178: Desserts
Julia was already writing the recipe on the sheet while pulling out some more tools.
“Right! When those muffins are cooked, I’ll get you both started. While we’re waiting, Trev, I’ll get you cracking the eggs. We only need the yolks; put the egg whites to the side. I’ll show you something special with them later,” Julia said.
Again, separating the eggs seemed far easier said than done, but I eventually had eighteen yolks, with the whites off to the side, and I only ruined three eggs in the process.
“Excellent. The next part you’re going to need to do for Crisplet as well, since I’m not sure Crisplet could do it. What we need is to take three lemons for each of you and zest the outside using this grater. It will finely cut some of the skin off,” Julia said, pulling up a lemon to demonstrate.
Taking the handheld grater, she proceeded to lightly scratch the outside, getting a small pile of lemon rind before passing it over.
This part seemed fairly simple, and I quickly also had four lemons’ worth of rind, although I thought that Crisplet could have probably done this part.
Next, she put the rinds into her sugar and rubbed them together.
“You want the oils from the rinds to mix with the sugar. It might seem like something you can simply forget, but this is very important for the flavour,” she said.
Following her direction, and now seeing where Crisplet would have struggled, I got to work pouring the rinds into the sugar, and then using my hands, I rubbed them together, trying to force the oils into the sugar.
“You can feel the difference, right?” Julia said with a grin.
And I could. Not only did it have a strong citrus smell now, but the texture of the sugar now had a cohesive texture, almost like dealing with wet sand.
After working it some more, I was instructed that it looked good, and it was just as Crisplet let off a burst of sparks to let us know the muffins were ready. They had golden-brown tops, and you could see the fruit in them.
The smell of baked goods had completely filled the room now, and Lily was staring at the muffins, moving on from the cookies. These, at least, I should be able to infuse for her.
“Let them cool down. Both of you over here; let’s make this lemon curd,” Julia called, getting our attention back.
She was dividing the sugar I had just prepared into two bowls.
“Right, the next part is super simple. Get yourself a pan, pour in your sugar and your yolks, mix it together until well combined, then we’ll be moving it to the heat. You don’t want it to cook too quickly, so keep the heat low, and while constantly stirring, pour in your lemon juice, butter, and a pinch of salt, and that’s all you need for it. Then just keep mixing until it gets a thick consistency with no lumps,” Julia said, mixing her own as she was explaining.
We were soon both left with a thick, custard-like yellow liquid in our pots, as Crisplet let off a burst of sparks.
“Excellent. Now set that aside while we prepare the next part. You’ve done a pie crust before, so we’ll race through that, as we need to have that made and baked before we fill it,” Julia said.
She seemed to have all the ingredients on her, which I was incredibly thankful for, as I had barely had to use any mana today, and I was just about to start making the crust when I got a heavy nudge to my side.
Looking over, I saw Lily just staring at me.
“Ah, sorry, Lily.” I knew exactly what she was after, so pulling two of the warm muffins I had made, I used Infuse, and placed them down for Lily, pulling up the stats myself.
[Common] Dilwater Muffin
- +1 Intelligence
- Minor Poison Potency
- Minor Poison Resistance
- Fire Immunity
“I didn’t expect you to like it when it had no meat,” I said. All I got in return was a head tilt as she stared at me, then at the other muffins.
I couldn’t help but sigh. “I can’t give you more; the others need to try it as well. I will make you dinner tonight, though something special.”
This seemed to mollify her as she went back to the corner and lay down.
I soon had the pie crust made. It was very similar to other pastries I had made before, just with a bit more sugar in the pastry, and Crisplet was currently baking it. These I knew did not take long.
While that was happening, I moved the lemon curd to the cold room to really start cooling down, and when I came out, the crusts were ready to go.
“Right, final step!” Julia called, getting Crisplet and me back over as she took her egg whites and a bunch of sugar and whisked.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“We’re going to make a meringue on top. If you tried it at dinner, it was that crispy white part on the top. You don’t need to do this; you could just put the lemon into the pastry crust and it would still be delicious, but this is just going that extra step,” she explained.
Both Crisplet and I started to whisk…
This seemed to take forever, and when I thought I finally had it, I was told it was still too soft and to keep whisking.
I had never really put much thought into my stats since the day I got my class, outside of the occasional moment I wished I had more strength, but today—today I was incredibly thankful for my much higher dexterity, or I feel like my arm would fall off.
I was finally done when the egg whites were so stiff that they didn’t fold back down at all, and it looked like a dense white foam.
“Perfect!” Julia said, looking into Crisplet’s bowl and then my own.
After getting our lemon curd out and adding it in a thick layer to the crust, we then scooped on the meringue mixture. While we were doing that, Julia looked to be preparing something completely different. Where we put the mixture on top of the tart, she was making what looked to be almost like balls on a tray.
It only took a few minutes to bake, and it got a golden-brown crispy top, but below that, it still looked to be gooey. Julia’s, however, appeared to be different; she was cooking them at a far lower temperature.
I only just noticed that it was no longer just Lily sitting in the room’s corner. Liane was there, sitting next to her, as both of them were watching me.
I tried to ignore them, turning my attention back to the balls of meringue that Julia was making. She now had a small pot out and was putting a handful of berries into it, along with some water and sugar.
“I’m just making a quick berry coulis. You don’t always need to add the water, but these berries tend to be a little drier than normal, so it helps. I’ll show you what for in a moment,” she said as she pulled out the meringue.
Julias looked to be far more solid on the outside. It didn’t have the same deep golden-brown colour that our pies had. Crisplet seemed to have lost interest and was currently talking to Lily with a series of ash pictures showing stages of our cooking over the last couple of days, and he even scared Liane when he made his knife and started waving it around.
I turned my attention back to what Julia was doing, as she was now scooping the lemon curd into a bag with a nozzle.
“What I’m going to do here is hollow out the inside of these by making a small hole in the base. It’s very light and fluffy in the middle and mostly air, so it doesn’t take a lot of effort,” she explained.
“Next, we fill the inside with a mix of the coulis and lemon curd here. I would always suggest adding a small amount of curd first, then your coulis, before finishing it with more lemon. Finally, plug the hole. Either use the small piece you cut out, or when you serve, the plate can act as the plug,” she said.
She placed it on a plate, added a couple more berries to it, along with a very fine powdered sugar, before handing me a spoon.
“I’ll only make one right now, because eventually the liquid inside will eat away at the outer casing, so you want to do this just before serving. The eleven others I will keep for you to make for your friends later, but please try it!” She gestured towards it.
With a shrug, I took the spoon and tried to scoop it, realising the outside was actually hard like a shell, so I took a different approach and tapped the spoon on it, cracking it. It broke away just like a shell. The inside was both yellow and red with the lemon curd and berry coulis, along with the shards of meringue, so I took a spoonful of everything.
Amazing.
It was the only word that came to mind. The lemon and berry added a sweet and sour taste, while the meringue was melting in my mouth, but still survived long enough to give it a crunch. The flavours were balanced perfectly.
“Liane, you have to try this!” I called.
She was at my side instantly, taking the spoon from my hand and not needing to be asked twice. Julia just chuckled.
Two bites later, I practically had to fight Liane to get the spoon back.
“Come on, Trev, one more bite!” she pleaded, pulling the spoon back.
“No! I want some too.”
While I was fighting Liane for the spoon, I couldn’t help but notice the rest of the meringue had vanished, with a smug-looking Lily sitting there looking at us both.
Julia just burst into laughter. “That’s going to be it from me today. However, what I will do for you is write a couple more recipes on this sheet for easy-to-make desserts you can do.”
“Thank you so much, and for teaching Crisplet too,” I said, bowing, and I was really thankful for it. It felt uncommon for people to treat Crisplet as his own person and not just an extension of me, and I feel like Crisplet had really benefited from the entire experience.
Though… right now Crisplet was just throwing coal at Lily for leaving mid-conversation.
Auguste, noticing it wrapping up, left Torrel, who had been working on something, to come over.
“Thank you, Auguste, for teaching us.” Again, I bowed to him.
“Please, Trevor, no bowing. You are very welcome. Again, I’m sorry about my accusation. I would ask that you keep that book safe. I don’t know how it exists, but after seeing the journal, I doubt I could take it from you even if I wanted to. If you have any other questions, you can reach us at the palace. Teaching you here has been interesting and eventful. We will prepare dinner for everyone tonight, and it will be a special one, so please, I hope you enjoy,” Auguste said, bowing himself.
“Don’t forget your cookies and muffins!” Julia said.
Somehow, I didn’t have to worry about forgetting those, as I knew Liane would have got them if I forgot, but I stored both mine and Crisplet’s away, with Liane stealing a cookie and muffin.
I would need to come back in after they have finished dinner to make something for Lily, but I felt it wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe I could use a little bit of the powder as requested by Sylverith on some drake?
Leaving the kitchen with Lily and Crisplet, I made my way to the front stairs again, reading the recipe page I had got from Julia, which included everything she had taught us today. In addition, she added a base cake mixture, butter icing, and what Julia had written as ‘Julia’s extra special brownies’. When an idea struck me, I could add this into the cookbook, right?
Crisplet kept working on his tree. I was more and more amazed as he went because it was still as vibrant as the day he started, maybe even more so, and every leaf was still made of flame.
Turning my attention back to my task, I sat down, pulling the royal cookbook from my storage, where it still had blank pages. I had my charcoal pencils, so I attempted to copy the recipes, but immediately ran into a problem.
It wouldn’t leave a mark on the page. Well, it did briefly, then vanished.
Liane soon joined me, another meringue in her hand, but I had no time to interrogate her on how she stole another one.
I was too intrigued by the book. Why couldn’t I mark the pages?