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Authors: Judith Fertig
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heart instead. “Perfect,” I muttered.
I took a sip. Was the milk starting to curdle? The froth had the faint suggestion of sour. I stirred in a teaspoon of sugar. I leaned down to check the sell-by date on the carton in the under-counter refrigerator. Okay. I sniffed the carton. The milk didn’t smell like anything, which was what you wanted milk to do.
I snatched a miniature croissant stuffed with ham and cheese and downed it in two bites, wiping the buttery flakes from my fingers on my work apron. I was starting to feel human again.
It was too early to call Jett at home or on her cell. I needed her to come in today, but at the same time, I hated to ask. She had been beaten up last night, emotionally and physically. And who knew what her home life was like? Could she tell her mother? I didn’t want to make things worse by her boss—that was me—adding even more stress by pressuring her. But she was a young girl in trouble and I wanted to help. So what to do? I sighed.
I wasn’t getting any flavor, any story, that took shape in my mind. But that was no surprise, really, so I was annoyed at myself for even wandering in that direction. I limited my ability to “read” people to those I barely knew rather than those I did. It would mean an unfair advantage in personal relationships. In business, an advantage was a good thing. But in private life, my insider info could lead to a host of happiness busters, such as an “I know best” attitude and being privy to things I was better off not knowing about friends or relatives. We were all entitled to our privacy.
Sigh.
I would have to fall back on simply doing the right thing. I texted her:
Hope you’re ok. I will help you in any way I can.
I’d wait for her reply. If I didn’t hear from her by midmorning, I’d go to her house. I felt better now that I had a plan.
A watched phone never beeps, so I got back to work.
If Jett couldn’t come in today, I would have to do the cake-top decoration myself. Which meant that I first needed to tackle the six dome cakes—from our couture line—for a special catering order that had to go out in the afternoon.
While I warmed the eggs in a bowl of hot water (which would help them hold more air when beaten), I gathered the rest of the ingredients from the pantry—sugar, a little baking powder, flour, and blood oranges. As I cracked each egg into the bowl and added the sugar while the mixer did its work, I wondered whether I was the only person who found the whir of a stand mixer oddly comforting. For me, it was the sound of something good about to happen.
And right now, I needed that.
After the egg-and-sugar mixture thickened, turned a pale yellow, and ribboned off the whisk attachment when I flipped it up to check—yes!—I folded in the dry ingredients and the blood-orange zest by hand. That was when the classic genoise batter bloomed into the most beautiful, aromatic coral. I loved blood orange.
When each jelly-roll-style genoise had baked, I rolled it up in a confectioner’s sugar–dusted towel to let it cool into a coiled shape.
After cooling, I carefully unrolled each one to spread on the seedless raspberry jam, then rolled it up again tightly. Then I cut each sweet cylinder into thin, spiraled slices with an inner stripe of dark pink.
Assembling the dome cake was the easiest part. I arranged the spiraled slices flat on the bottom and against the sides of small stainless steel bowls lined with plastic wrap. Then I filled the center with blood-orange mousse and arranged the rest of the slices on top. I had leftover cake spirals and mousse, so I created a tiny cake, too.
Nothing went to waste here.
Into the refrigerator went the cakes for an hour or so of chilling until each had set.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Cake’s e-mail held no surprises, only that Mr. Wa-chen of Hong Kong, who was somehow stuck in Kenya—no, that was yesterday—had found me here as well as on my personal e-mail. He must be desperate. But
I took a sip. Was the milk starting to curdle? The froth had the faint suggestion of sour. I stirred in a teaspoon of sugar. I leaned down to check the sell-by date on the carton in the under-counter refrigerator. Okay. I sniffed the carton. The milk didn’t smell like anything, which was what you wanted milk to do.
I snatched a miniature croissant stuffed with ham and cheese and downed it in two bites, wiping the buttery flakes from my fingers on my work apron. I was starting to feel human again.
It was too early to call Jett at home or on her cell. I needed her to come in today, but at the same time, I hated to ask. She had been beaten up last night, emotionally and physically. And who knew what her home life was like? Could she tell her mother? I didn’t want to make things worse by her boss—that was me—adding even more stress by pressuring her. But she was a young girl in trouble and I wanted to help. So what to do? I sighed.
I wasn’t getting any flavor, any story, that took shape in my mind. But that was no surprise, really, so I was annoyed at myself for even wandering in that direction. I limited my ability to “read” people to those I barely knew rather than those I did. It would mean an unfair advantage in personal relationships. In business, an advantage was a good thing. But in private life, my insider info could lead to a host of happiness busters, such as an “I know best” attitude and being privy to things I was better off not knowing about friends or relatives. We were all entitled to our privacy.
Sigh.
I would have to fall back on simply doing the right thing. I texted her:
Hope you’re ok. I will help you in any way I can.
I’d wait for her reply. If I didn’t hear from her by midmorning, I’d go to her house. I felt better now that I had a plan.
A watched phone never beeps, so I got back to work.
If Jett couldn’t come in today, I would have to do the cake-top decoration myself. Which meant that I first needed to tackle the six dome cakes—from our couture line—for a special catering order that had to go out in the afternoon.
While I warmed the eggs in a bowl of hot water (which would help them hold more air when beaten), I gathered the rest of the ingredients from the pantry—sugar, a little baking powder, flour, and blood oranges. As I cracked each egg into the bowl and added the sugar while the mixer did its work, I wondered whether I was the only person who found the whir of a stand mixer oddly comforting. For me, it was the sound of something good about to happen.
And right now, I needed that.
After the egg-and-sugar mixture thickened, turned a pale yellow, and ribboned off the whisk attachment when I flipped it up to check—yes!—I folded in the dry ingredients and the blood-orange zest by hand. That was when the classic genoise batter bloomed into the most beautiful, aromatic coral. I loved blood orange.
When each jelly-roll-style genoise had baked, I rolled it up in a confectioner’s sugar–dusted towel to let it cool into a coiled shape.
After cooling, I carefully unrolled each one to spread on the seedless raspberry jam, then rolled it up again tightly. Then I cut each sweet cylinder into thin, spiraled slices with an inner stripe of dark pink.
Assembling the dome cake was the easiest part. I arranged the spiraled slices flat on the bottom and against the sides of small stainless steel bowls lined with plastic wrap. Then I filled the center with blood-orange mousse and arranged the rest of the slices on top. I had leftover cake spirals and mousse, so I created a tiny cake, too.
Nothing went to waste here.
Into the refrigerator went the cakes for an hour or so of chilling until each had set.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Cake’s e-mail held no surprises, only that Mr. Wa-chen of Hong Kong, who was somehow stuck in Kenya—no, that was yesterday—had found me here as well as on my personal e-mail. He must be desperate. But
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