‘Good to know. I’ll try to remember that.’
Having gathered several bundles of herbs which were now bucolically arranged in a wooden trug which Izzy carried with a touch of innocent self-importance, they headed to the kitchen for the day’s tuition. As always on Monday mornings, their aprons were freshly laundered, hanging on the hooks in the large lobby which served as their breakroom where tea and coffee were served in the mornings and the most delicious home-made cordials in the afternoon. Hannah had become rather partial to pomegranate and rhubarb with sparkling water even though before coming to Ireland she could safely say she’d never even tried pomegranate.
Neat piles of ingredients awaited them at each station when they arrived in the kitchen. Hannah was pleased that Bronagh was back from her holiday and Conor had relinquished his kitchen assistant role. He was back working on his cottage on the other side of the estate. Having him in the kitchen today would be sooo distracting. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a thing!
‘Morning, everyone.’
‘Morning,’ they all chorused back like obedient schoolchildren.
‘Welcome to week four, over halfway through the course and today we’re talking cakes.’
Hannah perked up. Cake-baking was what had brought her here, although she was finding it difficult to imagine the triumphant return to the office, bearing a spectacularBake Offshowstopper, that she’d once daydreamed about.
‘Cake-making encompasses everything from genoise sponge through to French patisserie. Difficult but rewarding.’
Hannah’s heart sank. If Adrienne said it was difficult, then it really was difficult.
‘The French of course are renowned for their patisserie, but here at Killorgally we like to put our own spin on things. Today we’re going to be making eclairs with a whiskey-chocolate glaze and filled with delicately flavoured whiskey cream. We’ll also be making millefeuilles with our home-grown raspberries and Irish cream filling.
‘Ooh, lovely,’ said Meredith. ‘I want to serve some extra fancy things when we open the cafe.’
‘Patisserie requires precision and concentration.’ Was it Hannah’s imagination or did Adrienne look very directly at her? ‘It also requires attention to detail and very careful measurement of the ingredients.’
‘Seriously?’ moaned Jason under his breath. ‘Load of ef— poncey nonsense.’ Fliss tutted but Adrienne either hadn’t heard or chose to ignore his grumblings as she began to talk through the process of making the choux pastry for the eclairs. Throughout, Jason sighed, shifted from foot to foot, picked at his nails, and gazed around at the ceiling. Hannah thought if he could have got away with it, he’d have been on his phone the whole time.
‘Now, don’t forget, you need to shoot the flour into the water and butter and make sure you chop the butter in small pieces so that it melts quickly. You don’t want too much of your water boiling away. Getting the proportions right is essential for a good choux.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ muttered Jason beside Hannah. From the corner of her eye she saw Fliss poke him sharply in the ribs.
‘Ow!’
‘Is everything all right, Jason?’ asked Adrienne, giving him a warm smile.
‘Fine,’ he said, managing to be civil, although he scowled the minute she looked away.
As they all turned to go to their respective stations, Meredith sidled up to Jason and patted him on the shoulder and gave him a quick hug. Hannah was surprised by his gruff thanks before he stomped back to his usual place at the back of the class.
Meredith was a better person than she was, thought Hannah as she made her way to her place, dubiously eyeing the ingredients awaiting her and crossing her fingers that this week she was going to do better. Rather than try and make notes while Adrienne talked, today she’d focused on remembering what she’d said. It was easier, Hannah decided, to make the notes afterwards, when she’d discovered from experience what the possible pitfalls were.
Hannah had always had steady hands, which she found very useful when it came to piping her choux pastry into neat lines for eclairs and for decorating the tops of rum babas with whipped cream. Adrienne was quite right; concentrating on the task in hand and taking it seriously helped. Sadly, Jason hadn’t got the same memo that day.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ he muttered and threw down the spatula he was using.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Jason,’ snapped Fliss. ‘What’s the matter now?’
Hannah winced. The two of them had been sniping at each other all morning.
‘I can’t get the stupid effing pastry dough into the bag.’
‘That’s because you need to rest the bag in a glass or something to support it, like Adrienne demonstrated. Typical, you don’t give a toss, do you, so don’t even try to do things properly.’
‘Who made you God around here? If you’re so bloody good at cooking, little Miss Posh and know it all, why are on you on this course?’
Fliss turned and clamped her mouth shut, an angry flush running along her cheekbones.
‘You’re such a stuck-up cow. What makes you think you’re better than the rest of us?’ he sneered. ‘No one likes you. With your hoity-toity ways.’
‘Jason.’ Meredith’s reprimand snapped out like a coiling lasso rope. ‘That’s not nice.’
