Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) - Alexis Hall Page 0,59

feeling about it as well. They’re all like, Does this remind you of your childhood? And I’m like, Nah, mate, it’s a bun.”

She laughed and then hoped he’d meant her to. “I’m not a big fan of having feelings on demand either. But there can be something quite emotional about baking—it reminds you of when you baked or who you baked for.”

“Yeah, and that’s great. But then they say ‘Make us two dozen mini pies’ and my dad’s like, All you’ve done is ruin pie and mash, and I’m like, I know, but that’s what they told me to do. And I suppose I could say this reminds me of my dad, but it mostly reminds me of my dad wanting a bigger pie.”

Harry might not have liked talking, but when he spoke there was something about the way he saw the world—simple and complicated and full of people he cared about—that Rosaline found more appealing than she should have. And she laughed again, imagining an older version of Harry unsatisfied by a bijou pie-ette.

“Oi, mate”—he nudged her—“that’s my fucking heritage.”

A wail of despair echoed around the room. Ricky was on his knees on the floor. “Oh no. It’s only gone and exploded.”

In a more rational world—the world that Alain seemed to be living in—they should all have taken that as a timely reminder to focus on their own bakes. But instead, the majority of the contestants gathered around Ricky’s oven as the companions of Thorin Oakenshield had gathered around the door to the Lonely Mountain.

Within lay the tragically decapitated remains of the Great Dragon Smaug. Rosaline could see at once what had gone wrong. The fillings had been too moist, which had generated steam, which had created pressure, which had split the beast’s mighty flanks and made its head tear open like an overstuffed grocery bag.

Anvita patted Ricky consolingly on the shoulder. “Well. At least it doesn’t look like a gargantuan wang.”

Culinary glamour shots, interviews, and a disappointing lunch, inevitably served late, had become very much part of the routine. And even sitting on a stool, waiting for the cake slice of Damocles, was losing a little of its edge.

Though only a little.

Claudia was up first with what she claimed was a three-tiered bread wedding cake but which looked a lot to Rosaline, and to the judges, like three loaves on top of each other. Harry’s rock pool went down well, as did Alain’s poppy and fennel seed rooster, and Josie’s harvest basket, although that received some criticism for not strictly being a sculpture except insofar as it was a sculpture of some bread.

Then Anvita slunk forward with her model of the Houses of Parliament. And, to be fair to her, it had mostly worked. Apart from the giant schlong at the end.

Placing a hand over her mouth, Grace Forsythe turned her back to the cameras.

The judges exchanged glances.

“Now this is interesting,” said Marianne Wolvercote finally. “I can see what you were going for, and if you’d worked it with a lighter hand, you might have given us something really satisfying. But as it is, it didn’t quite come off.”

Anvita blinked.

Marianne Wolvercote did not. Not fucking once.

Then she closed her fist over the head of the clock tower and sawed vigorously through it. Wincing, Ricky crossed his legs.

Picking up the bulbous top of what everyone was still determinedly pretending was Big Ben, Wilfred Honey inspected it closely. “Now this,” he said, squeezing, “has a nice firmness to it. It feels good in your hand. But of course, what matters is if it’s good in the mouth.”

Anvita was screaming behind her eyes as the nation’s grandfather fondled the glans of her giant bread penis.

“Now this takes me back in a way,” Wilfred Honey continued, now chewing, “because when I were a lad you’d only get a loaf like this when the baker’s boy came round your house on a bicycle and gave it to you hot. I will say, it’s a little crusty for my taste. But I like the flavours. It’s subtle, and the salt is definitely coming through.”

“Great,” said Anvita weakly. “Thanks.”

Next came Ricky, who sheepishly lowered the pile of crumbs and filling that passed for his bake onto the judges’ table.

“Oh dear.” Marianne Wolvercote surveyed the carnage like an insurance investigator at a car crash. “What happened here?”

Ricky sighed with an air of soul-deep exhaustion. “What didn’t happen, bruv. It was supposed to be the Great Dragon Smaug on a Chelsea bun horde. But the buns didn’t