Page 15 of Dragons & Dumplings

"It wasn't a tantrum," I mutter. "I was just having a bad day. And it's not like you can talk. I remember the jelly incident."

He closes his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. "I put the gelatin in."

"You can't have done, it spilt all over the ice house floor," I point out. "At least you've never forgotten to put the gelatin in again."

"Mmm. Your eggs are done."

"Oh, right."

He grabs one of the mixing bowls he usually makes bread in and adds the dry ingredients to it. "All right, add the milk and the eggs for me."

I do as he asks, watching captivated as he kneads the mixture together. Even if I wish it wasn't the case, I know I don't have the stamina to do the same as he is, and he mixes it with ease, working on the dough until it stretches without breaking. I add some butter to the bowl and he carries on kneading it, working hard until he lets out a groan.

"Are you all right?"

"I slept funny," he says.

"I can get you some sleep tisane..."

"It's fine, Evie," he promises.

"If you're sure..." I don't know what makes me think that it isn't, but something feels off.

"I still have some from last time you gave it to me," he says. "I'll take some tonight."

"Thank you."

"Anything for you, Princess."

I roll my eyes at him, knowing he's only using the title affectionately.

"I'm glad it's time to prove it," he says as he drops the dough into one of the proving boxes.

"How long do we need to leave it for?" I ask.

"About an hour, maybe an hour and a half, it depends on how well it grows." He heaves the box so it's close to the oven where the hot air should help with the prove. "And it's just the first." He flips over an hourglass so we know when the time is up.

I nod, knowing as well as he does that the time is necessary. Yet another thing I've learned from baking mistakes made along the way.

The two of us clean up our workspace in comfortable silence. I like that we can be like this. There's something truly comforting about it.

"What now?" I ask, leaning against the workbench. There's still time left according to the hourglass, but as far as I can tell, we've not got anything else to do for these buns.

"We wait," he responds.

"You know I'm bad at that." But we always seem to manage to fill the time we spend together, and as if to prove that to be true, the time passes quickly, and the timer is finally done. Nate goes to get the filling from the ice house, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the comforting sounds all around me.

I check the instructions and prepare the table for the next step, sprinkling flour over it, making sure that we have a dough scraper to hand.

"Ah, I see we're ready," Nate says as he reenters the room and sets the box of filling we made earlier down on the table.

"I think so, but I haven't looked at it yet."

He nods and grabs the proving box, bringing it over to the table. Excitement builds within me as I consider what we're going to find with anticipation. I know it's not going to be much different from when we make bread of our own, but itfeelsdifferent. This is a recipe from a kingdom that's thousands of miles away. It's exciting to be able to discover it like this.

Nate removes the cover, and I sigh in relief to see that our dough has doubled in size. It looks just like I think it's supposed to be. He sprinkles some flour over the top and presses down on it, I think to remove any air bubbles that might have formed. I wish I had a book about Shengdanese cooking so that I could understand some of the processes we're using a little better.

"All right, I think we're rolling the dough into a log," he says. "Do you want to do the honours?"

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