"Don't even think about it," Hartleigh hissed at me. "He's mine. We have a history."
"Yes, I heard you the first time," I told her.
Dana left the studio, and Anastasia turned to the contestants as the judges took their seats on stools at a long butcher-block table.
"Welcome to the first episode ofThe Great Christmas Bake-off, sponsored by Trader Mike's," she said. "This show is about watching expert bakers create beautiful holiday-inspired desserts. We don't do gimmicks, weird contests, sabotaging, or timed rounds. We give our contestants the space and time they need to create the most beautiful and tasty Christmas desserts possible. This is a five-week contest, with two episodes a week."
She turned to the judges, the cameras following her movements.
"For our judges, we have Anu Pillai, a chocolatier and baker from Lil' Masa bakery in NoLiTa. Then we have Nick Mazur, a pastry chef and restaurant owner with businesses all over the New York area. Finally, we have Jack Frost, founder and CEO of Platinum Provisions, a global company that designs and produces, among other things, a line of specialty items for cooking and baking."
I felt charged and anxious while Anastasia talked. I knew about the two chefs who were judging. They were critically acclaimed and made award-winning desserts. They would be tough.
"For this first challenge," Anastasia continued, "we'll ease everyone into the holidays with the Santa's Christmas Cookie challenge. Everyone has the experience of selecting the perfect plate of cookies to leave out for Santa Claus. Now we want you all to create the perfect plate of cookies for the judges. Do the judges have any advice before the contestants start?"
"What I look for in a cookie is that it needs to be soft but have some yield," Nick Mazur said. "I don't want to just taste sugar. It needs to have a complexity of flavors."
"I concur," said Anu. "Cookies are quite deceptive. They are finicky, and to make the perfect cookie, all steps in the process need to be completed perfectly. Since this is Christmas, we will also be looking for cookies that evoke the memories of childhood and holidays spent with family. Food has a power in that it can be transportive and take you back to places, memories, and people you thought were long gone."
Anastasia nodded then said, "Jack, do you have anything to add?"
Jack looked even more annoyed, which I didn’t think was possible.
"Jack," Anastasia repeated.
He looked right at the camera and said, "You have ample time to make beautiful creations. This evening, when the round is over, don't show up with something that looks homemade. My company has products that can help you create high-precision decorations with icing and other edible fluid ingredients. There is a range of equipment at each of your stations. I suggest you make use of it."
"Don't forget," Dana said as she walked around us as we were gathering ingredients, "the aim here is viral videos and beautiful pictures for Instagram. This show won't sell well with advertisers if you all just hack some horrible cookie together. We want beautiful desserts. You have all morning and most of the afternoon. Keep in mind we may ask you to redo something so we can get a better shot. This is supposed to be more like the Buzzfeed food shows you see on YouTube, not a scripted Food Network production. Do good work. There's a fan favorite prize as well, so make sure you are promoting the show on social media."
I gathered the flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and almond extract I would need for my cookies. I had a perfect recipe for a sugar cookie—it had some bite, but it was fluffy, and the almond made it taste a little nutty. I mixed the dough, put it in the fridge, and contemplated the best way to make a winning plate of cookies.
Baking the same types of cookies wouldn't be enough to win, but I didn't want to go wild and make a thousand different types. That wouldn't photograph well, and I always liked to keep the photograph in mind—my Instagram fans wanted to see gorgeous photographs. I decided to use the same dough but make different shapes and sizes and decorate them differently.
"Do you mind talking a little about what you're planning?" Anastasia asked, coming over to my workstation trailed by two cameramen.
"I'm making an assortment of sugar cookies," I told her as I rolled out my dough. "I don't want to overdo it, I just want a tasty, pretty cookie, but I also don't want it to be too precious. I'm using the cookie cutters to make some, and others I'm freehanding. I want big cookies and small ones to compose a balanced plate."
I didn't mind talking to Anastasia. We had most of the day to work, and soon the thoughts of Jack and Hartleigh and the contest faded away, and it was just me and my baking. The cookies came out of the oven perfectly. The snowflakes I had hand-cut held their shape, thankfully. You could never tell with an unknown oven. I let them sit on the baking sheets to bake the rest of the way with the residual heat. Then I prepped the icing. I was debating between a stiff buttercream and a royal icing. The royal icing would let me draw more intricate patterns by hand compared to buttercream, but I personally liked the taste of buttercream better.
Fortunately, I had the Platinum Provisions icing piper.
The tips were very tiny and made the most intricate patterns. The icing piper was easier to use than the bags because it was run by forced air. I plugged it in and did a few tests, making sure the consistency of the frosting was right.
It wasn't magic, though, and it still took me longer than I had hoped to decorate the hundred or so cookies we had to make. Each judge needed to have a plate, and we had to make additional plates for the camera teams to film and photograph.
I arranged each plate of cookies and taste-tested one. It was perfect. It had some bite, and while I could taste the almond, it wasn't overwhelming. The buttercream was a light layer, but it made intricate patterns on the snowflakes, reindeer, bells, and other shapes I had chosen for my cookies. I snapped a few of my own pictures while Anastasia checked that everyone was finished.
I looked over at Nina and Hartleigh's workstations. Their plates of cookies looked well made too. This was going to be a stiff competition.
"You can all go to the waiting area," Anastasia told us, "except for Chloe. You're first up."
I took a deep breath and picked up my plates of cookies. Jack, the ice prince, was perched on a stool, watching me as I walked up with my plates of cookies and presented them to the judges.
4
Jack
When Anastasia said that the contestants had all day to bake, I half considered grabbing one of the candy canes that decorated the studio and stabbing myself in the eye with it. Thankfully, we were allowed to leave after the cameras took the shots they needed of the judges reacting to the start of the bake-off. Anu and Nick actually stayed to give more narration and talk to the contestants. I could tell they were really into this baking stuff.
