“Are you all right, my love?” asked Grace Forsythe, popping up in front of him, a camera operator at her shoulder. “Or is this a new strategy that involves absorbing the recipe by osmosis?”
Paris blinked— realising that everyone around him already had their bowls out. “Sorry. No. I’m just— I’m going to mess this up, aren’t I?”
“Tell you what, if you do, I’ll distract the judges, you run out of the ballroom, and we’ll have a helicopter waiting for you in the garden. It’ll take you to a secret location and we’ll sort you out with a new identity.”
“Oh, okay.” Amused in spite of his mounting terror, Paris nodded. “That sounds good and in proportion.”
She turned to the camera. “Right, I’m going to go and radio for the chopper. You’d be surprised how often this happens at the BBC.”
The timely intervention of a beloved ’90s comedian had made Paris feel a little less like he was going to cryvomit in front of a watching, judgemental nation. But running away and never being seen or heard of again still seemed like a really tempting strategy. Unfortunately, it was too late. He was here now, and he couldn’t waste any more time thinking about how embarrassing it was going to be when it all went wrong.
Very conscious he was already falling behind, he began assembling the ingredients of a basic cookie mixture while skimming the recipe. And, to his relief, found the instructions matched pretty closely to what he’d been going to do anyway. It was, however, only a small relief, because pretty close wasn’t what he was going to need. Taking a deep breath and doing his best to centre himself, Paris tried to think very serious thoughts about cookies.
Honestly, they weren’t his favourite bake. What he liked about cooking was the mastery of it, the precision of it, the knowing it was something he could always do right and be sure he’d done right. Being able to share it with people he cared about was just a bonus— and given the state of his social life quite a theoretical one.
The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Marianne Wolvercote thought the same way. That the reason she set this kind of deceptive simplicity challenge was because she, like Paris, delighted in the details.
So the trick would be to work out which details would delight her.
Making the dough, Paris suspected, would be the easy bit. The problem was that a proper soft-yet-chewy cookie needed to be chilled for as long as possible, then left to soften at room temperature before it could be rolled out and put in the oven. And that was going to be the catch, wasn’t it? This week’s blind bake would be all about having the nerve to leave the actual baking to the last possible minute.
It was the Cuban Missile Crisis in biscuit form. And for just a moment, Paris entertained the real possibility that he could be Kennedy.
“I don’t normally work with this kind of dough,” one of the other bakers— the willowy woman in the floral dress— explained. “At home, I normally use chickpea flour, and I’m pretty sure this chocolate isn’t organic. But I hope if I channel enough positive energy into the mixture, the universe will forgive me.”
A tiny voice at the back of Paris’s mind pointed out that he wasn’t channelling. Just whisking and worrying. Was that a problem? It had never been a problem before.
He had to concentrate. Except it was hard to concentrate, because he was in a hot room full of strangers and their voices kept creeping into his head.
“Yeah, I make these for my kids all the time.” That was the man in the cardigan. “Well, not all the time. Sometimes, if they’ve been good. So be good, girls.”
“Personally, I don’t hold with this sort of thing,” the series’ obligatory older woman was saying. “We had shortbread in my day, and we were grateful for it.”
A woman about Paris’s age, who was somehow managing to make dungarees work, even with the apron, was dividing her dough with an actual ruler. “I think cooking is kind of like art. It’s meant to be subjective, but everyone knows when it’s bad.”
It hadn’t occurred to Paris to bring a ruler— just as it hadn’t occurred to him to channel energy or have an adorable family to dedicate things to— but he was becoming increasingly convinced his dough wasn’t quite right. Perhaps he needed to be firmer with it. Remember, girls, be good. Or would that just make it overworked? I’m channelling energy into the mixture. Or if he didn’t, would it be underworked? And which would be worse? Everyone knows when it’s bad. Either way, he had to get it in the fridge soon, which meant he couldn’t just start fisting it in the middle of the room. Shit, why was he thinking about fisting? Personally, I don’t hold with this sort of thing.
Staring despairingly into his bowl and doing his best to banish fisting from his thoughts in case it came out at an inappropriate moment, Paris tried to cling to what he knew. The dough was ready. There was nothing more he could do if he hadn’t done it right. And it needed to chill, probably for a long time. So he needed to get it chilling now. Committing himself to the fridgenow-ask-questions-later strategy, Paris dashed to his allocated refrigerator and yanked open the door.
There was a thud. Followed by “Ow. Seriously, ow.”
Oh God. That was someone’s face. He’d hit someone in the face. With a fridge. On the first episode.
“Oh my God,” Paris said. “That’s your face.”
The door swung gently closed to reveal a young man with a very natty shirt and a very bloody nose, partially covered by one hand. His fingernails were painted in jewel-bright rainbows. And his dough was on the floor.
“Oh my God,” said Paris again. “That’s your dough.”
Cameras were already swarming around them like overexcited wasps.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said the doughless stranger, pinching his nose. “It’s covered and I don’t think— ”
A middle-aged woman in an orange blouse beneath her standard-issue apron approached briskly from the back of the room. “Let’s not worry about the dough for now— ”
“I’ve got the dough.” Grace Forsythe darted forward, sweeping up the fallen bowl, which seemed to have survived the drop intact. “I feel like mountain rescue except for baking and also we’re not in the mountains. Er, what shall I do with it?”
“Oh God,” cried Paris. “I’ve hit you in the face with a fridge.”
His victim put his other hand to his nose. “It’s fine. It happens all the time.”
“People hit you in the face with fridges,” Grace Forsythe asked, “all the time?”
“Well. No. I just mean— accidents happen. In general. To people.”
Distraught, Paris clutched at his hair. “I’ve assaulted you. I’ve assaulted and batteried you. I’ve done ABH on national television.”
The woman who’d come over— Paris thought her name might be Tanya— put her hands on her hips. “Will you all stop messing around? You”— here she pointed at Paris— “put your dough in the fridge. You”— that was to Grace Forsythe— “put his dough in the fridge. And you”— she took the casualty by the arm— “sit here, be quiet, tip your head forward, and pinch the bridge of your nose for at least ten minutes.”