Page 12 of Princesses & Pastries
I chew on my bottom lip, not liking the idea, even if I know he's right.
"But you can give me all the tips I need to change that," he responds.
I laugh. "I think it'll mostly be a case of feeding her scraps." I manage to entice my dragon onto the top of the oven. She stretches her wings and turns around in a circle a few times before sitting down and propping her head against the edge of the bed.
"Scraps, you say?"
"There's a bucket of them in the ice house," I say.
"It surprises me that you don't have the kitchen staff to make her a stew every day or something."
"I don't want her to become spoiled. And she likes setting her own meat on fire."
"I'll keep that in mind," Nate responds.
"So, croissants?"
He gestures towards the table where he's currently working. I grab my apron from where it's hanging on a hook, tying it around me.
"I was glad to find out that you kept the layout of the kitchen the same," he says as he checks the dough he's working on. "Other than the gas stove."
"It's a good addition to the kitchen," I say.
He chuckles. "And here was me thinking that you'd refuse to use it."
"I still use the wood-fired oven when I'm baking something I've been making for years," I respond. "But if I'm making something new, I think the gas oven is a good choice."
"I'm impressed by your willingness to embrace change."
"I don't mind change," I respond. "So long as it's logical."
There's an expression on his face that's hard to read, but I don't want to ask him about it. Maybe I would have done five years ago, but I don't know exactly what's changed in that time.
"Well, I'm glad," he says. "I learned to make croissants in a gas oven, so that will make it easier."
"You'd think," I murmur.
"Have you been leaving enough time for the proving?" he asks. "And the chilling?"
"I've been trying to," I mumble.
"Overnight?"
I wince. "No."
"Evie." He gives me a look that I do recognise. "I wrote that in the instructions I sent to you. And underlined it twice because I knew you'd want to ignore that instruction."
"I know, I know. But it's hard to wait that long. I just want to make them and then eat them."
"Let me start laminating this dough, and I'll show you a trick to help with the waiting," he promises.
"How can I say no to that?"
He picks up his rolling pin and finishes rolling out his dough, then trims some off the top so it's an almost perfect square. Even though I know the recipe already, I flip open my leatherbound journal and turn to the page about croissants. I look between Nate and the instructions, even as he places a smaller square of butter diagonally in the dough. He encases it completely, taking care to make sure that there are no gaps between the pastry. He bashes it with the rolling pin. So far, it's the same as when I've done it myself. Maybe it's just that I haven't had the patience to wait overnight.
Once it's the desired size, he wraps it in a cloth. "I'll go put this in the ice house," he says. "Should I get something for Ember?" He looks over to where my dragon is watching us.
Her tail is flicking, and she certainly seems interested in what we're doing, but she doesn't seem as on edge as when we arrived.
