[Alicia Westfield]

Party Problem

Recurring; Anyone | 1-3 people

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Uh-oh! Seems a local school is having a huge party, but forgot to put in their bakery order until the last minute. Now the poor bakery owner is swamped trying to prepare enough cupcakes in time for the party.

Easy difficulty: Bake a sheet cake

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Coming across a posted urgent request was one thing. It was quite another for it to be a panicked call for aid from a last minute bakery order. For a school event of some kind? How could she not feel a drive to help out? Sure it would be the most complicated thing she’d taken on ever when it came to cooking, but how hard could it really be? Get the right ingredients, measure accurately, and set a timer for when it’s in the oven. Could it get easier then that...?

Thus, this was how Alicia found herself in the Sugar Cube Bakery back in Birch City for a day. A pity, it was a brilliant day to be out and about. The day was nice, warm enough without being suffocating, and if it wasn’t for this she would’ve probably either hammered out scouring another Route or taken a beachside trip. Still, she had gotten an apron, with some disposable gloves in easy reach to use, on and was ready to start. She’d been given the instructions she needed, she had the location of all the tools she needed, where she could find all the ingredients she’d need. Everything to succeed. And then the poor baker had to leave her to her own devices to tackle the more complex orders.

“... Why do I do this to myself?” Alicia asked. Looking over the recipe, she nodded and went for the dry ingredients first. Getting the stuff that didn’t require being chilled ready first seemed like the best idea. That way when she handled things like eggs she could put the mixtures together right away with no delay.

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[HopelessStar]

Nothing happened!

All rolls were passed.

Alicia Westfield

Everything is looking good! The dry ingredients plop into the bowl after you measure them out, making a small flour dust cloud that is quickly swiped away. But you have all that done! Be careful measuring the liquids next!

[Alicia Westfield]

“Okay. If there’s a next time, do it closer to the bottom of the bowl so the cloud’s smaller. Bleh.” Alicia mused to herself. Still, everything seemed to have gone well. Double checking the recipe, she went for the liquids. Eggs were called for but a bad crack or a slip of the finger could easily result in some shell disappearing into the mixture. That would, of course, cause serious problems for everyone involved so she was going to get those squared away in a separate bowl. As long as it was just the white she had to search through if an accident did happen she should be able to see the piece and fish it out with a small utensil.

So she handled the other wet ingredients in one dish, trying to be careful with the measuring. At least she kept things over the bowl so that if there was a spill nothing would be wasted. There would just be the headache of eyeballing how much spilled over. Outside of a catastrophic drop, though, she should be able to recover. So once that was handled she grabbed the extra bowl, setting the number of eggs she needed aside. Providing nothing went wrong, she went to crack each of them, and then prepare for the next step.

She still needed to mix all this together and get the resulting batter laid out!

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[HopelessStar]

Nothing happened!

All rolls were passed.

Alicia Westfield

There is minimal spillage, a couple drops here and there. But nothing that needs replacing. And the first egg splits quite cleanly around the middle. The second one is a bit out and requires another tap, but nothing falls into the bowl. Commence mixing! Show that batter who is boss!

[Alicia Westfield]

A few drops was hardly anything to worry about, all told. Correcting such a miniscule amount would’ve easily lead to an overdose, and that was arguably much worse. And the eggs cracked easily enough with no shell shenanigans, which would let her get on with mixing wet and dry. Both types combined, she took it to a mixer and set it to a low strength to start. Didn’t want to fling the mixture every which way!

That started, Alicia went to the oven and turned it on to start preheating, handling the dial carefully to not get too high or too low. Sure, a degree or two one way or the other probably wouldn’t be too problematic, but it also didn’t take much to throw off the approximate bake time either. Cooking was both an art and a science after all. A right feel for the timing was just as vital as accurate portions.

With the oven set to preheating and the mixture checked and turned up a bit to blend better, Alicia smiled and then went to make up the buttercream filling and frosting. It was an extremely simple frosting to make all told. The only concern was that she’d need quite a bit to fully cover the cake. Butter, powdered sugar, and milk in appropriate parts would do the trick, with food coloring to handle changing the majority to the desired color. Alicia even started to hum a merry tune, enjoying her time.

AzureGhidorah

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