The thing was, Audrey wouldn’t exactly have said she was lonely. She had her family, her coworkers, a less-active-than-when-she-was-at-university-or-in-London-for-that-matter-but-still-probably-fine social life. But when she’d been listening to Doris, she’d felt something more. A sense of connection maybe that she hadn’t realised how badly she was missing.
“Thanks,” she replied, hoping she sounded mostly professional. “Can I catch up with you after the judging?”
“Seems like that’d be best. Perhaps you can buy me a cupof tea.”
It seemed a fair exchange. There’d be more formal paperwork to sign at some point, probably some quite fiddly paperwork since there was a TV production company in the mix as well. But for now Audrey preferred to think in terms of conversation. Of one person telling a story to another. In a lot of ways that was why she’d gone into journalism in the first place.
Bakes filmed, the contestants were herded back in to their places where they waited to come up one at a time and have their rolls assessed on the basis of sweetness, crustiness, and simple-thing-flawlessly-executedness.
The first few contestants—Meera with her chilli cheese rolls and lemon buns, Joshua with his playing-it-surprisingly-safe combination of stilton-and-walnut mini-loaves and blueberry and white chocolate finger buns, and Jim-the-dad with a straightforward fruit-in-one-spinach-in-the-other combo—did fine. None of them had excelled but nobody got a frown and aThis was a straightforward bake, so we expected perfectioneither.
Alanis was next, approaching the judges’ table with a confidence that Audrey wished she could borrow about ten percent of. “So these,” she said, “are salted honey sweet rolls and sun-dried tomato and herb savoury rolls.”
Marianne Wolvercote and Wilfred Honey scrutinised Alanis’s bready offerings. “They’re well finished,” Marianne conceded, never wanting to give too much praise too early in case it compromised her position as the mean judge.
“Aye,” agreed Wilfred Honey. “The glaze on them buns is smashing. Clear and bright and even. You know, they look so tasty, I might even not mind you’ve put salt on them.”
With the confidence of eight years of stage rivalry, MarianneWolvercote turned to her co-judge. “Putting salt in sweet pastries is quite common, Wilfred.”
“I know it’s common, I just miss the days when sweet was sweet and savoury was savoury.” Despite his protestations, he took a large bite of one of the salted honey rolls, and when he’d finished chewing, gave an approving nod. “But I’ll tell you what, when that’s the result, I see the point of it. I think sometimes these things are just trendy, but I really feel you’ve made a strong choice there.”
Marianne Wolvercote was nodding along with him. “I agree with Wilfred. This is top-notch. The balance of flavours is just right. Subtle but really comes through.”
“And the savoury’s lovely, too,” added Wilfred Honey. “Good crunch to the crust, and even with the flavours it still tastes like bread.”
“As opposed to what?” asked Grace Forsythe, from the sidelines.
“Takes a lot of work to make bread taste like bread,” explained Wilfred Honey, sagely.
Secure in the knowledge that her bread tasted like bread, Alanis returned to her station, to be replaced by blue-collar John, whose rolls had come out perfectly adequately but whose buns had caught a bit. Then Audrey was up, yesterday’s fears that she’d erred too close to basic flooding back as she placed her sweet and savoury rolls in front of the judges.
“The jam’s homemade?” she offered, apologetically.
“Well I am a fan of blueberry,” Wilfred Honey said, taking a nibble. “And these have come out well. They’re very simple, but wewantedsimple.”
“Yes.” Marianne Wolvercote was doing one of those slow nods. “The seeded rolls in particular are…well on the one hand Ican’t fault them but on the other hand I think you could have been justthis much”—she held her fingers so close together they were practically touching—“more ambitious.”
“You’ve got real skill,” Wilfred Honey followed up. “And more importantly, you can taste that these were made with heart.”
“Metaphorically,” added Grace Forsythe from the back row.
It was still more praise than Audrey had expected. She replied with a “thanks” and a wide smile, and almost floated back to her workbench.
Next up was Reggie, still with a pencil behind his ear even though he had a perfectly good breast pocket. He was carrying two platters that looked more like traybakes than rolls, irregular lumps forming two neat rectangles overall.
“So these,” he said with a mix of pride and awareness that he’d gone out on a bit of a limb, “are my tangram rolls.”
Wilfred Honey shook his head. “Sorry lad, you’ve lost me.”
“Those”—Reggie indicated the first rectangle, golden-brown rolls in a variety of different shapes and sizes—“are olive bread, and those”—he indicated the second—“are Chelsea buns.”
Marianne Wolvercote was looking decidedly unimpressed. “They’re not very uniform.”
“They’re not meant to be.”
Somehow, Marianne Wolvercote managed to glare at Reggie over the top of a pair of glasses she wasn’t wearing. “I think you’ll find theyare.”
“They’re not.” For a man who seemed to have an engineering background, Reggie seemed surprisingly confused about the efficacy of digging as a hole-exiting strategy. “Because they’re tangrams.”
