Page 74 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
And plotted.
She wasn’t going to win, but she wasn’t going to give up, either.
Chapter 25
The pavilion wasuncharacteristically silent throughout the challenge. Jannie and Kate did their walks. The trio of contestants was all animated as they explained how their elements were coming out, and Laurin wasn’t the only one who basically froze when the others were talking.
Patty was molding isomalt into a bowl to create a working fountain in front of her White House, a favorite place for her to visit when she was on the East Coast. Her eyes were wet as she talked about how moving it was to stand in the house all the presidents had lived in. Laurin found American patriotism to be excessive to begin with, and this was amplified by the fact he apparently knew American history better than she did. Washington never lived in the White House.
Candace had an insane amount of cake to bake. Laurin was fairly sure that her entire design now hinged on distracting him as much as possible — no, torturing him — because she’d added another six inches to the design, meaning she had to stand on a ladder for much of her build.
A ladder directly in front of him.
Several times his eyes shot daggers at the cameraman assigned to him — every time the man turned to get a shot of Candace. At one point, Laurin even looked him dead in the eye as he chopped a chocolate bar in half with an aggressive swing ofhis biggest knife. Candace probably had no idea she was up one rung too high, and if she ever watched the replay of this episode, Laurin was not about to allow her to be mortified that the whole world got to see the top of her stockings.
There was a lot of amusement from the hosts in this, however, and they seemed to deliberately time all their visits with her so that she was up on the ladder, talking down to them. Whether it was putting birds on the trees or adding the poof of cotton candy to the chimney or draping strings of molten caramel over the buttercream waterfall to give it glossy motion, she was always up there, always deep in concentration, always with a laugh when the hosts came by.
Laurin, for his part, got the whole pavilion pausing when he hooked up the motor that made the mixer, rack oven, and turntable spin inside his gingerbread shop. He’d gone as close to home as possible with his bakery. He didn’t have the grand landscape Candace and Patty both had, but he made up for it by using actual petit fours to create the tiled floor and adding the moving elements. He’d done both the baking area and the café, adding working doors to the cooler and freezer, a mini replica of his winning wedding cake on the turntable, and a couple sharing a plate of tiny marzipan croissants next to a clear sugar window. They were vague human-like shapes, closer to the mannequins than any actual people, but he knew who they were supposed to be.
Candace did, too, he was sure of it. Made positive of it later when they were finally finished, every one of them cutting it a little closer to the last minute than usual.
Patty was the first to move hers to the judging stand. A lot of baking shows made a big deal about moving the entries, but Food2Love wasn’t like that. They did require these to be movedso they could get the best angles and press photos, and in this challenge in particular, they wanted the judges to see each structure one at a time so they wouldn’t be distracted by the others. But everything was done to make the transfer successful, and they were even given up to ten minutes to repair anything that broke — not that Patty had to worry about that. Hers was delivered to its pedestal by two members of the crew and was, of course, perfect. They’d been given internet access during their initial planning break, and Laurin wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d managed to get a whole floor plan of the White House. The gardens were the Kennedy Era layouts, she said, and that fountain of hers worked like a charm. If it had been any other week, any other set of contestants, she would have won. But this was the finale, and she was up against Laurin and Candace.
Laurin carried his himself. He felt like that was safest, especially since the petit four floor was impressive but not entirely sturdy. He got to the pedestal with only a dropped door handle, but a smudge of royal icing later, his was golden.
And incredible. Everyone oohed and ahhed over it. His mom had to be dramatic and go through half a pack of tissues over how well he’d replicated their shop. The judges caught small details like the chip in the marble slab and the scuffs on the baseboards. They had a good laugh at the dumpster behind the building and the crinkled boxes in the freezer. Everyone praised his incredible eye for detail.
No one was prepared for Candace’s, though.
It took six people to move it. Candace took one corner, refusing to stand back and let everyone else do the work for her. Laurin took the opposite corner for the same reason that he didn’t let anyone else carry his. He thought of hertrust no onetattoo, and right now, he felt that. She could trust him, but therest of these people? With him and Candace opposite, at least they had the balance.
It was well over one hundred pounds. The plywood she’d smartly constructed it on groaned as it lifted off the table. But Candace was no novice to this sort of thing. She was the one to yell, “Step, step, step, step!” to keep everyone moving at the same pace. Laurin wanted to look at her over the monstrosity, but the moment was too intense.
And then it was on the pedestal, and he finally got his first chance to step back and appreciate it.
Appreciate that the extra height had been added so she could go under the water, creating a seascape out of trifle.
Appreciate that there was no road leading up to the cabin but a series of jagged gingerbread steps. The entire hill was alternating layers of gingerbread and cake, expertly carved to give the look of just cake except where the ‘natural’ steps were.
Appreciate that behind the hill with the rickety cabin on top was a cliff and a shimmering waterfall.
Appreciate that atop the cabin’s roof was a surprisingly majestic owl. And down in the trifle lake carved out by the caramel waterfall was a frilly goldfish leaping up.
They looked at each other.
Just as Laurin’s peacocks had.
“Incredible,” Laurin murmured as Mike directed everyone but Candace to go to the cafeteria while the judges interviewed her and made their final decision.
She shrugged at Laurin’s compliment, and though she smiled, there wasn’t much heart or joy in it. It was a camerasmile, nothing more. “Rough and ready at best,” she said as though she truly thought that was an honest assessment. “No moving parts.” She chuckled to herself. “Gigantic, though. Doesn’t win me the prize, but man, it did not seem that big as I was assembling it. Go on now,” she said, and he didn’t have a choice but to obey. Mike’s last few announcements had been very panicky.
Vivvy climbed up on his shoulders and Manon and his mother each took one of his hands as they watched the interview from the camera feed playing in the cafeteria. The volume had to be kept low so it wouldn’t pick up and echo on the broadcast, but everyone gathered close so they could hear her explain her build.
“I’ve lost a lot recently,” Candace admitted to Leta Morrison, famed host of Leta’s Test Kitchen, and Pat Lautner, Food2Love’s founder. “My divorce was no secret, and really, I’d moved out of that house long before that. My shop was destroyed by flood water, and I didn’t have flood insurance, so . . .”
She ended the thought with a helpless shrug and a wry smile. The twinkle of mirth in her eye reminded Laurin of how strong she didn’t know she was. Both of those disasters had been in the past year, and yeah, they’d taken a toll on her, but she wasn’t going to wallow about it or beg her awful family to help her. Even though she thought she didn’t have a chance of winning, she’d kept going.
“So when I was asked to build a place that meant a lot to me, I admit I struggled finding a place that was truly meaningful but not heartbreaking. But then I remembered” —she waved at her masterpiece— “no matter where I am, no matter how bad things are, I’m never more than a drive from someplace where I can relax and be happy. Whether I’m back home in New Jersey or here in Georgia. I spent a week hiking the Pacific Crest Trailafter I was eliminated from Summer Bakes. It was nice. I’m sure someone’s going to complain about me saying I still prefer the Appalachian Trail, but I did see some incredible waterfalls out west, and the trees were taller than I could have imagined, so that was nice. I got to clear my head from, ahh, from everything that happened.”
