Made to Shine - Shining Light - WATTY AWARD Winner

Made to Shine - Shining Light - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

‘For everything there is a season. There is a time to celebrate and a time to cry. God places people and events in our lives at times for us to celebrate and work with and for us to cry and mourn with. In times of celebration, don’t forget your Heavenly Father has helped you succeed and thank Him. In times of sorrow, when you mourn, remember your Heavenly Father is there, waiting for you to climb in his lap and leave all your problems there for Him.’

Emily barely slept the night before. She and Scott had worked out every detail. The only thing they were allowed to bring already completed to the contest were undecorated sheet cakes.. They had made extra pastries and muffins and breads for the bakery to sell. Grandma and Annie were going to open the bakery as normal, but close at noon to go and watch the competition.

Before the sun came up, Emily, Ben and Scott had the van loaded with supplies. Scott was the assistant in the kitchen, but Ben was going for moral support. The competition was national and there were a lot of bakeries that had big name pastry chefs. People who had paid the price of long years in the business. Emily knew she would do her best, but had little hope of winning or even placing in the top three with the competition.

By eight o’clock, their temporary kitchen was in place in the conference hall where the competition would take place. There were television cameras and people roaming about setting up for the day. All the contestants were pulled into a meeting room to go over the rules. This was the first time Emily and Scott were able to take in their competition.

Since most breads and pastries rise, the first part of the competition would give the contestants time to mix and make the bread and pastries. And while they waited for them to rise, there would be time to mix and make the cookies. The wedding cake portion would be last. The cake had to stand at least five feet tall and be an original design.

The winner would receive $100,000 and a feature in Gourmet magazine. Second place would receive $25,000 while third place would get $10,000. The money would come in handy. Emily would like to buy the space next to the bakery and expand. They could use extra seating and counter space, but the way things were booming, she really needed more storage and baking area.

The space had been vacant for over a year, ever since the hardware store closed after Mr. Thomas passed away. His kids did not want the business, so they closed up and tried to sell the building. They told Grandma if she wanted it, that they would give her a good deal because she and Grandpa had been good friends with their parents who lived above the store as well.  

As the contestants wrapped up the question and answer session. Scott nudged Emily, bringing her mind back to the contest and said, “We got this!”

She leaned over towards him and said, “I am glad you think so!”

“Don’t you? You gotta have faith! We’ve got a great design, awesome recipes and an incredible game plan.” Scott’s confidence shown through his smile, and it was infectious. Within moments, Emily believed not only that they could do this, but they could do it well!

Moving back to the kitchen, time for the competition had arrived. In the stands, Emily found Ben and his family and smiled. They always encouraged her no matter what she was doing! Not only was she blessed to have Ben love her after all these years, she was humbled to have the love of the entire Hayes family. She sent Ben a wink to let him know she loved him.

Time began and the contest started. The first thing that happened was Emily began mixing the ingredients for the pistachio and raspberry tart while Scott began making one of the staples of the bakery, the most requested bread on their menu, corn rye. This was an artisan type of bread, that if mastered, would win over even the most finicky critic.

As they worked and prepared side by side, they did not need to communicate to know what the other needed. It was just like working in the bakery, they fell into their groove and before they knew it the hour had passed and they accomplished everything on their task list and began making the cookies. Scott began mixing the ingredients for the apple tart crumb cookies. This had been the creation Emily came up with after having dinner with John and Ashley.

When preparing for the competition, Emily and Scott poured over recipes and ideas and decided that some of the bakery’s traditional recipes like the corn rye and the pistachio raspberry tart should be entered as is, with no changes. Their customers knew they were the best, so why would they argue? The addition was the apple tart cookie which had only been added as a special last week, and the customers ate it up.

Standing at the judges table, Emily was nervous, but she held her head high knowing that they did everything they could for what was before the judges. She was asked to explain what was before the judges while they sampled her offerings.

“The bread you are tasting is our traditional corn rye. It is a dense rye bread made with cornmeal and a blend of spices, making this a very unique rye bread.”

“Is this on your menu at your bakery normally?” Peter, one of the judges asked.

“Every day sir. I think some of our customers would revolt if it wasn’t on the menu. And around the holidays, families will order multiple loafs for their family celebrations. And on Saturday’s we have to make twice as many and most days still run out.”

“Well,” Peter continued taking another bite, “I can see why.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Now, moving on to your pistachio raspberry tart,” Marianna asked, “please tell us about that.”

“This is also on our menu at the bakery. The foundation is a standard tart crust with pistachios added to give it flavor and texture. We have a raspberry custard with fresh raspberries drizzled in white chocolate and crusted with pistachios on top.”

As Emily was describing, she noticed none of the judges looked up at her, which unsettled her at first. Then she noticed that no one left even a crumb on the plate. They had devoured the entire tart. Normally, they would take a couple of bites to taste and judge and then cleanse their palate, ready to move on to the next offering.

“Finally you have a new addition to our menu, the apple tart crumb cookies. We like to think of it as a combination apple crumb pie and apple tart rolled into a cookie.”

“Thank you Emily,” Peter said allowing her to go back to the waiting area with the other bakers and chefs.

“How did it go?” Scott asked as soon as she walked through the door. She could tell he was nervous.

“They seemed to like it. I don’t know. I think we did good. I know we did our best.” He handed her a bottle of water and they moved to a table and began discussing the cake.

A few moments later, everyone was called out of the waiting area and given their scores and ranks. Emily was thrilled to find out she was in third place overall and had won the pastry part of the contest. She also finished in second place with cookies and third place with breads.

Next came the daunting task of making a wedding cake, scratch that, a six foot wedding cake in four hours. Normally they would spend a day or two making a wedding cake. But, in this contest, time was not a luxury they had.

Since taste would be twenty five percent of the points, Emily and Ben decided on the red velvet cake recipe from the bakery. It was moist, stood up well to the decoration and it did taste incredible. As the clock started, Emily brought out her design. She and Scott had worked on the design elements several times and even created two full size creations in the past few weeks to see how fast they could do it. Not wanting to waste the cake, she had delivered one to a local nursing home for the patients and she took another to her church’s soup kitchen when she delivered her weekly bread donations.

Scott began putting the crumb coat on the bottom layers while Emily began the intricate white chocolate lace details that would cool and decorate the cake later. The design called for twelve layers of white and cream colored cakes with the base layer made up of eight round cakes next to each other, making a large base for the rest of the cake. The next four layers would be large square cakes. The top seven layers would be round cakes stacked one on top of the other. Each layer would have intricate designs that are unique for each layer depicting small flowers and lace like patterns. Flowers would trail down from one layer to the next and on the top layer would be sugar heated and blown into the shape of two doves. Scott had been working on the doves for a couple of weeks and they looked almost real.

The hours flew by and before Emily knew it, they only had thirty minutes to stack the cakes on the stabilizing dowel rods that would make sure the cake did not topple. Working as a team to assemble the layers into the cake, Scott and Emily positioned each layer and checking to make sure it was level before moving on to the next layer. With moments to spare, Emily and Scott looked over the last details filling in any area that might need more decorative frosting.

The four hours decorating the cake was not as stressful as the three minutes it took to move the cake from the kitchen work area four feet to the display table. Even with help, Emily was worried that the cake was too heavy. When they finally got the cake in place and positioned, Emily took a deep breath and realized she had been holding her breath without knowing it.

Scott turned her around and gave her a high five, and then hugged her. “We rocked!” He whispered in her ear.

Without pulling away she hugged him back and said, “Yes we did! We make a great team! I couldn’t have done this with anyone else! Thank you Scott!”

They pulled away and she turned to look in the stands, Ben was smiling at her along with his family, Grandma and Annie. She winked and Ben sent her a thumbs up. He was so proud of her. She knew win or lose, he would always be on her side.

After an hour waiting in the contestant waiting room, Emily was called out to talk to the judges. Peter said to her, “Well, Ms. Banks, please tell us about the cake we are eating.”

“Sure, this is our traditional red velvet cake with a cream cheese butter cream frosting. We found that a combination of the icings dulls the strong cream cheese flavor, yet the butter cream makes a nice smooth coating on the cake. This is a recipe that has been in my family for generations. And on the menu since my Grandpa started our bakery.”

“Thank you.” The judges said as they dismissed Emily to the waiting area again.

When they called all the contestants out thirty minutes later, Emily knew it was for the decision. Out of the twelve teams, three were from New York City and the other nine were from various bakeries throughout the country. Emily knew her toughest competition were the two other bakeries from New York, the one from Los Angeles, maybe the bakery from Atlanta, all who were in the top five before the cake competition began.

Scott stood silently behind her as the top five bakeries were called in order. Five. . .one of the other New York bakeries. . . four. . . the bakery from Atlanta. . . three. . . the other bakery from New York. . . two. . . it took Scott to shake her shoulder from behind for her to realize they called her name. She was number two! WOW! Out of all the bakeries in the country. And, to top that off, she finished as the best bakery in New York! She didn’t win the $100,000, so putting a large down payment on the space next door would need to wait. But, the $25,000 would help bring the bakery to the next level. She was happy.

The bakery from Los Angeles won after placing first overall before the cake portion of the competition and took second place in the cake competition. They would be featured in Gourmet magazine, she could live with that. She knew in her heart that she would one day be featured. She was hugged by Scott and then by Ben, she was happy.

Then the scores were announced. Emily had won the cake portion of the competition. She would not be the featured bakery, but her cake would be on the cover along with the recipe inside of the June issue. Emily was ecstatic!

-------------------------

A/N - Just in case you did not notice, there is a picture of a cake on the right side. I used this cake as motivation when writing this chapter. In one word. . . BEAUTIFUL!!