She lined up the various fillings and quickly spread thin layers of the fillings on the cake, doing some trick with the spatula, not lifting it up as she spread around the custard filling on a vanilla sponge cake.
“Layer these sliced strawberries on,” she ordered, moving on to the next cake, where she began to spread a layer of caramel onto the flat chocolate sheet.
I laid the strawberries out carefully. I had to admit, it was actually maybe a little bit therapeutic, lining up all the strawberries in a thin even layer. Merrie inspected my work and pointed me to the next cake, which needed a layer of candied oranges. She spread whipped cream on the strawberries and carefully began to roll the cake.
It was crazy how she got the cake to roll up neatly in a perfect tube. She wrapped it in plastic wrap and set it aside in the fridge then moved on to the next cake.
“Twenty minutes, bakers,” Anastasia called out.
“You need to frost this cake,” she said, handing me one of the rolls. “Use the chocolate fudge frosting.”
“I can’t frost a cake.”
“It’s not that difficult.”
I looked down at the perfect roll and back over to Merrie, who was spreading a thick, creamy cranberry and cream mixture onto a spiced sponge cake.
Fuck.
I carefully removed the plastic wrap and set the cake on a piece of parchment paper.
How the hell did this go?
I used the spatula and smeared the dark chocolate frosting on the cake roll. So far so good. Except when I picked up the spatula, it took part of the cake with it.
Shit shit shit.
I carefully added more frosting and tried to cement the broken piece back down, hoping Merrie wasn’t watching, then tried to spread the rest of the frosting around. An ache had settled in my jaw from clenching it when I finally had the roll frosted.
Merrie took one look at it and sighed.
“That looks like a toddler made it.”
“It’s not that bad,” I protested. The jelly roll did look a little wonky. It had also taken me forever. Merrie’s jelly rolls were all done.
“Sprinkle some pomegranate seeds on it and let’s call it a day,” she said. She carefully arranged the six jelly rolls on a large wooden cutting board and sliced off the ends to make them neat. Then she added some last-minute garnish of sprigs of mint and rosemary
“And time!” Anastasia called.
I surveyed the other bake-off entries. Everyone else’s desserts looked better than ours. Even Brody and Hensley’s was better, though I hated to admit it. We didn’t even have themostjelly rolls. One team had made a dozen.
We have better fruit, though.
Merrie was not happy.
“They have bake-off partners that actually help,” she hissed as we lined up to present our bake-off entries to the judges.
Hensley and Brody went first.
“We wanted our jelly roll to invoke the sensation of being in a cabin in the woods with the love of your life,” Hensley said as Brody sliced off a round of the jelly roll with a fucking axe.
“What a douche,” I whispered to Merrie.
“You’re so insanely jealous,” she whispered back.
“I don’t feel the need to compensate for my lack of baking skills.”
The judges seemed to like his stupid axe move, I was annoyed to see. Anu and Meg both applauded.
