Casual Heroing

I look at the cake with a clinical eye.

Unlike the stupid drink that people with a mid-life crisis and women seem to enjoy, the mimosa cake is a truly hard composition. It has many key components that you cannot get wrong. That’s why it took several pages of instructions to make it possible for them to recreate this beautiful piece of Italian patisserie.

See, the mimosa cake takes its name after the flower. The mimosa drink probably has some common etymology with the flower too. In Italy, the mimosa flowers are given to women on Women’s Day, the 8th of March. It’s a weird-looking, puffy flower whose price spikes terribly on that day. A piece of advice, never get a girlfriend or a date around that date – it’s like Valentine’s Day all over.

Hell, I wonder how men get tricked into these festivities. I imagine that one day a woman said, ‘you know what, in February, we celebrate love – and you, filthy man, shall cover me with roses and gifts.’ And then, some stupid, damned man accepted. But who are we kidding? Everyone would have accepted whatever nonsense their woman spouted, given that said woman was hot enough. Or that you were in love with her. But, for practical reasons, I assume such a woman would have to be ferociously attractive.

Anyway, you recreate the little puffy spheres, characteristic of the yellow flowers, with what Italians call ‘Spanish Bread,’ or, in their language, ‘Pan di Spagna.’ It’s a variation of what you’d call ‘sponge cake.’ You cut three disks of this cake base to serve as the cake layers, like with many other cakes. Until that point, you would think, ‘well, this is easy!’ And you would be so wrong.

First of all, the cake base is the most challenging. I loathe complex cake compositions. A cake that weighs more than a few pounds has no right to be called a cake. And if you like to make weird sculptures with sugar paste, you deserve to be whipped. You want to be a sculptor? Do that. But cake-making should aim for taste and elegance. The fact that someone on a TV network saw a horrendous rendition of whatever cinematic idiocy kids consume in batches and decided to make a show out of it speaks tons about how depraved our society has become.

It’s like making bread in the shape of a penis. Why would you do that?

Have you ever thought that French people might be, on average, more effeminate because they eat bread in the shape of a penis?

But let’s go back to the cake and not speak of those disturbing creatures anymore.

So, the cake base is everything. For example, have you considered that since the mimosa flower looks so puffy, you might want a lighter touch for the cake base? Portuguese people have this thing they call ‘Pão-de-Ló’ – a variation of the Italian ‘Spanish Bread’ with lemon or orange flavor. But the point is, if you have a yellow cake that is supposed to resemble a goddamn fluffy yellow flower, you don’t want to turn it into an uncouth pound cake, do you?

I’m also trying to avoid the term ‘sponge cake’ here. First of all, why would you call a cake ‘spongy’? Who the hell came up with that? No disrespect to my countrymen, but Jesus Christ, stop piling up layers of cake with different fillings and calling it cake.

It’s the same with chocolate, but let’s keep that for a different conversation. If I start ranting about the differences between European and American chocolate, I might lose my shit very fast.

So, back to the mimosa.

I cut a slice out of Tiberius’s version after examining the cake on a rotating plate.

“The petals are outstanding,” I look at the puffiness of the little pieces of ‘Spanish Bread’ that were cut to resemble the flowers. “Petals is not the perfect definition, but we’ll get into that later.”

I gently touch one of the flowers/petals and feel its extreme softness. I slowly peel one away and put it in my mouth to see whether it’s ‘too soft.’ You don’t want the petals to be too sugary and numb your palate. You also don’t want them to be too inconsistent. Why? Well, because they are the first thing that touches your palate, and you need some tactile enjoyment from food.

When the petal hits my tongue, I frown.

“Too spongy,” I say to an embarrassed Tiberius.

“Sorry, [Chef].”

I wave a hand and take a better look at the petals.

“You didn’t use anything to ‘wet’ them a little? No liquor?”

Tiberius shakes his head and looks at the ground.

“Well, they came out spongy. If you had given them some wetness, you might have saved the consistency. As they are now, it’s probably too late to wet them. If you did it now, they would become too crumbly. So, you are stuck with a spongy and dry feeling on the exterior, Tiberius. The petals are your introduction to the client; you don’t want to botch them this way.”

We are in the kitchen. Everyone has stopped what they were doing. Clients, [Bakers], and [Chefs] who were hired after I disappeared, the people who know me, and Princess Bianca. Everyone’s here. I even left my cigar outside to avoid tainting the food with the smoke.

“I’m sorry, [Chef],” Tiberius erupts into a Japanese-style bow.

I cut another slice because I forgot to test the overall consistency of the base. The knife slides in without resistance.

“The base seems to have the right consistency, Tiberius. But I can see that the layers are a bit too thin. Did you—”

“I’m sorry, [Chef],” Quintus says from behind. “We couldn’t manage to get the layers to be the consistency you described. Even with our skills—”

“Quintus, did you say skills?” I turn to look at him with a frown, slightly angry.

“I’m sorry, [Chef],” the man bows his head, embarrassed.

“Excuse me,” a guy I have never seen before comes forward, “I have tasted these cakes myself. They are a wonderful example of baking. What is wrong with it? And what about skills? Tiberius and Quintus are two very high-level individuals; shouldn’t they use—”

I slam a hand on the table.

“Quintus,” I say, “do you mind explaining it to this person?”

“Using skills to enhance a composition is encouraged. But using skills to cut corners is just a mark of sloppiness. We are allowed to use skills only after mastering a cake. Making something even better is not something we should be ashamed of, but our Chef can make this cake without a single skill. The fact that we had to use skills and shortcuts to make something resembling the original recipe means that we failed him in more than one way.”

“We are deeply ashamed,” Tiberius says.

For once, I approve of their dramatic behavior.

“Come on, Joey,” Camilla takes a step forward, but Tiberius immediately intercepts her.

“No! The Chef is right! We take pride in our work! And if we treat our work like this, we don’t deserve to work here!”

“Camilla, I don’t want to sound mean, but it is one thing to fail after having tried, and it is another thing to cut corners to achieve a subpar result. I don’t want cakes that do not respect the minimum standards to be for sale. And I’ll personally inspect each and every baking composition in this shop. After I’m done checking out these mimosas, obviously. If I find anyone cutting corners, we’ll remedy that. Together. But from now on, we do things like I say. This is still my bakery, isn’t it?”

I mean. I know it’s not ideal to behave like this. These people kept this whole operation up while I was on the other side of the continent. But once you have spent enough time in kitchens, you know how to deal with these problems. The quality of the food that you see on the table in a restaurant is equal to the lowest level you allow it to be in the kitchen. The weak link is where the chain will break, always. And if you allow too many weak links, even weaker links will form. Discipline in a kitchen is quintessential. You are a literal chain of production.

“So, moving on,” I say to Tiberius while taking a spoonful of the whipped Chantilly Cream filling inside the cake.

“The cream has been slightly flavored with lemons, and, Tiberius, what is this?”

“Lemons and kuvillinae, Chef. It’s a fruit used in traditional celebrations and rituals as an auspice of female fertility. It has a very dense and deep taste, Chef. I mixed it with lemon peel and let it rest an entire night before filtering it and mixing it with the cream.”

“Impressive,” I say with sincere appreciation, “you might want to experiment a bit more until the lemon and the kuvillinae flavors are balanced. But this is good. Very good.”

Now, I spoon a bit of cake into my mouth, together with the yellow petals of ‘Spanish Bread’ on the outside. The overall composition has a light but definite taste. Tiberius and Quintus are both very promising [Chefs], obsessed with details and perfection. I don’t blame the couple that much. They probably felt compelled to succeed at making a Mimosa as soon as possible. But the truth is that a lot of baking expertise comes from experience. If you are an ungodly talent, you can only shorten the cycle of iterations needed to bake such a cake. But you certainly can’t skip the necessary steps altogether.

Even the greatest chefs, when confronted with an unknown recipe, can only draw from other experiences. And they can totally fake being proficient on the spot. But the truth is that they are not. Even a slight change in the portion size alters the final result. Even cooking plain spaghetti with some butter can be considered high-level cooking if you are looking for the perfect result. And if you add more spaghetti than you are used to, you will undercook or overcook them; if you are a great chef, you can only reduce the mistakes to a minimum, but it will still be a guessing game.

“Quintus, bring me yours.”

The man with a white eyepatch brings me the same cake with trembling hands.

I notice that the outside is identical. The cake base too.

When I taste the cream, though, I find a tangy note in it.

“You mixed caramel in the cream?”

The surprise is so big that I forget to analyze the taste, and I accidentally swallow. I take another spoonful under Quintus’s sweating scrutiny.

“Ok, explain this to me, Quintus. Did you mix the sugar and the lemon juice before? And you made that into what, little denser streaks inside the cake?”

“Yes, Chef. I was really worried about the thickness of the base. So, to add to the sensory experience on the tongue, I added streaks of lemon-flavored caramel-based thick cream.”

I look at the cream and decide simply to bite into a spoonful of the thing. I can’t judge this cream on its own.

“You made a bold choice, Quintus,” I say while savoring the weird composition, “but you could have done many other things. Unfortunately, the caramel is taking over the taste. Caramel is a devil to tame, and you should know better.”

I look at the two failed cakes and get an idea.

“You know what? Get me an apron. Let’s re-bake some of this together.”