent pastry chef but relies on Daddy’s connections entirely too much for my liking…
“What’s wrong?” asks Sam, my pastry school BFF, from beside me.
I try not to think about how much I wish Dylan cared enough to ask even basic questions like that, but just as quickly realize that’s not a fair thought. Either way, there’s only three of us in today’s trial: me, Miles, and Sam. “Nothing,” I mutter. “Just Miles’ eyes on me. They always freak me the fuck out.”
Sam’s lips curl like she wants to say something. Somehow, she holds it back. Everyone always does that when I bring up how Miles stares at me. Except Dylan, who doesn’t give a shit either way. He’s back at our apartment now, probably asleep. Sometimes I wish he had hobbies, interests, or friends of his own…
Chef Frank, our pastry instructor, clears his throat, and takes a stand in the front of the kitchen. Good; I won’t have to think about that much longer.
“We will begin the technical challenge,” he announces in his heavily accented French. “You will have two hours to bake, plate, and present.” He sets his watch. “Starting… NOW!”
There’s a flurry of activity. There’s so much pressure to get this right. Everyone’s prepared their own dish, but there’s so many moving parts it would be easy to mess up. Time passes. More shouts fire overhead.
I zone out as much as I can, focusing on my first layer. This is coconut chiffon, Grandma’s favorite. She passed away three months ago. I try not to focus on that either, working as hard as I can to get the cake flour sifted. I admit, though this is ambitious for a final. Many people are simply doing a chocolate layer cake, but not me. I’m determined to finish this mascarpone and buttercream.
“Behind!” Sam calls behind me, charging up the galley.
“Heard!” I turn on the mixer, where I slowly incorporate the ingredients together. For a proper chiffon cake, it’s best to add a little well in the middle of the flour for the wet ingredients before blending them all together. I whip the egg whites in the stand mixer, then gently fold them into the batter. A quick glimpse at the oven to make sure it reads 350 degrees — which means it’s time to get the batter into greased spring form pans.
“Shit!” cries someone — maybe Miles — from across the floor. But I can’t be bothered with him now, not when I only have an hour to get this cake baked and iced. I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead and get to work
After I pop them in the oven, I begin blending the mascarpone and buttercreams. Not a super easy task, but won’t be bad without—
“Fuuuuck!”
Now it’s definitely Miles, but I don’t know what he’s shouting about. I also don’t particularly care, except that he’s near the blast freezer, which I’ll need to use in… I squint at my mini timer. Shit. Thirty seconds?! How has time passed so quickly?
I put the mascarpone mixture to the side, slip on my oven mitts, and pull the layers out. The key to releasing the layers from the pans is getting them out while they’re still hot. If the layers cool, they’ll be almost impossible to remove. That doesn’t mean I like this part though. I flip the top pan over first, pleased to see that it landed flat, before repeating with the other two.
I need to get these in the blast freezer… now. If I don’t, the cake will be a melty mess for my final. “Behind!” I shout, charging past Sam, my three layers on baking sheets.
“Heard!” Sam replies, still engrossed in her simple layer cake.
When I reach the blast freezer, Miles is pacing outside. The man is a walking, talking Rolodex of every health and hygiene baking violation, but he’d definitely be biting his nails if he could get away with it.
“I need this,” I say, impatient, nodding at the blast.
“Go ahead,” he grumbles, shuffling out of the way.
I roll my eyes and open the door before pushing my layers inside.
“Thirty minutes left!” trills Chef Frank, pacing at the head of the kitchen like a proud lion.
Shit… shit, shit, shit.
I return to my baking station, determined to finish my mascarpone and buttercream in time. I barely make it. In ten minutes, my buttercream is slightly watery from the heat of the kitchen; on the cold texture of my cake, it’ll thicken up.
“Behind!” I shout, racing to the blast freezer in a rush, more determined than ever to get my cake layers out… But that’s when I spot it. The fatal error that spells my doom.
Because the blast freezer is wide open. All three of my layers are inside, still steaming from the oven. And Miles, the oblivious douche bag, is puttering around in a different side of the kitchen, completely unaware.
For the second night in a row, Danielle sits across from me in the restaurant as I regale her with a story of my personal Miles Compton lore.
