THE GLIMTARI NISSE BAKE OFF
Madam Ember’s Honey Cake Crown
(This is an example of the type of stories you will receive from Your Nisse)
THE SCENT FROM THE HUMAN HOUSE
The home economics room beneath the Great Oak was warm enough that the windowpanes had steamed up. Copper pots hung over the long hearth, flour sacks stood along the wall, and on the eleven worktables lay Danish apples, hazelnuts, honey, butter, eggs, cream and both wheat and rye flour.
Madam Ember stood in the middle of it all. Her apron was as red as the embers in the oven, and her grey hair was gathered in a bun with a wooden spoon stuck through it.
'Today,' she said, lifting a cloth from a tall, curved cake, 'you are going to bake a honey cake crown.'
The cake consisted of six curved pieces of honey cake gathered around apple compote and whipped cream. On top lay toasted hazelnuts, dried apple slices and red lingonberries like little jewels.
'It must be able to stand, it must be able to be sliced, and most important of all, it must taste good.'
Madam Ember turned to the blackboard, where she had written Honey Cake Crown in big chalk letters.
'First you make the dough,' she said, pointing. 'Warm one hundred grams of honey with one hundred grams of butter and seventy five grams of sugar, until it has just melted. Let it cool a little, and stir in one egg.'
The chalk continued down the board: Two hundred and fifty grams of wheat flour. Fifty grams of fine rye flour. Half a teaspoon of baking soda. A small pinch of salt.
'The dry ingredients are folded into the honey mixture. The dough should be soft, but able to let go of your fingers. If it is too firm, add a spoonful of milk. If it is too wet, let it rest. You are not to simply pour in more flour because you are getting impatient.'
Bella, who already had her hand close to the flour sack, slowly drew it back.
'Divide the dough into six equal pieces. Shape them as arches, about as long as your hand from wrist to fingertip, and no thicker than your little finger. Bake them at one hundred and eighty degrees until they are golden and still give a little when you press gently on them. About ten minutes.'
On the lower half of the board was the filling: Three Danish apples, cut into small cubes, two tablespoons of honey and two tablespoons of water. Simmer gently until the apples are tender but not mush. Cool. Lightly whip two decilitres of cream.
'When the arches are cold, you assemble them around the apples with a little whipped cream as support. Decorate with toasted hazelnuts, dried apple, lingonberries or whatever you think belongs. It is important that the parts are completely cooled, otherwise the crown will slide apart.'
Mira's pencil flew across the pages of her notebook. She had written the quantities in a straight column, drawn six identical arches and underlined completely cooled twice.
'Any questions?' asked Madam Ember
Kvid's hand shot up. 'How much is a small pinch? Is it the same for all fingers? And if your hand is bigger than Bella's, will the crown then...'
Madam Ember grabbed the edge of the board and flipped it around. The recipe vanished with a clap.
Mira's pencil stopped in the middle of a word.
'But,' she said. 'We hadn't finished with the questions.'
'No,' said Madam Ember 'And you haven't finished thinking either. You now know the basic steps. The rest is to be your own interpretation. You may change the shape, filling, flavour and decoration, as long as the result can stand, be sliced and be eaten.'
Mira looked in horror at the blank back of the board. Then she quickly leafed back through her notebook. The quantities were there. The temperature was there. Even the warning about warm cake arches was there.
She breathed out in relief. 'I got most of it.'
Viola leaned over to her. 'But not the interpretation.'
Mira looked from the notebook to the finished crown and back again. 'That part,' she said carefully, 'she could have given instructions on as well.'
Mira had already placed her ruler next to the scales. Viola studied the cake from three different angles. Glimmer leaned forward until her nose almost touched a hazelnut.
'May we use gold?' she asked.
'If it is edible,' said Madam Ember 'And if there is still a cake underneath.'
She took a small tin out of her apron pocket. When the lid slid off, a warm, sweet scent spread through the room.
Kvid's hand shot into the air. 'What is that? Where does it grow? Why don't we have a whole tree of it? Can you...'
'Cinnamon,' said Madam Ember. She looked around and lowered her voice. 'It grows very far from here. I borrowed it from a human house.'
'Borrowed?' repeated Nisvar.
'I left three shiny hazelnuts and a note in its place,' she said. 'But I simply cannot resist the scent. One small pinch in each dough. No more. The rest of Christmas must come from our own apples, our own honey and the nuts of the forest.'
She clapped her hands. 'You have an hour and a half.'
THE MOST IMPORTANT TEST
When the time was up, eleven cakes stood on the long table. None looked like Madam Ember's. Some barely looked like crowns.
She began with Mira. The knife glided through the perfect surface, and the cut was so clean that Mira almost applauded. Madam Ember took a bite and chewed for a long time.
'Beautiful,' she said. 'And entirely correct. But it tastes as if you measured it instead of baking it.'
Mira frowned and took a bite herself. Everything was as it should be, and yet the cake tasted flat. The honey, the apples and the cinnamon were there, but none of the flavours were really allowed to step forward. She found her notebook and wrote under the recipe: Remember: sometimes you have to feel, smell and taste your way, not only do as it says. Then she underlined taste twice.
Viola's winter forest was fresh and tart, but so detailed that no one wanted to be the first to cut into it. Storm's crown was smooth, golden and tasty, but it had to be supported with a wooden spoon while being sliced. Nisvar's stood unshakeably, but Madam Ember had to use the bread knife with both hands.
Baldur's butter filling turned out to go surprisingly well with the apple compote. Eira's cake was uneven, but it smelled and tasted of forest floor, toasted nuts and warm honey. Glimmer's was dazzlingly beautiful. At first the knife stuck in the caramel. When they finally got small pieces cut free, they all made a brave attempt to chew their way through them. A whole series of careful cracks and strained munching sounds went around the table. Madam Ember quickly counted everyone's teeth, nodded in relief and declared, 'Good. We shall need those for next week's lesson too.'
Bella's dancing crown wobbled dangerously but stayed standing. It was airy, sweet and a little crooked, exactly as Bella had hoped. In Lysrik's crown, first came the deep flavour of the dark honey cake and the tart lingonberries. Then followed the soft apples, and last the honey and cinnamon spread warmly through the mouth. Madam Ember took another bite. 'That could make even Mr Frostskæg thaw,' she said. Lysrik nodded gravely. 'That is also what light does to the longest night.' Kvid's three trials had run together into a bubbling mound, but the small crisp edges with grated apple were so good that Madam Ember asked him to write down exactly what he had done.
At last she reached Nijus's collapsed cake. He had covered it with a thin layer of cream and laid eleven apple pieces around the edge.
'It didn't turn out as it should,' he said.
Madam Ember took a bite. Then another.
The cake was soft with honey, tart with apples, round with hazelnuts and just exactly warm from the borrowed cinnamon.
'No,' she said. 'It turned out better.'
Nijus looked surprised.
'A cake is not only what the eyes see,' Madam Ember continued. 'Nor is it only what the tongue tastes. It is care, imagination, courage, curiosity, rhythm, safety, strength, joy and the will to share. Each of you forgot something today. But each of you also added something that was not in my recipe.'
Madam Ember set out the last pieces and looked over the many different crowns. 'Now we have tried them one by one,' she said. 'Let us see what they can become together.'
Mira laid a precisely cut piece of her own cake together with a spoonful of Eira's fragrant apple filling. She tasted it and nodded. 'That was the part I couldn't measure my way to.'
Bella laid a crisp edge from Kvid's cake on top of an airy piece of her own and gave it a twist of Baldur's apple butter. 'Look,' she said. 'Now it dances in the mouth too.'
Soon they were building small bites criss cross. Nisvar made his solid crown softer with Baldur's apple butter. Storm laid a piece of Nijus's juicy cake under a glossy flake from his own and admitted that it looked even more finished that way. Viola decorated the collapsed middle of Nijus's cake with a red berry and one of Lysrik's apple stars. Glimmer divided the gold into eleven thin flakes that this time could be chewed without danger. Eira found that her spruce shoot syrup went best with Lysrik's warm cinnamon, while Kvid tried to work out how many different combinations eleven cakes could actually make. Madam Ember tucked the cinnamon tin into her apron pocket before he could suggest an extra trial.
'Next week,' she said, 'we bake your own Christmas favourites.'
Eleven hands shot into the air.
