Completed "Inn" complete Objectives

[Tazrae]

Timestamp: 10th of Summer, 521 A.v.

Tazrae had a ton of leftover pineapple after hollowing out the bowls for her main course. She stared at the giant bowl of diced pineapple and wondered what she could do with it. The young Innkeeper definitely needed a desert of some sort to go with her dinner, but she wasn’t used to making anything desert-like out of pineapple. The fruit itself was often desert enough.

Tazrae leaned on the counter, thoughtfully studied the huge bowl of cubed up pineapple, and glanced around. She had flower, sugar, brown sugar, all sorts of baking sodas and powders… salt pepper, butter and some more exotic seasonings like cinnamon and cardamon. It was too bad the pineapple wasn’t apple or peaches… she could make a cobbler or a crisp out of it.

Come to think of it… the pineapple had a texture a lot like peaches or apples, especially after they’d both been crisped. Why wouldn’t pineapple work in a similar fashion in such things? She had an excellent recipe for apple crisp from her father’s Inn Cookbook, didn’t she? Tazrae opened the cupboard that housed her few cooking books and pulled down her father’s cookbook. She carefully thumbed through the pages until she found his handwritten notes.

Apple Crisp

Ten Large Apples
1 C Flour
1 C Brown Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg
½ C Melted Butter
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon

Spread apples in a large 9x9 inch square baking pan. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and egg until smooth in a large mixing bowl. Spoon mixture evenly over apples. Pour melted butter over the mixture and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake in the oven for approximately forty to forty-five chimes. Serve hot or cold.

How simple was that to make? In truth, it was one of the easiest recipes Tazrae’s father had ever created. Taz went and got her potato masher and decided she was going to crush her pineapple up and strain it before she spread it into a pan. Pineapples had far more moisture and volume of moisture per weight than apples did. And one thing she didn’t want the recipe to do was turn into a muck mess of soupy fruit and soggy topping. The whole point of a crisp was that the crust was in fact crispy and delicious. No one wanted sodden topping.

So Tazrae took her potato masher and pulled the bowl up so she could stand on a little stool and mash away at the pineapple in the bowl. She worked the fruit hard, crushing down on the pineapple over and over, giving the bowl a little turn each time as she did so. The pineapple lost its chunky form and slowly but surely became a crushed mass that was about half its original size.

Tazrae then set the masher aside and fetched a second bowl, laid a strainer over the top of it. The strainer formed a mesh bowl in and of itself that once Taz loaded the crushed pineapple into, would drain down into the new bowl, catching the liquid but leaving the pineapple crushed in the strainer.

[Tazrae]

Taz let that drip for a while as she got out the rest of her ingredients, yet another bowl, and pulled out a rather large baking dish with high sides. The original recipe called for a 9x9 pan, but Taz was going to double the recipe and put it in something larger since she had so much left-over fruit. They were never really hungry in Syka, but that didn’t mean they wasted perfectly good food either.

Doubling the recipe, Tazrae carefully measured out two cups of flour, two cups of brown sugar and then added two teaspoons of baking power to the dry ingredients. She sprinkled in a full teaspoon of salt and then got out two eggs. First she whisked the dry ingredients together until they were well mixed. Next she broke first one of the eggs then a second egg into the mixture and began whisking it a second time. The egg didn’t do much to liquify the crisp topping, but Tazrae wasn’t worried about it. Instead, she took a small crock of butter out of the icebox and rested it near the hot flames on the hearth. The butter inside would melt and be ready for her once she herself was ready for the melted butter.

Then she lifted the strainer, giving it a good tap to release any extra moisture, and upended the crushed pineapple into the large baking pan she’d already set out. Then, carefully, she began to spoon the mixture over the pineapple eveningly. It didn’t have to look pretty. Tazrae was smart enough and experienced enough to know the crumble topping would spread out absorbing moisture from the crushed pineapple and the melted butter she’d pour over it in a minute and look rather pretty in the end.

After all that, she still had pineapple left. She returned that to its original bowl and put the strainer away. The bowl holding the pineapple juice she saved. Who knew who wanted mixed drinks, and pineapple juice was a wonderful thing to mix into anything alcoholic.

Checking on the crock, she found the butter melted. Using a tea towel, Tazrae picked up the hot crock and poured some of its contents over the drier sprinkled mixture and out across the top of the dish. Then she took a rasp and one of her precious rolled cinnamon bark sticks, and began to grate it over the top of the pineapple dish. She didn’t overdo the cinnamon, but running the stick along the rasp to get dark wonderful smelling shavings.

Tazrae set her sand timer for a bell, upending the bell glass and sliding the finished dish into the oven section of her cooking hearth. It needed a good bell to cook, or so she guessed… maybe less. She’d need to start watching it after 40 chimes. She closed the oven door and knew she’d have to watch it closely and pull it a few chimes before it was done so she could sprinkle the top with lovely course ground sugar, and let it slightly caramelize by putting it back in for the remainder of the time.

[Tazrae]

While she was waiting for the crisp to bake, Tazrae took out the cream from the icebox and set it on the counter. She loved eating whipped cream, but making it actually wasn’t her favorite thing. The recipe was simple, of course, but the labor involved was intense. Tazrae set the jar of cream on the counter and carefully grabbed her canister of sugar. She measured out a full cup of sugar to start and pulled down her mortar and pestle from the shelf above the hearth. The young Innkeeper dumped the granulated sugar into the mortar and began to grind it. She needed about a half of cup of powdered sugar, so grinding it was the best course of action.

Pausing, she put the cream and the mixing bowl she was going to use to make the whipped cream into the icebox, setting it directly on the block of ice therein, not on one of the shelves. Tazrae knew the whipping cream would come together faster if she could keep it cold so leaving it on the counter wasn’t an option.

Going back to her grinding, Tazrae kept at it, breaking down the granules of sugar into a fine soft powder. No one wanted their whipped cream to crunch. It needed to be smooth, delicious, and melt on the tongue. Thus, the sugar needed to be powdered. It took her a good ten minutes to grind the full cup into a semblance of the consistency she wanted. It wasn’t enough to make a half cup though, so she added another cup to the mortar and began grinding it again.

Life in the jungle was rough… and this standing and grinding just reminded Taz that she needed to hire some help for the Inn now that she had it paid off and could afford too. Someone that could cook and clean would be a real treat to have around, especially someone willing to do something like this to help her out. Between the animals, running guests about, and cooking two to three shifts of meals a day, Taz was tired. She did need the help and she had a list of qualities she needed in said help.

Checking the amount of powdered sugar she had, Tazrae nodded in satisfaction. She paused in what she was doing to retrieve a few pods of vanilla beans. Laying them on her cutting board, she slit each one vertically and carefully used the side of her paring knife to scrape out the vanilla seeds. These seeds she dumped into the powdered sugar by transferring them using the tip of her knife. Then, she swirled them about the sugar and nodded in satisfaction when the aroma was a perfect blend of vanilla and sweet.

Retrieving her now cold bowl from on top of the ice block in the icebox, Taz added the cream to the chilled bowl and dumped in the sugar and vanilla bean mixture. She then took a whisk and began to whisk the cream. Making whipping cream was one of the best things for deserts, but it took a lot of effort in the kitchen. She began to whisk and whisk and whisk, knowing she’d be whisking for a long time. Taz daydreamed as she did, wondering what Bree was up too outside. She hadn’t seen the Ixam in a bit and even Creature was on the deck where she could see him, sound asleep in the sun. The Imperial Watcher was a good guard dog, but her particular canine was on a bit of the lazy side.

[Tazrae]

Help…. as her arm began to ach from all the whisking, Taz switched arms and continued, reiterating that she needed to hire help soon. She’d start looking and ask James to keep an eye on new passengers or people he knew in Riverfall that might be looking for an escape in Syka. The work wasn’t hard… it was just long and tedious for a single person without help. Taz stopped once or twice, scrapping down the sides of the bowl, before she switched hands and began whisking again. Finally, after what seemed like bells, Taz noted the whipping cream was forming peaks and stiffening up. She slowed down then, finished off the task in the next five chimes, and transferred the stiffened cream back into the icebox to keep it fresh.

And still… there was more pineapple left. Tazrae was getting a bit tired of it at this point, but she didn’t want to waste a bite. To help her decide what to do with it, Tazrae turned back to her father’s recipes. She thumbed through carefully looking for something else she could serve her guests besides the crisps that would give them a tasty memorable dish during their visit. After considering and discarding multiple recipes, Taz landed on an apple butter cake that she thought she could easily adapt to pineapple and make it a pineapple butter cake.

The cake was a very delicious light butter cake that has whole bits of pineapple within it. The pineapple itself was special because it was sauteed in butter and everyone knows butter means love. Taz smiled. She still had the partially melted butter out from the small crock. Pulling out more bowls, a set of cake pans, and a large frying pan, she got ready to bake yet again. She started by dumping the remainder of the crushed pineapple in the frying pan and adding generous amounts of the melted butter to it. Then, letting it begin to slowly heat on its way to being sauteed, she turned from the stove and began to gather the other ingredients.

Apple Pineapple Butter Cake

• 4 ounces unsalted butter 1 stick
• 2 cups apple pineapple chopped crushed
• ⅔ cup flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 large whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 2 vanilla bean pods scraped – add seeds
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ tsp lemon zest grated
• Ground sugar to dust

In a large frying pan, melt butter, Sautee pine^apple. Heat oven. Butter round cake pans. In a small bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder. In a large bowl beat the whole eggs and egg yolk until well blended. Add the rest of the melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest. Stir in flour and pine^apple. Spoon into prepared pans, smoothing the top. Bake until golden brown and a knife comes out clean when inserted. This usually takes thirty to thirty five chimes. Transfer cake to a wire rack to cool in pan for five chimes. Invert cake onto plate to remove from pan then invert again and return to the rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Taz could do this. The Innkeeper knew she could do it easily. So, she stirred up the fire, then made sure the pineapple was well mixed in the melted butter, beginning to heat. With that, she carefully followed the directions by buttering the cake pans, setting them aside, and mixing the dry ingredients together in their small bowl. Then, she switched to a larger bowl, mixed the wet ingredients together to create the basis of the cake batter. She added in the whole eggs, yoke, and then zested a lemon over the batter, finishing off the whole thing.

[Tazrae]

Then she mixed in the pineapple, the rest of the dry ingredients, and poured the whole mess into the two cake pans she had all ready to go. The only thing that truly sucked about making the cake was having to make more powdered sugar. And truthfully Taz’s arms were already done for. But the cake wouldn’t look nice unless it was dusted with powdered sugar after it was done. Taz worked quickly, knowing the cake might be even more popular than her pineapple crisp. And happy that her guests would have an assortment of deserts to go with her main course.

She pulled the crisp out of the oven, letting it cool off to the side on the stove. Then she carefully transferred the batter for the cake to the two cake pans, tapping them hard to get the air bubbles out of her mix. The cake pans soon replaced the crisp in the oven and Tazrae reset her bellglass timer to a half bell.

This time she didn’t have to make more whipped cream for the cake. She had plenty for both deserts when she served them. For that, she was thankful. And when the cake came out of the oven, Taz set it aside to cool as well. Once they were cooled off enough to not threaten her ice block, the young Innkeeper would transfer all of them to the icebox to chill along with the whipping cream and a few leftover deserts which she’d trim to dress up the cake plates.

Taz began her cleanup and was in the middle of doing dishes when the first hungry guests arrived. She happily pulled out the pineapple bowl dishes filled with rice, pineapple and shrimp. They were big hits, and by the time people were done with them, Taz was able to wash up their dishes with the rest of her mess. She passed out both the cake and crisp, though some people opted for a bit of both. Even Mathias put in an appearance for tea and desert. That made her smile because before she even got to eat one of the pineapple bowls herself, the restaurant was sold out meaning she’d sold ten meals.

That was a big day for Taz and certainly worth the hassle all the food prep had been.

Word count: 2648

[Tazrae]

Grading

Tazrae-

Cooking +5, Planning +2, Body Building +2, Cleaning +2

Cooking: Apple Crisps, Cooking: Substituting one fruit for another, Cooking: Making Whipping Cream, Cooking: Apple Butter Cake (with Pineapples instead of Apples), Body Building: Whipping Cream Until Your Muscles Ache