CHAPTER FOUR
“For the wedding cake, I thought we’d do four tiers, nothing too over the top on height,” said Sara.
“We’ll do alternating layers of lemon, vanilla, and chocolate, with the top layer being Mama Irene’s coconut cake.
The design will be totally southern with massive magnolias, jasmine, and azaleas down the side. ”
“I love that,” nodded Celia smiling at her friend.
“I’m going to do six cookie flavors,” said Taylor.
“Six? Are you sure you can do that in the time frame given for this?” asked Dylan.
“With your help,” she grinned. “I’ll do a pecan shortbread cookie, a shortbread raspberry jam thumbprint cookie, and a lemon curd shortbread sandwich.”
“Oh, I see. You’re using the same base for some,” smiled Janie.
“Exactly. The other three will be a little fancier but definitely recipes we’ve done before. What about the pies?” she asked.
“We’re going to do Mama Irene’s pecan pie recipe. It’s a winner every time,” said Casey.
“Agreed,” nodded the women.
“Then we’ll do a chocolate fudge whiskey pie and an apple, cranberry pie. For the tarts we’re doing several fruit varieties and several nut varieties.”
“I can’t believe we’ve got this laid out already,” smiled Sara. “We can use local ingredients and some of which we have here. Our own lemon trees, apple trees, all of it.”
“The big one we’re going to put a lot of effort into is our buttermilk cookie butter pie,” smiled Dylan.
“Oh, man. Can we make that now?” laughed Sara.
“I think we should make everything we have on our list,” said Taylor. “Think about it. We have hundreds of taste testers right here. Just Tailor and Alec alone will taste everything for us.”
“It’s a great idea,” smiled Sara. “We could make it like our own personal competition. I’ll send a message to the entire compound.
We can do it Saturday afternoon. We won’t ask for scoring, I think that’s unfair to them.
We just ask for honest feedback. What do they like?
What do they want less of? What tasted good or bad?
Those types of comments are what we’re looking for. ”
“What about the gingerbread?” asked Taylor. “That’s incredibly time consuming but I think it might be nice to have some opinions on the new flavor.”
“Let’s just make cookies,” said Sara. “It doesn’t have to be the full-blown design.”
“True,” nodded Taylor. “I could do a drawing of the design we’re thinking about making or maybe do a few different drawings and have them pick the design.”
“I love that idea,” smiled Janie. “The kids will especially love it.”
“Then we’re agreed,” smiled Sara. “We’ll schedule it for this Saturday. We can use the kitchens on Belle ?le. We hardly ever use those any longer. We’ll bring everything back here for the tasting.” Taylor clapped her hands like a child at Christmas.
“Perfect. Let’s bake!”
It was hours and hours of work making dough and batter, creating unique designs and flavors, but the women were up to the task. When the tasting came around, the smaller island was crammed with people ready to take on the task of taste-testing.
Sara was smart in that she’d also prepped a picnic for the hungry testers. There were sandwiches, salads, fruit, and of course the tasting for desserts. Tables were lined up with plates of each of the desserts. Beside each one was a small notecard for the tasters to place their comments.
“Okay, ladies,” said Sara wringing her hands together. “This is it. Why is this making me more nervous than the actual contest?” The others laughed, nodding with her.
“I know what you mean. I think it’s that we don’t want to disappoint the people that we love,” said Taylor. They all nodded quietly. “I think that’s it. If we bake like we’re baking for the people we love, we can’t possibly lose.”
“I believe that’s what I’ve always said,” smirked the ghost of Mama Irene. “Cookin’ is love. It shows in every bite. When you know you’re cookin’ for someone that loves your food, well, it all tastes even better.”
“I learned that lesson from you,” smiled Sara.
“We all did,” laughed Taylor. “The truth is I wouldn’t have met Tango if it weren’t for my baking. Of course, I was baking muffins, which I didn’t know he hated muffins, but he ate them anyway.”
“Why would he eat them anyway?” asked Celia.
“Because I would have done anything to see this beautiful woman every damn day,” said Tango, kissing his wife’s cheek.
“That’s very sweet,” smiled Celia. “If I recall Mama Irene sent RJ and Elias to pick up king cakes from our bakery in town. It was definitely love at first sight for me.”
“Babe, it was me too,” said RJ. “You might be a twin, but I knew instantly which one of you was making my heart thump through my chest. And the smells! Man, the smells coming from that bakery hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“Same,” said Elias hugging Janie. “I owe you my entire world for sending me on that errand, Mama Irene.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said kissing his cheek. “Love would have found you eventually. I just pushed it a little.”
When it was all said and done, the verdict was in. Everything was prize winning delicious and there were no serious adjustments from anyone.
“I do have one small suggestion,” said Hudson, Forrest and Maddie’s son.
“Please, tell us,” smiled Dylan.
“The wedding cake. It was really good and super tasty but it was all flowery and girly. Doesn’t the guy get to have something?” Dylan kept a serious face and nodded.
“Actually, the groom usually gets a special cake called the groom’s cake.”
“But if they’re starting a life together shouldn’t they have cake together?” asked the little boy.
“Tell me more,” said Dylan, seriously curious.
“Well, what if on all them flowers you put some dragonflies or maybe some birds or something. I mean, the flowers are all from the bayou. Why not put birds or bugs from the bayou too?”
“Hudson, that is a fabulous idea! I’m going to do that. Would you like to help me draw the new design?” she asked.
“Really?” he said wide-eyed. Dylan laughed at the little boy, nodding.
“Really.”