Authors: Susan Willis
They
sat in front of the only window in the room and Nicola gazed out at the car park to avoid looking at Gemma.
‘I
just wanted to say,’ Gemma said politely, ‘how marvellous your berry sponge looked last week – is it a recipe of your own?’
Nicola
was surprised at the compliment and made an effort to be pleasant. She explained proudly, ‘It was a basic recipe from my mum’s cook book but then I added my own signature to it.’
Other
than the fact that David had singled Gemma out for his friendly chat, she had no other sane reason to dislike this girl but there was something behind her sickly-sweet personality that didn’t quite add up.
Simon
arrived back with coffee and sat down next to Gemma grinning like a prize idiot. Good God, Nicola thought, it was as if the girl was a tempting sugary cupcake that they all couldn’t resist.
Gemma
trailed her long plait over her shoulder and stroked it while she smiled at Simon thanking him for the coffee.
He
said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but do you have any Scandinavian blood in you? You certainly look more Swedish than English.’
‘Oh,
no,’ she tittered. ‘I’m from Leeds and have just moved up here to Newcastle. I’m renting a flat in Jesmond because, luckily, I got the teaching job I’ve always wanted.’
Simon
nodded in understanding. ‘Ah, so you’re living near to Nicola – she lives in Gosforth. And what does your boyfriend think of you entering the bake off? I bet he can’t wait to see you on TV.’
Nicola
sipped the hot coffee and leaned forward to hear her answer. Gemma was bound to have a trendy young guy hanging around her.
But
Gemma simpered, ‘I don’t have a boyfriend yet. But I was hoping if I joined in some activities in the area I’d make new friends. It’s true what they say; everyone here in the North is very friendly.’
Simon
raised a dark eyebrow. ‘What? A lovely young girl like you with no boyfriend? I thought you’d be beating the guys off with a whisk,’ Simon said chortling.
All
three were laughing at Simon’s joke and drinking their coffee when David arrived and perched on the end of the sofa next to Nicola. An air of excitement bubbled between the three of them at the knowledge that David had chosen their group to sit with.
‘Bunch
up, Nicola,’ David said, draping his arm along the back of the sofa perilously close to her shoulders. She could smell his Paco Rabanne aftershave, and glowed with pleasure as his leg rested next to hers. Her legs were hot and sweaty in jeans while the thick denim stuck to the plastic sofa – how she wished she’d worn a skirt, she thought, and then she could have enjoyed David’s closeness in comfort.
David
ran a hand through his floppy, blonde hair. ‘We often have times like this with technicalities going awry – it can takes hours to get it all sorted,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m at work up to fourteen hours a day…’
‘Hmm,
that’s tough,’ Simon said seriously. ‘I’m an accountant and thankfully a steady nine to five type of guy.’
Nicola
tried to join in the conversation but couldn’t think rationally while David was within striking distance of her – she felt like a tongue-tied adolescent.
David
asked Simon where he was from and he told them all he lived in a small country cottage on the outskirts of Hexham and how his wife had died of breast cancer three years ago.
Nicola
looked at Simon’s sad eyes while he talked about his late wife and leaned across to give his arm a gentle squeeze of reassurance and empathy. She couldn’t begin to imagine how she would have coped if her husband had died. But there were times, she remembered sadly, how shortly after he’d left and Jay had cried for his dad in his teenage bedroom that she wished he had died and wasn’t shacked up with a young girl. But now that she’d moved on with her life – she wouldn’t wish death on anyone she had loved.
‘Christ,
that’s shit,’ David said sincerely. ‘I thought I had it bad when my wife ran off to live with a professor who’s sixty-five and has a long, grey beard!’
Nicola
gasped – she was stunned at this admission. How on earth could a woman in her right mind leave a lovely guy like this for an older man?
But
Gemma was one step ahead of Nicola and purred softly, ‘She must be crazy…’
David
focussed his grateful smile on Gemma. ‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ he said boldly. ‘But it was over a year ago now and she tells me she’s never been happier.’
Nicola
glared at Gemma’s amiable face. This girl was seriously beginning to get under her skin, she fumed. Deciding to shift the conversation, she said to David. ‘It was Simon who made the Yorkshire curd tart last week. Can you remember it?’
David
glanced at her and nodded cheerfully. ‘Wow! Yes, of course. That was my second choice after your berry sponge.’ He turned his attention back to Simon. ‘It was amazing – where did you get the recipe from?’
Just
as they began to talk about finding recipes the director put his head around the door and called them back to start again.
While David began his introductory talk again, looking into the camera, Nicola thought back over the last few weeks. It was Susan who had spotted the advert for the Bake Off.
‘But
you’ve
got
to enter!’ Susan had cried. ‘You’re the best cook I’ve ever known and I’ll always be a willing guinea pig.’
Nicola
had been uncertain and worried. She knew she was a good baker, but was she up to the standard for the competition? And there again, she hadn’t known, and still didn’t know, what the standard was. Jay had also badgered her every time he rang to make sure she’d filled in the entry form. She also knew he worried about her being alone in their big family home since he’d left for university and that was the last thing she wanted. And although she did miss him she’d tried to build up her social life by joining a reading group and a local swimming class.
They
were, she decided now, all forms of relaxation. She thought this would have been too but already the stress was getting to her. Her entry bake had been a chocolate and orange Northumberland twist which she’d made many times before. It was always a big hit with friends and family, therefore she hadn’t been totally surprised when she was accepted. And although she was still glowing with the success of her berry sponge the technical challenge was scary – would she be out of her depth? Would she have to leave the bake off in the first round with her tail between her legs?
David
finished speaking and she shook herself back to reality.
‘And
now, bakers,’ David said. ‘For this technical challenge we are going to ask you to make millefeuille. And for the viewers at home, this is like a posh custard slice.’ He walked towards the two ladies at the front benches and picked up a punnet of strawberries from their trays. ‘Plus, because this is summer time, I’ve brought along some of our great English strawberries.’
Oh,
joy of joys, Nicola thought happily. This was something she had made before and her pastry was usually a success. She glanced across at Simon who grinned at her, which she hoped meant he, too, was comfortable with the recipe.
‘This technical bake challenge separates the wheat from the chaff,’ David continued, laughing at his own joke. ‘With one basic recipe, and the same ingredients and instructions, we are asking our bakers to produce the finished millefeuille with any variation. And because this group of eight people are seriously good bakers and the standard is already so high, to make the challenge more interesting I’m going to ask them to create their own decoration. It will be a test of their technical knowledge and experience. So, all you bakers will be laid bare in this task and this is where the pressure is really on.’
Nicola
sighed with relief that the millefeuille challenge was something she classed as an easy recipe to follow.
David
continued as the crew walked around everyone and slid recipe sheets onto the top of their benches. ‘Well, bakers, you have the recipe sheets in front of you now,’ he said. ‘And I just wanted to give the viewers the definition of this recipe from
The
Larousse
Gastronomique
, which states, “it is a small pastry of French origin, known as the Napoleon, and dates back to the 19th century. It consists of thin layers of puff pastry separated by layers of cream (which may be flavoured), jam, or some other filling. The top is covered with icing sugar, fondant icing or royal icing.”’
All
eight contestants nodded as he spoke and David began to walk around them with the camera following him. He passed Gemma’s bench and she looked into the camera cocking her pretty head onto one side. ‘We need to follow your recipe with the pastry, custard and the strawberries we’ve been given but put it together as we see fit?’ she asked.
‘Exactly!’
he said. ‘With all the store cupboard ingredients available I want to see how you can create a different appearance. It’s up to you what and how many layers you decide upon and how you arrange it.’
Gemma
smiled fully into the camera lens and nodded her head with understanding while Nicola sighed with irritation. Hmm, so she was a good actress on top of everything else, she mused, well – let’s just see how good a baker she actually is and how she copes with puff pastry on a hot day.
David
continued, ‘The actual recipe should take around two hours but I’m going to be lenient and give you an extra fifteen minutes to concentrate on your decoration. So, if I was standing at those benches I’d get straight on with my pastry and use the time when it’s resting in the fridge to think about the fantastic millefeuille you can create,’ he said, giving the viewers a dazzling smile which showed off his perfect white teeth. ‘YOU HAVE TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES – NOW BAKE!’
The
director shouted ‘Cut’ and Nicola saw David relax his shoulders. He sat down at the table as the director strode across to him and they bent their heads in whispered discussion.
Nicola
knew what decoration she was going to try because she’d seen something similar in a magazine and tried the arrangement on another dessert. Instead of the numerous layers with jam and custard, which could look fussy, her decoration would only have two thick, clean layers – one with whole glazed small strawberries and the other with a compact layer of vanilla custard. And, she thought, striding towards the ingredients in the fridge, if there was a fresh lime – her plan would work. She gathered her ingredients with the lime and caster sugar, and set to work. Simon had been right, she thought. Once her mind was engrossed in doing what she loved her confidence soared, and the nervous stress soon disappeared.
David’s
instructions for making the puff pastry were similar to the way she’d made it in the past and she began to weigh out the white flour, salt, butter and cold water. The camera was rolling again and David walked to the back of the room where a large man called Thomas, with thick-rimmed glasses, was chatting to him while he weighed out his ingredients.
‘It’s not the best temperature in this room to make puff pastry but as with many summer desserts they often prove troublesome on a hot day,’ David said laughing. ‘But we don’t often get hot sunny days like this here in Newcastle. So the best advice I can give to the bakers is to keep everything, especially your hands, as cool as possible.’
Thomas
grunted at David. ‘I’m sweltered already,’ he complained, wiping his hot forehead with a piece of kitchen roll and then holding his fat fingered hands up towards the camera. ‘I’ve got big butcher’s hands so this could turn out to be a real mess!’
David
roared with laughter and asked him why he’d entered the bake off while Nicola ignored the rest of their conversation and smoothed her butter into a soft pat.
He
was right, she thought. The room was very hot because it only took minutes to soften the hard, yellow butter, and she began to roll out the pastry into a large rectangle. With the sun beating through the large window next to her bench she worked quickly. Gently, she floured the pastry and placed the butter in the centre then folded the three edges of the pastry around to form an envelope shape. Turning the dough swiftly to her left she began to roll again and fold once more. She covered the dough with clingfilm and placed it in the fridge for the first twenty-minute rest and saw Simon doing the same. He gave her a friendly wave and she smiled back at him giving him the thumbs up action.
She
glanced towards the front two benches where she noticed the contestants struggling with the rolling technique David had written on the technical sheet. He stood watching them intently as one lady had got herself into such a fluster she confessed that she couldn’t remember which was her left and which was her right hand. Nicola could also see that the other lady’s butter was too near the edge and it would probably ooze out – which had happened to her in the past. That’s what baking was all about, she decided, making your own mistakes and trying again until you got it right – it was just a pity that it was happening to them here in the competition. Feeling sorry for them but knowing it wasn’t allowed she fought the urge to go to their aid.
While waiting for twenty minutes she began to weigh out her ingredients for the vanilla custard. The gelatine stage, she knew, would be crucial – it had to be thick enough to hold its own in the layer between the pastry rectangles. As she brought milk, cream and vanilla to the boil in a saucepan David had stopped with the camera in front of Simon.
‘You
seem comfortable with the puff pastry, Simon?’ David asked kindly, but Simon flushed bright red in the face as he shuffled his feet onto the gaffer tape while the camera did a close-up shot.
‘W-well,
I have made it a few times at home but mainly to make savoury recipes,’ he said twisting his watch around his wrist. ‘But this will be the first time I’ve made a dessert with it.’
David
nodded. ‘Great. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job. Now, I’ll just let the viewers know the reasoning behind resting the dough for twenty minutes in the fridge. This resting step,’ he said, leaving Simon and walking over to the fridge, ‘keeps the dough cool and gives the gluten strands in the flour time to relax. It stops the dough from becoming stretchy, which makes it harder to roll and can also make the pastry tough.’
Nicola
nodded in silent agreement and then smiled reassuringly across at Simon whose colour had returned to normal. He grinned back and began to mix his custard. With her custard mix finished and set to cool, the timer buzzed and she removed her pastry, repeated the rolling and folding regime another two time before she re-covered it once more and placed it back in the fridge. She noticed Simon look at her with surprise and mouth the word thanks, when she realised he had forgotten to set his timer for twenty minutes.
During
this rest period she made a sugar glaze for the strawberries and a sorbet by passing the largest strawberries through a sieve to purée and mixing with lime juice, water and caster sugar then churning in an ice cream maker. She was well into her stride now, and decided that she was thoroughly enjoying herself as the timer bleeped again and she repeated the rolling regime. This time, however, she rolled the pastry into a large rectangle, placed it onto a baking tray, covered it with clingfilm and followed the instructions for a final rest of thirty minutes. Choosing the smallest strawberries in her punnet she removed the stalks and made sure they looked perfect in shape and size. She inhaled the damp warmth of the strawberries and sighed with pleasure; if ever there was a smell of summer, she decided – this was it.
With
five whole caramelised almonds toasting in the oven and her piping bag ready for her custard she felt well ahead of herself, and wandered across to Simon. ‘I seem to have finished quicker than everyone else, which in itself is worrying. Maybe I’ve forgotten something really important.’
‘No,
I don’t think so. I’ve been watching you and you’re just very organised and methodical in everything you do,’ he said, grinning at her while he wrapped his pastry on the baking tray with film.
They
chatted quietly about the other contestants and Simon commented that Gemma looked just like a teacher – totally cool and unflappable. Hmph, Nicola snorted under her breath as she headed back to rescue her pastry from the fridge. Before she put the baking tray into the oven she placed another tray over the top to keep the pastry flat. David had given them oven temperatures to use but not the allocated time. Knowing from experience she set the timer for between ten and fifteen minutes.
Just
as she removed her perfect, golden brown pastry from the oven and set it aside to cool, she was startled to see David standing in front of her.
He
boomed, ‘BAKERS, YOU’VE GOT ONE HOUR LEFT.’
Nicola
noticed the camera had been led away by one of the crew as he stood in front of her bench and purposely stared into her eyes. She relaxed her shoulders and matched his gaze, sighing contentedly at the sight of his brilliant, sparkling blue eyes. In a certain light, she decided, they were nearly turquoise and then she wondered if he wore tinted contact lenses. Hmm, Richard Gere, eat your heart out, she mused, giving him her best smile.
He
placed a well-manicured hand over the top of her hand. ‘I knew you’d be giving me something very special, Ms Librarian,’ he purred seductively. ‘I can tell I’m going to have to keep my eye on you.’
She
giggled and twirled a curl of her hair around her finger. ‘I’ve made a little extra to go with mine – after all, you did say you wanted us to be creative.’
He
was flirting with her and she loved it. There was definitely something special in the way he looked at her, certainly more so than any of the other women, she decided, with the exception of Gemma, of course, but she was far too young for him. Her heart was racing as he leaned forward over the bench and whispered in her ear.
‘And
is there a Mr Simpson waiting for you at home?’
She
inhaled the clean manly smell from him and could feel her legs weaken as the desire to touch him raced through her body at great speed. It was years since she’d felt such strong sexual attraction and she swallowed hard. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. ‘My husband left a few years ago. I’ve been divorced for a while now.’