Spice

-Chapter Two--1

-Chapter Two-The Baking Phenomenon

“The Baker of the Year Award goes to...,” the master of ceremonies announced and paused for effect as he glanced at the name written on the back of a gold-coloured card. “For the third consecutive year,” he faced the audience and smiled. “The pâtissier representing the Avalon Hotel,” he again paused and announced, “Mr Ben Bakewell!”

He applauded along with the audience in the plush Park Lane Hilton conference suite. Many cheered while a few mumbled as a man in an ill-fitting suit sauntered towards the stage.

“Well done Cake,” said the M.C. as the baker stepped onto the platform and shook his hand.

Although Cake had won this prestigious award three years in succession, he still felt awkward as he held up the small crystal effigy. His acceptance speech echoed those from previous years. “Thanks,” he mumbled into the microphone, blushed, farted, left the stage, and rushed over to the table to join his colleagues.

The awards ceremony was almost over, much to the relief of Cake. Several food critics were on the stage discussing the various dishes that won prizes. Cake loathed these events and considered the food critics’ idiots, incapable of boiling an egg and they didn’t belong in the industry. Even though he always received rave reviews from them. One described his *Avalon Nest Egg to be an explosion of flawless flavours creating an oral o****m and said every dish Cake created tasted perfect.

However, Cake always felt they were average and considered his food lacked something, but unable to figure out what it was.

Cake arrived home at around 11:00 pm, after a long commute through the capital city. Jade had already arrived back from her five-day jaunt to Lincoln. Cake, excited to see her, wanted to find out how their bakery was progressing. He flopped into an easy chair in the living room while Jade fetched him a glass of wine, and they got cosy. He handed her the cheque for winning the competition and she smiled and showed him video footage of the work in progress.

Benjamin Bakewell, known as Cake for as long as he could remember, had an impeccable reputation within the culinary world. Every top chef and high-end dining establishment knew of Cake. He had held the top position as head pâtissier at the Avalon for three years. His signature cakes and pastries were the envy of every top chef, and not only unique in their preparation but also difficult to replicate. Many tried, but failed.

Cake was born on the outskirts of Louth, Lincolnshire, a rural farming town, forty-kilometres from Lincoln City. His family owned a 200-acre arable farm on the small town’s fringes, growing wheat, barley, and hops. His nickname, Cake, was because of his surname, Bakewell, and for his love of baking. He attended Grimoldby Primary School and while the other kids used their break time playing sport and recreation, he would be in the school canteen helping the school cooks.

Cake’s parents always knew he had an unusual sense. He could detect every ingredient of any dish and would add components he considered the dish lacking to enhance and elevate its flavour until his perfect palate found it acceptable. Cake would not eat nor handle meat, as the smell contained no fragrant aromas, and the texture felt grainy and rough, and the taste made him vomit. He tolerated certain seafood, but only if it was fresh and mildly flavoured, such as monkfish or scallops, to which he could add herbs and spices to disguise its fishy smell and taste. Nobody could understand this boy’s unusual gift, and it would be many years before anyone discovered the reason for his heightened sense of taste and smell. Only Cake could perceive how the world smelt and tasted to him, detecting odours and fragrances in the air. During his younger years at school, he used his unique talent to earn sweets and other goodies from his school chums by guessing what they had eaten for breakfast that morning from a whiff of their farts. This also became a handy party trick as he grew up.

Cake had a happy childhood and many friends, although girls avoided him because of his proclivity for sniffing the surrounding air, which was off-putting. His mates always found this a great form of entertainment, but he stopped doing this after his mother told him it was not a polite thing to do, and one day he would need a girl, and shoving his nose up their arses was not the way to attract them. Cake helped around the farm with the crops, and his favourite time of the year was spring when the flora and fauna pollinated and blossomed, the odours exploded his world into ecstatic overdrive. He also helped his mother and grandmother bake fresh bread, cakes, pies, and pasties for his family and the farm’s labourers. Cake focused his unique talent on baking, as the savoury, sweet smells and tastes pleased his senses. Young Cake always felt at home in the kitchen and chuckled with delight each time he removed a tray of his new confectionary from the oven. The mouth-watering, oven-fresh smells drifted around the hot farmhouse kitchen as his grandmother stopped flitting around and went to see what new or improved confectionary Cake had invented.

His grandmother saw a sparkle in his eyes when he said. “Gran, one day I will be the most famous baker in England… maybe even the world.”

His grandmother would sigh and then smirk. “Yes Cake, I know.”

He had accumulated cookbooks and magazines throughout the years and replicated every cake in the journals, adding herbs and spices that he blended to enhance the flavours, making them unique. Although there always seemed to Cake as if something was missing, his grandmother, Pearl, assured him that one day he would discover HIS perfect spice.

Cake took up kickboxing in his early teens. He was tall and slim and the martial art developed his body to be muscular, but his legs and arms remained scrawny, however hard he trained.

Cake was a handsome lad with a thin face, hazel eyes, and dark, brown, short hair. He resembled a young Kevin Costner, although his gangly odd shape gave him a Coco the clown appearance and throughout his mid-teens girls started noticing him, now he had stopped sniffing them.

His family assumed that on leaving school, Cake would join the family business and become a farmer. However, his dreams and ambitions were a world away from theirs, and he wanted to attend culinary school. His parents forbade it and offered a compromise. He, along with his mother and grandmother, could start a small market bakery business and the three of them would bake, while his sisters sold their products to businesses in and around Louth. Cake agreed to this compromise, knowing this would mean working long hours and the forfeiture of his kickboxing training, but baking was his passion. His grandfather let them use an old barn and purchased two second-hand gas-baking ovens, along with the large AGA cooker in the main kitchen. The family bought a dough-mixer and other baking machinery, including shelves, refrigerators, and storage, as per Cake’s instructions and they set up a quaint rural bakery. His father had given them one of the farm’s Land Rovers to use, and he and his sisters travelled around the small town to find factories and shop outlets to sell their bakery items. Cake kept the menu simple. Although he loved to experiment, the family decided that bread loaves, rolls, baguettes, cakes, and tarts would suffice.

After harvesting the crops, Cake’s business got underway. They baked early morning, and the first batch left the bakery at 6:00 am. The sisters made deliveries before going to school and Cake would bake and deliver any further batches through the day. This routine worked well and within a short time, they became inundated with orders. The bakery business became a lucrative extra income for the farm. Cake, although happy, didn’t feel content with his lot. The more he read cooking magazines about new techniques and recipes created in the large bakeries, restaurants, hotels, and with the adulation written about the master chefs, the more Cake yearned for the glamorous life.

One warm summer’s morning, as Cake removed a fresh batch of crusty ploughman’s rolls from the oven, he received a phone call from Bill, the landlord of the ‘Rising Sun’ public house.

“Morning Cake,” said Bill, “I have a customer who wants a word with you. Can you come here?”

“What does he want?” asked Cake.

“I don’t know, come here, and meet him then you can find out,” said Bill, sounding vague.

Cake, intrigued, looked at his watch and said, “Okay Bill, give me about twenty- minutes.” Cake changed out of his baker whites and drove into town.

He went into the Rising Sun and over to Bill, who smiled and told him about the customer. “He ate your gourmet sandwich with a slice of Gateau on the first day, and today he ordered several of your sandwiches and slices of cakes. I saw him take a bite from each, savour them, wrap them in a napkin, and place them into a holdall.” Bill scratched his chin and continued, “Today, he asked me who supplied my bakery products and when I told him it was a local baker, he introduced himself and insisted that he spoke to you. I wouldn’t have bothered, but he claimed to be famous, although I have never heard of him.”

“That’s strange,” said Cake and puckered his brow, “what’s his name?”

Bill thought and said, “Jimmy, something… I’ve forgotten his surname, but he is sitting over there,” and he pointed to the man sitting in the lounge reading a newspaper.

Cake went over to the man, who peered over his newspaper and smiled. He placed the paper down on a table and asked Cake to sit. Cake gasped and looked surprised when he recognised the man. He had read articles about him in British Bakery magazines, and well aware of the prestige surrounding the small, round-faced individual, with a receding hairline.

“I’m Jimmy Constable, the head pâtissier at Harrods bakery,”

Cake shook Jimmy’s hand and with a tremble in his voice said. “Yes, I know who you are, everyone calls me Cake.”

“I am pleased to meet you Cake,” said Jimmy, “What can I do for you, was there something wrong with the food?” asked Cake looking concerned.

Jimmy smiled and said, “No, the food’s perfect.” He then told him, “A few days ago, while I was travelling to Hull to interview a candidate for a position at Harrods I stopped here for a snack. I expected bland, dry, roadside food.” He leant forward and said, “Instead, the flavours and textures of the roll and Gateaux blew me away; I could not believe the taste sensations. I came back the next day to sample other items on the menu and again delighted with the unique, distinctive flavours.” He looked over at Bill smiling, and he whispered. “It tasted a lot better than the awful beer.”

Cake, thrilled to hear Jimmy Constable sing his praises, explained how he got his nickname, told him about his family’s bakery, and invited him to visit. Jimmy agreed, they left the Rising Sun and went to the Bakewell farm.

Jimmy looked around the farm's bakery and sampled a few more of Cake’s products, a look of pleasure spreading across his face with every bite.

“Have you any baking qualifications Cake?” asked Jimmy.

“No,” replied Cake “Sorry.”

Jimmy smiled. “Never mind, I have tasted nothing this good for a long time, so we can get around the paperwork. I would like you to do something for me.”

Cake, looking confused, asked, “Get around paperwork for what?”

Jimmy ignored his question and took a magazine from his bag. He showed Cake a glossy photograph of a white icing topped custard slice and asked, “Can you make one of these?”

Cake looked at the photograph. ‘Why would a top pâtissier want me to make a simple custard slice?’ he thought, looking puzzled and replied, “Sure,”

“Please make me one,” said Jimmy and smiled.