This competition was a long shot anyway, I reminded myself as I went to my assigned baking station.
“Contestants, for this challenge, you will be baking a dessert that represents you and your town.” Anastasia smiled at us. “Good luck!”
I knew exactly what I was going to make. Olivia and I had been strategizing last night while waiting for nonexistent customers to show up.
I was making my famous sugar cookies. Well, they weren’t exactly famous, but I was giving them away in my shop and posting them on Instagram to my anemic number of followers, so close enough. A lot of people like thin crispy sugar cookies. Not me. I like them like I liked my men. Thick.
I glanced over at the small-town hunk. He and the other contestants were walking slowly around the stations interacting with the contestants. He had unbuttoned the top few buttons on his flannel to reveal an ungodly amount of chest hair.
Olivia:I’ll buy you a peppermint martini if you stroke it.
Merrie:I’m trying to concentrate!!!
Olivia:You could bake those sugar cookies in your sleep.
I creamed the butter and sugar in the red stand mixer at my station. Christmas tunes played in the background to amuse the crowd. I bopped along to the poppy Christmas jazz rendition of “It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” With the snow flurries blowing around and the twinkling lights decorating the historic city hall on the other side of the town square where the bake-off was set up, I was getting all the small-town Christmas vibes. The smell of vanilla and spices filled the air, and stand mixers whirred as all the bake-off contestants made their confections.
“I love Christmas,” I said giddily as I took it all in. The camera guys zoomed around me as I adjusted the Santa hat I was wearing. It was the crown on my over-the-top Christmas outfit complete with red stockings, a green skirt that floofed when I turned, and a happy Christmas sweater that blinked. I also had stickers on my cheeks that Olivia had insisted on shellacking to my face with hair spray so they didn’t fall in the food.
“‘Tis the season for Christmas baking!” I told the cameras and made a victory sign.
Behind them near the edge of the stage, Matt glowered.
I stuck my tongue out at him, and he gave me a horrified look.
I smirked. I was in my element. Christmas was my season. I was never a sporty kid, but I could bake!
I concentrated on carefully cracking my eggs then adding them and the sifted dry ingredients to the light-yellow creamed butter and sugar mixture. I scraped down the sides of the bowl, mixed it once more, and then turned the dough onto parchment paper to roll out. It was so cold outside that I didn’t have to worry about the dough getting too warm.
Once the dough was rolled out, I lined up my selection of vintage Christmas cookie cutters.
Maybe I should have opened a baking store instead of a Christmas ornament store.
Maybe I never should have left Manhattan.
No negative thoughts, I reminded myself.Only happy thoughts around the cookies.
After cutting out all the shapes, I slid the first batch of cookies into the oven. In between checking to make sure they weren’t burning and making my buttercream frosting and royal icing, I surveyed the other contestants. Next to the flannel-clad hunk stood a snooty-looking high-society woman. I had dealt with her type during my time in the trenches as a receptionist at a high-end investing firm. Women like her would storm in, throw around the fact that their boyfriends, husbands, or fathers were important clients, and demand that everyone cater to them.
No more. I was in charge of my own destiny! At least until Christmas Eve when I had an astronomical amount of money due.
The woman saw me watching her and gave me a cold look.
I gave her a cheery smile and waved. “Merry Christmas!”
She turned her nose up in the hair and huffed off to go talk to another contestant.
Fine by me.
“Some people just can’t handle their Christmas cheer,” I said as I pulled out my first trays of cookies and set them on a cooling rack.
Unlike my tiny portable oven, the bake-off station had a five-foot-long double oven. I was able to bake the whole batch of cookies in one go!
I surveyed my cookies as they cooled. Though I had a whole batch in front of me, the clock was ticking. I was a pretty fast decorator. But even I couldn’t decorate a whole batch in forty-five minutes. I decided to do a more basic piping frosting design and decorate with sugar crystals and edible beads for most of the cookies then include a few cookies with more intricate decorations. The other option was to have a plate with only five cookies on it, and that was not acceptable. Give me a heaping tray of cookies or give me death!
“Deck the halls!” I sang along with the music as I frosted the cookies. I did the more difficult ones first, carefully piping a sweater in red and white frosting on a snowman cookie.
“This is a bomb cookie,” I said happily, taking a picture of the finished dessert for Instagram. “I’m totally winning.”
