Stress Cookies! (Hermitcraft mini story)

Chapter 4 ♥︎

He was speechless.

"U-uh.." He almost finished saying before she threw an apron at him.

"Put that on so you don't get your red suit all dirty."

"Uhm... ok?" He was still confused as to why she wanted his help, but the skull was more comforting than his cave, so he went along with it.

He put on the apron with a stitched cookie on it. This was sort of confusing, but he also felt a tab bit excited to try his hand at baking! And also really nervous he'd screw it up. It was a weird emotion.

"Now we needa make Xisuma a new batch and then get some snickerdoodles going for Mumbo and Ren. One of 'em wanted chocolate chips in those if I remember correctly, so we'll split the batch apart after we make the dough. Grab the flour on the right-hand top shelf over 'ere and the sugar from the one next to it."

He grabbed the flour and almost dropped it. It was much heavier than he expected. He carried it with two arms and almost had to throw it to get it to the table. Stress was grabbing the cinnamon and measuring spoons from the smaller cabinets on the floor, she opened the fridge and grabbed out eggs and milk and with her arms full she gracefully kicked it closed. She hummed while she did it and it looked like she had done this a thousand times before. She threw the one cup spoon to Alex and slid a butter knife and scissors to him on the table.

"Open the flour with the scissors and use the knife to level out the flour after you scoop it, put 4 cups in."

Alex looked nervously at the bag. Stress hummed as she perfectly cracked 4 eggs into a bigger bowl and diced up the butter into perfect squares. He cut the flour bag open carefully and flour still got on the table.

"Oh I'm sorry-"

Stressed look at the miniscule amount of flour on the table.

"Don't worry luv it's nothing, you're doing great!" She urged him on.

He scooped out a heaping cup and more flour fell down onto the floor and him.

"Now level it with the knife, and put the access back in the bag." She said patiently.

He did it, but a good chunk of the flour missed the bag and fell onto him. He flipped the cup of flour fast into the bowl so he wouldn't have enough time to mess up more, but the flour poofed up in his face as it hit the bowl and got all over him and the counter. He looked towards Stress worried she'd be mad, but she just laughed at him and his flour covered suit.

"You don't look so threatening with flour all over ya!" She chuckled and turned to look at him better. He was wearing an apron with flowers and cookies on it, covered in flour, with a stupidly funny expression on him.

"Me? Threatening?!" He asked, waving his arms out for emphasis. He still had the cup in his hand and a bit more flour flew through the air. His eyes widened at that and he pulled his arm back in surprise since he didn't think any flour was left in the cup. It slowly rained down on him and the floor and sorta looked like the snow from outside. "You're the one with an attack bear and a knife!"

She looked down at her hand to see the knife she cut the butter with still there. She set it down.

"She's really a sweetheart once you get to know 'er." She looked at the bowl with one cup, (well more or less) of flour in it. "Ya still have 3 cups to go."

He slouched in defeat, "Baking is hard..."

"I'll help ya with the flour luv, it is the second hardest part."

"Why did you make me do it then!" He refrained from waving his arms more for fear of ruining something else.

"The new bag of flour was pretty heavy, plus ya look funny with all that flour on ya!" She shrugged and tried to hold back laughter a bit when she looked at him again. He had an annoyed look on his face, but it was also more relaxed than it had been in awhile. It was nice to be around someone for a change.

For the next few hours, Stress and Alex baked cookies and laughed. Alex tried to crack a few eggs but wound up with more shell in the bowl than yolk, and somehow got a bit on the ceiling too. When the cookie dough of 3 separate batches were made and 2 were cooling in the fridge, Stress decided to start baking Mumbo's batch first in the oven.

"Ok now we have to scoop these onto the tray and bake them! Use this ice cream scooper to make them perfect spheres then place them 'ere". She pointed to the tray with a silicone mat to keep the cookies from ruining the pan, which helpfully had circles on where to place the cookies.

"An ice cream scooper?"

"They're about the perfect size for cookies and keep ya hands cleaner." She told him.

"Oh cool!" He said, relieved he wouldn't have to get his gloves dirty or take them off.

They each made a tray of Mumbo's to speed it up. Stress's were the perfect size and shape and Alex's were pretty deformed, but they would all taste the same, made with love, and that was what mattered.

"You mind putting them in the oven luv? There are some oven mitts on the counter. Just slide the trays in and close the door." She was busy licking the cookie dough off her fingers. A book was pinned under her elbow with some scribbled and check marks listing all of the orders out.

He ignored the oven mitts and directly grabbed the tray to put it in. She gave him a weird look when he didn't use the oven mitts until he clarified: "Lava proof gloves".

She nodded, understanding.

While they were cooking, she grabbed a pen and made a few more notes in the book, marking Mumbo's off with a doodle of a mustache next to it for fun.

The cookies were done to perfection, a gold brown with melty dark chocolate chips and sugar and cinnamon on the top that sparkled.

Alex looked in awe at them and stopped himself from drooling at the smell.

Stress looked at the cookies in awe too. It was an amazing idea Mumbo had, to add chocolate to the snickerdoodle. More sugar was almost always a plus.

"Well we can't just give these to Mumbo without trying them first can we? We have to make sure they are perfect for him." Stress reasoned out loud.

Alex caught on to the idea and nodded, "Well yes of course! For all we know they are terrible and we are feeding him poison! We have to try one each to be sure."

They both crossed their arms and nodded at the idea, before grabbing the biggests cookies on the pile and eating them without hesitation. The cookies were perfect. That's it. Tasted like heaven crumbling in your mouth as hell tried to burn your tongue since they were still really hot. If you've ever had a good cookie you know what it's like.

Stress put them on a cooling rack so they wouldn't fall apart and stick together in the basket, and so they could cool down a bit.

The cookies cooled very quickly next to the snow from the cracked open window and Stress packed them into a basket with tinfoil to keep them a little warm after Alex "sneakily" stole one when her back was "turned".

"Let's give these to Mumbo before we cook the rest so he can get them fresh and warm!"

"I can scoop up the next trays while you deliver them if you want?" Alex suggested.

"But, you have to come with me to deliver them! I can't get all the credit for 'em."

"Sure you can! You did most of the work anyway, so you deserve the credit!"

"Ya not getting outta this that easily. Come on!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him to the entrance of the skull house to the door. 

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Thanks for reading! And I hope you're having a good day or night! Please get sleep if it's late, the story isn't going anywhere!