Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 10: Cake!

Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Cake!

I needed the flour for bread.

One could not greet visitors without it. Although, one could argue that they could greet them with fruit.

Or maybe just a cup of tea or coffee.

Anne was by my side, as the two of us were staring at the pancake mix.

"Do you have enough jam for us all?" Anne asked, her eyes narrowed.

"No. I have just one jar," and that was the problem with having the gnomes just give me what they could spare. But the dinner was cooling.

The cake had to finish this duel for the villager’s love.

"And how many apples do you have?" Anne asked.

I looked at the half-full net.

"A little," I told her, handing her the net.

"A little?" She scrunched up her nose, only to smile seconds later. "That’s a lot, Sylvan! Ok, we’ll make a cake!"

I blinked.

"With pancake mix?" I had never used a pancake mix for anything other than pancakes. Did not even know how long it was going to take me to bake a cake with the stuff.

"Yes! I will teach you!" Anne looked so, as if she was having the time of her life.

I nodded. One should never refuse a helping hand.

"Ok, Sylvan, gore and cut up the apples into cubes, please! I will make the syrup! Do you have white wine?"

I rummaged into the bottomless bag, sure that I had seen some vineyards in the gnome village.

What came out of the bag was a single small bottle of white wine. I handed it to Anne, curious as to what she was going to do with it.

"That’s my girl!" I heard her grandma say. Anne straightened up.

"Ok, Sylvan, after you are done with the apples, make some mint tea! With lots of mint!"

I could already imagine her becoming a chef!

"Ok, chef Anne!" I saluted her, starting to work.

Apples flew in the air, got cut up in half, then fell on the cutting board. I let the work lull me into a relaxed state as the aroma of the syrup began to fill the clearing.

Placing enough mint inside the kettle to make something potent, I placed the kettle on a cooking pit. Letting the rocks around it get the water to boil.

"And now for the vanilla!" Anne said, as she looked at me expectantly.

I pulled one jar with the powder. There were some things one could never allow themselves to run out of.

Vanilla was the Queen of sweet spices. Something I imported from the eleven lands.

"Sylvan, do you have honey?" Anne asked, as she was stirring the pot. She had this look of complete concentration which came with practice.

"Yes, but if you put it inside of the wine, it will lose its benefits," and end up as just a sweetener. I was curious about what the little girl would say to that.

"Really?" she asked. I nodded. "But if I put sugar now, and then sugar in the batter, it will be too sweet!"

She had a point there.

"Why don’t you put in the honey when the syrup cools down, then?" I asked her. It was a good option, all things considered.

"I will put some of it inside the batter. It will still warm up," Anne protested.

I hummed. Well, it was a treat.

Besides, it was her recipe.

"Here you go," I handed her the jar of honey. Fresh, yet to turn solid. From the many flowers and trees which called the forest home.

"Just one spoon," she said, as she took out a wooden spoon and got the honey inside.

There was one thing she didn’t know. I was using my truth pendant to record her making this cake.

The cookbook skill really tempted me. But, wasting a level up on something one could create themselves was not the best way to do things.

Besides, now that the villagers had warmed up to me, I could go to the village and buy paper and a pencil.

"The apples are ready," I handed her the bowl. She dumped the apples inside her syrup.

"They don’t have to get mushy, Sylvan," Anne said, as she stirred the pot. "If they get too mushy, the cake will end up mushy!"

I nodded, letting the truth pendant record that.

"Anne?" I asked her, as I was busy fishing the eggs out of the bottomless bag. Having given up on finding any milk inside. "Can you make the cake without milk?"

She blinked, looked at the cartoon with the eggs, and then nodded. Grim determination in her eyes.

"We need a lot of eggs," I could see it in her eyes that she was counting them. "Those are not enough."

And so, I began fishing out cartoons with eggs. Soon, I had the task of whisking the eggs with sugar.

Not having to separate the whites.

The smell of the apples was making me hungry, but I kept on whisking. The eggs had to get fluffy and pale.

Almost white.

Since the yolks were also inside, I was not going to get the fluffy cloud of a pure sugar and egg whites mix.

But that did not mean that I had to slack off!

One thing worried me. The pancake mix was something meant to rise in about 2 minutes. The apples, even if they did not become mushy, were still going to contain water.

And I... had run out of baking soda!

"Sylvan?" Anne asked, as she strained the apples from the syrup. "Let us put the cake together!"

There was something about her smile which chased my fears away. The pancake mix found a new home in the eggs, the apples followed, even though some of the syrup ended up inside, prompting me to get more of the pancake mix in the batter.

"Pot," I said, like a general who was going to order a death charge against a fortress.

Anne handed me a clean pot, big enough for the batter.

"Oil," my helper handed me the bottle with the sunflower oil. I bathed the inside of the pot with it.

"Flour," the tiny amount of flour I had left was sprinkled over the oil.

"Anne, would you like to put the batter inside?" I asked her, for this was not something that would end up with her hands getting dirty.

"Yes!" She chirped. As she carefully made sure the batter was even, I watched her as she hit the pot on the ground a couple of times, her eyes narrowed, her bottom lip between her teeth.

"And now," I said, as I placed the pot over the fire, a then the lid over it. "We bake!"

I was ready to trust my nose.

For I had never made cake with pancake mix before...

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