Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,93
then peeked into the oven. My cakes were also okay. One looked like it was rising a little faster than the others, but it didn’t seem like it was going to spill out.
While they baked, I worked on decorating the rest of my cookie ornaments. After I set my finished cakes out to cool, I made the crunchy caramel popcorn and the candied cranberries for the garland. Using the smaller cake, I formed the little cake presents, cutting out colored fondant and wrapping the cakes after smothering them in buttercream, cream cheese, and chocolate frosting.
I still had an hour and a half on the clock, which was more than enough time to make my cake Christmas tree. I had a pattern ready to go and carefully cut the large sheet cakes and progressively smaller cakes into tiers, spreading frosting and spiked custardy cream filling and cognac-infused fruit between the layers. I tasted the extra slices of the cake as I went just to make sure Keeley hadn’t sabotaged it while I was gone. When I had the shape the way I wanted it, I draped the cake in fondant then carefully molded it and carved it to look like abstracted pine needles.
Finally, I draped the garland around the cake tree, hung the ornaments with fondant ribbon, and placed the little cake presents under the tree. I snapped a few pictures of the dessert. Though it was heavily Christmas themed, I thought it was still pretty cool.
I was first up to the judges’ table. Jonathan was making bedroom eyes at me. I tried to ignore him as I presented my cake. “While the challenge,” I began, “was edible decorations, I couldn’t just bring you a basket of snacks.”
“I’ll always take a basket of your snacks,” Jonathan said with shit-eating grin on his face.
I ignored him. “Some of us have standards, and we needed a nice way to display everything. Hence the cake Christmas tree. Everything you see here is edible.”
Anu took one of the carefully decorated ornaments. “Exquisite workmanship,” she said. “You could make a killing baking and decorating cookies.”
Nick took one of the strands of garland, eating a few pieces of popcorn. “This is so freaking good. More restaurants are trending to rustic dessert because it’s cheaper. And because while a sugary crème brûlée feels like cheating, caramel popcorn and a few gingersnaps feel like a light snack.”
“He can have the popcorn,” Jonathan said. “I want a taste of your cake.”
He picked up the serving knife, cutting a huge wedge out of the side.
“What is that?” Anu asked as Jonathan started to wiggle the cake slice out.
“What?” I peered. There was a purple thing in the cake.
Is that a...Oh hell no!
As Jonathan pulled the slice out, I shrieked, “Wait, wait!” But it was too late.
“Did you bake a dildo into your cake?” Anu asked, laughing and holding a napkin over her face.
“Keeley.”
I was on camera and could not completely go all evil witch on them, but god, I was going to ruin my cousin!
Johnathan took a bite of his cake. “If you wanted a dick in your cake,” he told me, “you could have just called me. Or was this a subtle hint?”
“It’s not,” I said through gritted teeth, “a hint of any kind. We’ll just cut that right off.” I grabbed the knife.
“Ohh,” Nick and Jonathan both said at the same time, wincing.
“Just put a napkin over it,” Nick begged.
Johnathan reached out and poked the dildo with a fork. “It’s not edible, is it?”
“No.”
I slapped his hand away. The motion caused the dildo to wobble. There was a high-pitched whining noise, then liquid shot out of the top, spraying all over me, while the garbled sounds of Elvis Presley’s “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” strained out of the cake.
“Hm,” Jonathan said after a moment. “Yeah, my dick doesn’t play music.”
I was mortified after the bake-off challenge. Keeley and Sarah were laughing when I stalked back into the greenroom. I reeked of the gingerbread-flavored cheap vodka that had been put in the dildo.
“Guess you’re just as weird and awkward and inappropriate as ever,” Keeley sneered.
“You put that there,” I spat.
“No I didn’t!” she said with feigned innocence. “You put that there as some sort of love letter to Jonathan. Honestly, I don’t know what he sees in you.”
“It’s because he secretly wants to be with me,” Sarah said smugly. “He’s trying to find a poor substitute.”
“Oh, shut up,” Keeley spat. “You’re such a little Goody Two-shoes hypocrite.”