The pastry for a chocolate eclair was different from the normal pie pastry, he would need to make it over the stove. Light sparkled in his eyes as he gathered the ingredients, he was going to use his new elements once again!
Kit quickly gathered all the ingredients, a ting sounded when the pot connected with the stove top. With fast hands he soon had butter, water, flour, sugar, salt, and eggs heating. When the mixture turned into a paste, he piped the pasty into long logs then placed them into the waiting oven next to his baking cake.
The cake caught his eye and brown dense chocolate cake filled his vision, a bright purple hue was emitting off the cake. He quickly shut the oven door on his pastry logs and moved over to pull his mud cake from the oven.
Warmth filtered through the oven mitts as he placed the cake on the bench. He then flipped the tin and the cake slid onto the waiting cake rack to cool. A rich chocolate scent hung in the air making Kit’s mouth water.
Kit felt the urge to slice the cake but left it alone, he needed to keep a close eye on the pastry in the oven, it wouldn’t take long to bake. Once the logs were done, he left them on the bench to cool and started to make the icing for the mud cake.
Of course, the icing would be chocolate! Once the top of the cake was dripping with chocolate icing, he smoothed the mixture to cover the outside of the cake. The purple hue was intensifying at a satisfying rate.
It hadn’t hit a peak yet, so Kit scrutinized the cake. It looked rather bland being all the same colour. He decided to add strawberries to the top to add a splash of contrast. When the last strawberry was placed on top of the cake a notification rang.
Ding!
[Cocoa mud cake created]
Quality level: Excellent
Quality bonus: + 20 charisma.
A rich, dense, moist chocolate cake. Upon eating floods the consumer with happy vibes.
Temporary skill: Charisma shock, dazzle any creature with your charm!
5 minutes.
[Unlocked: Nil level restriction.]
Reward: 5,000 EXP, 1,000 culinary EXP, 500 silver crowns, 500 culinary points.
Excitement flared, he had one more thing to add to the café menu! Kit felt that getting his hands on the cocoa fruit was the best thing for his restaurant. He had developed so many things from the one tasty ingredient.
Kit’s eyes fluttered over the new information, a temporary charm that dazzled any creature. Was this like Snowball’s cuteness overload? He really felt it would be similar, it was probably nowhere near as powerful as Snowball’s. That cute dog of his could capture a spiritual beast with his skills!
All his thoughts were forgotten in a moment when Kit sliced into the cake. He pierced his fork through the cake and brought it to his mouth. A soft moan left his mouth, “This is going to be a best seller!”
The dense chocolate cake truly was mouthwatering. Kit took a moment to savour the taste of the chocolate cake, then reluctantly put it away. He left his piece of mud cake to finish later, he still had chocolate eclairs to finish!
Sparkling clean utensils greeted him when he turned back to his workstation, it looked like a clean sprite had come in without him noticing. He really wanted to take the handy creature back into the real world, pity that wasn’t possible.
Kit started banging and clanging once again in the kitchen and soon a thick smooth custard was ready to pipe into the waiting logs.
With a thick skewer he made a hole in each of the logs then piped the custard inside. He then quickly combined hot cream and chocolate to make a chocolate ganache topping. He drizzled the warm liquid over the top of the pastries.
With hurried steps he stuffed the pastries into the refrigerator to cool down. When he closed the door, a loud bang sounded from behind him. “Where is it!” Snickers excited voice rang in the quiet room.
Kit turned to see Snickers eyes light up as she stared at the half-eaten piece of cake sitting on the bench. Before he could stake his ownership of the brown desert, Snickers was already eating her fill. “Snickers! That was my piece!”
Snickers dismissed his words by spooning another piece of the cake into her mouth. “I’m the taste tester! If you leave new food out, I will taste it!” Snickers gave a chocolate filled grin.
“That doesn’t even make sense! You could have just asked for your own piece!” Kit had been looking forward to finishing his piece of cake. He looked at Snickers delighted face and all his annoyance melted.
He could just get himself another piece of cake, so he did just that. Snickers eyes stared at the large mud cake sitting on the bench. “I didn’t get a good feel for the cake so I should have another piece.” Snickers smacked her lips and took another slice.
“Mm, you should get a good understanding of the cake so you can recommend it to the customers.” Laughter was clear in Kit’s voice, but he went along with Snickers deception.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Snickers chatted to Kit as she ate, “The signs and menu will be ready first thing in the morning. I was thinking that we should give out gift bags like last time, maybe with a sample of chocolates? What do you think?”
“Will we have time?” He wanted to leave most of tomorrow available for fixing last minute issues that could possibly crop up.
“Yes, we should have more than enough time, we will have plenty of people to help. I decided to close the market stall tomorrow so everyone will be available to help with the final adjustments before opening.”
Kit had forgotten about his abundance of staff, they hadn’t been with him long, so he hadn’t gotten to know many of them yet. This meant that he easily forgot about them because he had been so busy since they had arrived.
A smile bloomed when he thought about delegating tasks, unlike last time it wasn’t going to be a last-minute scramble to get things done. “We should split the employees into groups to assign tasks, tomorrow will be quite chaotic otherwise,” said Kit.
He scratched his chin, “We need to stock the shop in a shop, animal café and the time freeze storage shelves, Plus make gift bags.” Snickers agreed with his assessment.
With the new additions to the restaurant, he wondered if he needed to hire more staff, he spoke his thoughts to Snickers. “Hmm, maybe one or two, it shouldn’t be that many. We just need to hire someone for the animal café really,” said Snickers.
With the sparse products available for the animal café, he wasn’t expecting that part of his restaurant to get too busy. He felt that they would be ok with the current staffing for the one star opening.
Snickers finished off her cake and placed the plate in the sink, he expected her to leave now that she had given him the update on the menu. But the green haired elf made herself comfortable sitting on top of a bench. “Don’t you have anything to do?” Kit wanted to get back to his beautiful kitchen without distractions.
“Not really, besides, I want to watch you make a chocolate creation at least once.” Snickers pouted.
Kit was surprised by her request, he nodded his head in acquiescence “Ok, but I haven’t thought about what to make next.
“Oh, then can I make a request?” Snickers eyes sparkled.
“Sure, I can’t guarantee it will work though,” said Kit.
“Can you make a Liqueur chocolate, I really want to combine my two favours things!” Snickers leant forwards in her excitement and almost fell off the bench.
Surprise flickered across Kit’s face, that was a fantastic idea! “Snickers you’re a genius!” The only thing was, Kit had no idea how that would be possible. He twisted his lips in thought.
If he added alcohol to the chocolate it wouldn’t set. Maybe he could make chocolate shells and fill the inside with the liquor? But then again, the liquid would cause the chocolate shells to decompose. Kit thought about using something to thicken the alcohol, could he just use finely ground sugar?
He decided it would be worth a shot. “Alright I will give it a try!” Excitement built, he was looking forward to seeing the chocolate filled cups. As he was about to head to the storage cupboard his actions came to a halt.
Right now, he was supposed to be working on expanding the animal café menu. Chocolate recipes really did make him get swept away. “Snickers your idea will have to go on hold for now. If I have free time I need to focus on cakes and pastries.”
A pout formed on her delicate lips. “Oh yeah, never mind, I can wait a few days. Then what are you going to try next?”
Kit decided that the next recipe shouldn’t have any chocolate involved. He already had an abundance of the sweet treats. His mind wandered through his ingredients, and he stopped when he remembered the carrots.
“Carrot cake!” With his next recipe decided he started moving towards the storage cupboard once again. Snickers kept him company as he hand grated the carrots. A notification rang halfway through the process.
Ding!
Congratulation!
[Skill learnt: Advanced novice grating]
Player can cut food into very small pieces by rubbing it against a tool.
+ 20 Agility
+ 20 Speed
Kit paused his hand and he glanced at the information, smiled, then kept working.
Soon he had three cups filled with small blue pieces. With a flip of his wrist, he dumped the carrot into a large bowl. He then added flour, salt, cinnamon, sugar and baking Soda.
A second bowl sat next to the first, he used this one for the wet ingredients. He added egg, oil and vanilla extract and whisked until blended. Then with a flipping motion he folded the wet ingredients into the dry.
Kit paused as he looked at the mixture, he felt he was missing a vital ingredient. A memory surfaced of his father and he eating cake. “The best thing about carrot cake is the slight crunch, what do you think Kit?”
Kit’s 10 year old self licked frosting off his finger. “I like the icing dad.” A chuckle came from the older man, then a finger dipped into his own cake, then quick as lightning the finger shot towards the young Kit’s face. “HEY!” A glob of icing hung of the tip of the 10 year old’s nose.
A smile bloomed as Kit thought of that memory and the missing ingredient came to the tip of his tongue, Pecans! He couldn’t make carrot cake without his father’s favourite crunch! With hurried steps he went and purchased the nuts.
When he returned with a bag of nuts, Snickers jumped off her perch. When Kit poured the nuts into a bowl, Snickers picked one out and inspected it. “Why did you bring these out?” Snickers was turning the nut around as she spoke.
“These are going into the cake.” Kit advised, then began to shell the nuts.
Not long after he started Snickers joined in. “This is quite fun!” Kit soon realised Snickers was a disaster in the kitchen, nut shells were being scattered all over the place. The nuts she was supposed to put in a bowl ended up in her mouth.
By the time he had finished shelling a bowl of pecans, Kit felt his eye twitching. Kit stuffed a half bag of the crunchy nuts in her hand. “Snickers, I’m going to finish the cake. You can eat the rest of those if you go back to sitting on the bench over there.” Kit pointed to the furthest bench top from him.
“What? Oh, ok.” Snickers skipped off with her bag of nuts. Kit heard the cracking of shells as he kept working.
When the nuts were evenly mixed in, Kit poured the mixture into a cake tin and placed it in the oven. Now that the carrot cake was baking, he decided to see how his chocolate eclairs turned out.
As Kit opened the door to the refrigerator a blue hue was swirling over each éclair. A feeling of luck swept through him. Today was turning out to be a good harvest of new recipes. Snickers noticed him pulling out the glowing tray. “What have you got there Kit?”
Kit slid the tray onto the bench and pulled out a white plate. “Chocolate eclairs.” He carefully pinched an éclair between his fingers and transferred it onto the waiting plate.
Ding!
[Cocoa eclair created]
Quality level: Excellent
Quality bonus: + 20 charisma.
Custard filled pastry topped with a scrumptious chocolate topping.
+ 60 charisma.
5 hours.
[Unlocked: Nil level restriction.]
Reward: 5,000 EXP, 1,000 culinary EXP, 500 silver crowns, 500 culinary points.
It really was his lucky day and he hadn’t even eaten anything to boost his luck stat! Kit glanced over to the baking carrot cake and hope filled his eyes. Would one of his father’s favourite cakes also turn out today? A tingling ran under his skin in anticipation.