Timestamp: 19th of Summer, 520 A.V.
Juli finally came through for her with the sugar and cocoa powder she needed for the cake. Sugar, it turned out, wasn’t always easy to come by in Syka. She could add mashed fruit to the cake to make it sweet, but she couldn’t actually follow a recipe for what her father had considered an ultimate chocolate cake using fruit that would counter or even taste horrid paired with the chocolate. It had been her father’s recipe. He’d been the baker in the family and the one that had enough of a sweet tooth that there was usually cookies, pies, and cakes around.
Making this recipe made her feel closer to her father even though he was dead.
Her mother hadn’t always approved. She said it spoiled the guests. Her father, however, always pointed out that life was hard and that if an Innkeeper couldn’t spoil a guest to make them have the best experience possible, then what was the point of actually being an Innkeeper? Tazrae had taken the duty seriously. “Innkeeper’s Daughter” always had a nice ring to it. But her mother, strangely, had never clung to the ideal. Instead, she’d often said she was domestic or a cook, never associating the world ‘Inn’ with her work.
The past was the past, though, and now that she had her precious bag of sugar, Tazrae was beyond happy that she could bake a cake for Marino’s birthday that would be big enough for the settlement to enjoy. She’d thought about it long and hard. She’d make a small one, a personal sized cake, for Marino, and then a larger sheet cake… maybe two if she had the ingredients… enough to feed everyone. She planned a Tenday party to celebrate Marino and to introduce Tendays to the settlement. Tomorrow was his birthday, so everything had to be planned today.
First things first… the cake… or in this case, the cakes. Tazrae stoked up the hearth fire, needing a good layer of coals to get the oven cut-outs to bake the cakes evenly. They were fortunate to have someone visiting who crafted her a decent set of hearth ovens when Randal was building her Inn. The setup was lovely. She had a main hearth, all standard for a large family or large home, but beside it she had a very heavily lined fire box that set at the ground level. Then above that were two sets of baking ovens complete with metal doors that opened up to allow her to slide in things like cakes, pies, and cookies. In truth, it was a point of pride for her to have such a nice setup. It allowed her to do things like this.
Something for Marino.
So, it was paramount that she got the fire going, coals generated, and load the firebox so it could bake the cakes evenly for the time she needed. Since she now had more than enough sugar, she was planning on other baked treats too… enough to introduce Tenday to the settlement. And thanks to Juli she had enough ingredients for cookies and little meat pies if she could get some fresh game from one of the hunters.
It was time to get started.
She then rummaged around to find her sheet cake pans, two round pans, and laid them out. She then touched the precious bag of sugar… a whole fifty pounds of it… and began assembling the rest of her ingredients. Luckily the Settlement had a milk cow so she was able to get buttermilk, though there wasn’t much fodder for beef otherwise. Tazrae could put the cake together from scratch and memory, but she had her recipe book and pulled it out turning it to the page the cake recipe was lovingly written on. She ran her hands down her father’s handwriting and smiled. “I miss you, Daddy.” She said softly in a little girl's voice.
The Most Amazing Chocolate Cake
• butter and flour for coating and dusting the cake pan
• 3 cups flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups powdered cocoa nibs
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/2 cup lard
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean seeds
While she was making coals, she went ahead and buttered and floured the cake pans. Her recipe as written out would make one nice cake, about three layers high, made in cake pans. But she was talking about one small cake for an individual and two huge sheet cakes. She’d quadruple the recipe. The math was easy… double the recipe and double it again. Twelve cups of flour and twelve cups of sugar sounded like a lot… it would seriously tax her supplies. But Tazrae was up for the challenge. The other ingredients she had plenty of, including the sixteen eggs.
She glanced around to make sure Creech was sleeping – she didn’t want him begging for treats. Once he was located, snoozing on the deck in the sun, Tazrae was ready to proceed. She stoked the fire, added more wood, burning down the sticks into coal as fast as she could down in the firebox.
Word Count: 871
