"You want some help?" I asked him, going over to his table.
"I swear I'm usually better than this," he said, his face flushed.
"You need cold hands to make pie crust," I told Ethan as I dumped the runny dough in the trash and cleared off his space to start a new dough.
As the dough chilled, I took my cookies out of the oven. They smelled amazing—nutty and savory with a hint of sweetness. Jack was going to love them.
I let them cool and went back to Ethan's workstation. The pie dough was chilled, and I rolled it out and braided a Christmas wreath pattern around the pie. I also cut out little sprigs of mistletoe and holly. Finally I cut out a winter Christmas scene with a tree and several animals and placed them over the pie filling.
"Wow!" Ethan said. "You're really good at this. Thanks!"
I was proud of the pie crust. After taking a few pictures, I rolled my Austrian wedding cookies in confectioners' sugar, giving them a layer of white powdery sweetness to contrast with the savoriness of the nuts and butter.
As I arranged them on a platter, I watched Jack walk in. Hartleigh made a kissy face at him, and he looked annoyed. I was starting to feel weirdly protective of Jack Frost. He clearly didn't like it when Hartleigh made advances towards him.
I knew he would like these cookies, though. With the last ones, he had complained about sweetness. Though the wedding cookies were covered in sugar, it was just a coating before the blast of the more savory, almost umami taste of the nutty cookie.
I was one of the last contestants to present my dessert, and I waited nervously in the back room for my turn.
After her presentation to the judges, Nina came in beaming.
"They loved my dish," she said. "I'm so relieved!"
Then it was my turn. I approached the butcher-block table as the judges each took a cookie. But my eyes were only on Jack. I wanted him to fall to his knees after tasting my Christmas cookies.
He took a bite of the dessert. I saw a smile break through the ice.
8
Jack
The Austrian wedding cookie was the most amazing thing I'd ever tasted. It was like love and family and Christmas. It wasn't too sweet, even though it was covered in sugar. Instead, the cookie was nutty and rich. I swallowed. I thought I had powdered sugar on my suit.
Chloe wore a triumphant smile, like she had planned this whole thing and was waiting for me to cry or fall to my knees and worship her baked goods. The sick, mean, Grinch part of me didn't want to admit that I loved the cookie.
"It tastes like garbage," I said. Her face fell. "Also, didn't you make cookies last week?"
Might as well go for broke, Jack,I thought.
"Come to think of it," I said coldly, "Maybe you should lay off the cookies." I let my eyes roam her body. She didn’t need to lay off anything—she had a cute, sexy figure. She was curvy and had a pretty face, which was just what I liked.
Chloe looked upset. Anastasia seemed pissed, and the camera guy made a shocked noise. Anu, to her credit, kept her face perfectly neutral as she took a bite of the cookie.
"This is a very nice cookie, but everyone else made something a bit more impressive," she said. "This was the signature challenge. While these taste amazing, they don't look that pretty."
"They seem very homemade," Nick added. "They are called wedding cookies because it's something simple for relative to make for a younger relative's wedding. This isn't a pastry chef–quality production."
"Maybe you should have spent more time on your dessert instead of helping other people. Ethan said you made his pie crust," Anu told Chloe. "That was something worthy of a chef. Your pie crust was amazing. It was flakey and buttery, and the decorations you put on it were just beautiful."
"I agree. You spent more time on Ethan's dessert than your own," Nick said.
Chloe looked upset, but she didn't say anything else.
All I could think of was scoring more of those cookies. She had made extras, right? I could just sneak some more off of one of the plates. Even so, then they would be all gone. I needed a long-term cookie plan.
Anu and Nick declared Nina and her stollencrèmebrûléethe winner. Chloe made it to the next round, but she was in the bottom two. Ethan was kicked out since the part of his dessert the judges liked best, the crust, Chloe had made.
When I walked out of the studio to do postproduction commentary, Gunnar and Dana were waiting for me.
