Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,35

for the fake drink in the sugar martini glass.

The actual cocktail was an amber color. To mimic that, I made a caramel cognac mousse. So as not to melt the sugar, the filling needed to be cool but not cold when I put it in the glass. If it was too cold, the glass would shatter. After making the filling, I set it aside in the blast freezer then carefully removed the sugar martini glasses from their molds. The first one broke.

The judges made a noise, and I glared at them. Jonathan flashed me a thumbs-up.

I took a few deep breaths. The next two came out of the mold easily. Using a hot piece of wire, I trimmed off excess sugar and placed the glass next to an actual martini glass. They matched perfectly.

For the garnish on the real martini, I had a booze-soaked cranberry. I could use the same for the mousse, but I was an artist.

I made a cranberry glaze then dropped balls of the raspberry cognac mixture into a molecular gastronomy chemical that turned them into jelly balls. When I had a large enough one, I carefully placed it on top of the mousse in the sugar martini glass.

I checked the clock. Ten minutes! Crap! I still had to make the actual cocktail.

18

Jonathan

Morticia was working furiously. I was dying to see what she was making, but the cameras were hovering around her.

“Don’t even think about distracting her,” Belle said to me, coming over to talk to the judges before the judging started. “She’s one of the few people actually making artistic desserts.”

“I’m not looking forward to having to eat any more fried ice cream balls covered in frosting and colored coconut,” I quipped.

Belle laughed.

“Hey, Belle?” I said tentatively.

We hadn’t had any time to really sit down and have a serious talk since she’d returned. My other brothers monopolized all of her free time. Classic middle child—I was always overlooked. Plus, even if I had been able to have one-on-one time with my older sister, I wouldn’t know what to say.

Sorry for being a terrible brother? Sorry for letting our parents treat you like shit?

We had all been so reliant on her for basically the entire thirty years of her life that I always felt guilty trying to take any more of her time.

“What?” she asked, half paying attention while she was on her phone, watching the schedule.

“Nothing,” I said in a rush.

The clock counted down. Morticia placed the final garnish in her cocktails right as Anastasia called time. I was itching to see her dessert. But first…

“I made for you,” one of the contestants announced, placing her dessert on the judges’ table, “snowpup cream puffs!”

They were little pastries filled with cream, though you couldn’t see that because they were covered in frosting and toasted coconut.

“Do you see?” she said, giggling. “They’re little snowpup Pomeranians wearing tiny sweaters!”

Nick sighed loudly, and Anu carefully excavated the puff pastry from all the frosting.

“This is actually a good puff pastry,” she said, “but remember what Coco Chanel always said—take one thing off before you leave the house. I think in this case, you could take three things off of this dessert.”

“And all of them are frosting,” Nick added.

The rest of the contestants were more of the same.

One girl made pigs in a blanket, except that the pigs were candy canes. “It’s fun party food!” she said happily as I almost broke a tooth on one of the confections.

“Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here,” Nick remarked after the contestant had left for the green room. He tossed the rest of her dessert in the trash can.

“We were trying to spice it up,” Dana said, ushering a makeup artist over to powder Anu’s nose. “It’s working; the ratings are sky-high!”

“Probably with people hate-watching,” I said.

“The contestants aren’t that bad,” Dana said.

The next few desserts were pretty good. Keeley had made miniature pie bites, including a mini pecan pie, a mini gingerbread spice pie, a mini chess pie, and a mini eggnog pie.

“I’m very impressed with the crust on these,” Anu told her, “and that you didn’t overcook these. Very good attention to detail.”

Another contestant had made mini apple and cranberry dumplings with a caramel dipping sauce.

“These are great,” Nick praised. “Perfectly balanced, not too sweet, awesome crust. Jonathan would be lucky to have you on his arm at a Christmas party!”

Finally, there was Morticia. “Ah!” Anu said. “The artist.”

Morticia’s dessert was miraculous. It looked exactly like a bottle of cognac with