The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

by Jenny Oliver

  ‘Thank you, Chantal.’ Rachel looked from the tree back to the housekeeper.

  Chantal nodded, lips pursed, and started to walk away.

  ‘Oh, wait, hang on.’ Rachel nipped back inside and came back with a box of the rainbow macaroons she’d made that afternoon. ‘Here, for your family.’

  Chantal took them, opened the box and whistled. ‘They will like these very much.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Au revoir.’ She waved, stuffing the box into one of her bags and disappearing down the stairs.

  Rachel looked at the tree and then shut the door and went back inside to carry on with her planning. Then she ate dinner, read her book and got into bed.

  At one a.m., when she hadn’t slept at all, she got out of bed and went outside into the corridor and picked up the good luck tree. She put it on the table, where she could see it from her bed, and watched the bows winking in the moonlight.

  She stared at it till she fell asleep, her heart beating in her ears, and then, what felt like half an hour later, her alarm went off.

  She arrived at the pâtisserie just before four. It was still dark, the moon hanging like a bauble in the navy sky. Chef and Françoise were turning on the lights. Lacey was inside, her apron on, her pale hair clipped in a low chignon.

  Rachel took a breath. Christmas Eve. She’d come via the church. A tiny one, red rusted brick with a wooden door studded with black nails. It had been open, the choir were practising, and she’d sat at the back for a minute listening. Then when the priest raised his hand to acknowledge her she’d smiled back but crept away to the side and dropped her Euro into the wooden box to pay for a candle. Hers had been the second to flicker on the plinth. Someone else remembering someone they loved, before her.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Mum,’ she’d whispered, placing the candle down and saying a little prayer of hope that all these years later she was still being looked after whatever happened in the afterlife. That she was still looking down and checking on Rachel and would keep watching for ever.

  Christmas Eve, Marjorie from the hospice had said. At least you know there’ll be a big welcoming committee in heaven. They’ll all be out, won’t they? Celebrating.

  Rachel had laughed suddenly at the memory. The noise louder than she’d expected in the dark little church. The priest had looked up and she’d shaken her head, waving a hand in apology.

  ‘Que Dieu te bénisse,’ he had said.

  She had replied, ‘And you also. Merci.’

  Now she was here at the pâtisserie, standing opposite Lacey. They were both behind big wooden tables, Chef in the middle as if he were counting down a duel.

  Abby, Marcel and George had their noses pressed up against the glass from the side room at the back.

  Rachel had her apron on. The flowers she’d cut off, restitched.

  ‘Ready?’ Chef asked.

  Lacey nodded. ‘Oui,’ said Rachel.

  And he clicked his stopwatch. ‘You have four hours. Start to bake. And make it good.’

  Rachel began with her praline macaroons, whisking the egg white at the same time for her peppermint swirled meringues. Lacey was chopping something that sounded intriguing. Rachel glanced up to see it was amaretti biscuits. That was her first mistake.

  She looked down at her bowl to see that the meringue was over-whipped. Tipping it in the bin, she started again but her carefully noted timings were out. She heard a shout from the back room and looked to see that George had burnt himself, dough was all over the floor, and Abby was running a tea towel under the tap. Was he OK?

  Her caramel over-boiled. The smell of burnt sugar filled the air like smoke. Lacey coughed. Rachel felt her palms start to sweat. She fumbled her bowl and it smashed to the floor.

  ‘Clear it up,’ said Chef as she was about to leave it and just work around the shards. In the back room she found a brush but no dustpan. The clock was ticking. Finally she found it round the back of a bin and with the bowl pieces swept she started on her tarts. Slices of apple, pear and raisins and a layer of frangipani beneath the apple-blossom-infused crème pâtisserie. But her pastry was cracking.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said out loud and saw Lacey smirk.

  ‘One hour gone,’ Chef shouted, delighted with his stopwatch.

  What did she have to show for one hour’s work? Macaroon halves and crumbling shortcrust.

  ‘Calm down,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Come on, Rachel, just calm down.’ She tried to conjure up her mum sitting by her side but it didn’t work. There was no Estée Lauder this time.

  Lacey was racing ahead.

  ‘Please get a grip. Please,’ she told herself but her hands were shaking too much. The sweat on her palms was adding too much moisture to the new pastry.

  ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger.’ She stopped, gripped the bench and shut her eyes. What was it she said to little Tommy when his anger took over, when he couldn’t calm down? Go outside and count to ten.

  So she swept her arm across the table, pushing her pastry, her crap caramel, her greasy croissant mix and the remains of her over-whipped meringue into the bin and walked out. She saw Abby tap George on the shoulder and point her way in the reflection of the mirrored door.

  Outside the snow was stopping, the sun wasn’t anywhere near rising but the sky was lighter. The streetlights caught the remaining flakes and icicles like smatterings of gems. She put her hands over her face and started to count.

  ‘Rachel?’

  She peered through her fingers to see Philippe standing there.

  ‘What are you doing here? It’s five a.m.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Did your wife like the bauble?’ was the only thing she could say.

  He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t for my wife.’

  She gave him a look as if to say, so you’ve got a number of different fancy women? Who said fancy women? Her gran. She made a noise, half snort half laugh. He tipped his head in question.

  ‘I have to go back in,’ she said and started to turn towards the door.

  ‘No. I disturbed you, I’ll go in. You wait here,’ he said, but before moving away he paused. ‘I just wanted to get here early enough to see you. To wish you good luck. My brother, he says you have talent. He doesn’t say that often and I know he wouldn’t tell you himself, but sometimes it helps to know that people believe in you.’

  She didn’t reply.

  He reached forward and touched her arm. ‘I believe in you.’

  ‘This is really inappropriate,’ she said, turning away. And he nodded, heading inside and taking the stairs two at a time.

  Rachel tipped her head back and looked up to the clouds, then counted to ten, as slowly and calmly as she could. She shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing, but instead images of standing on a box at the bakery counter, jewelled foil chocolate decorations and red-nosed reindeer biscuits danced before her closed lids.

  When she opened her eyes, her face upturned to the sky, she watched as a single snowflake fell and landed right on the tip of her nose.

  One more chance. For me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back inside the room was boiling hot. Lacey was up to her elbows in pastry. Chef eyed Rachel dubiously with a frown

  ‘Decided to join us, Flower Girl?’ he mocked.

  But it didn’t affect her now she had a secret. He thought she had talent. And that snippet meant more than she’d ever imagined it would. He believed in her.

  She felt her nose where the snow had fallen. She thought she could smell perfume. She thought she could hear her gran’s laughter as she started again on her shortcrust.

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ she said.

  ‘Two hours forty-five minutes,’ Chef shouted.

  Rachel ripped her neat timing chart off her pad and scrawled a new list. 1. Redo meringues. 2. Redo croissant dough. 3. Scrap all fancy decorations. 4. Scrap swan necks—just do Viennese biscuits.

  And it went on to the end of the page. There were no timing charts; it was a free-
for-all. Like a Saturday morning in the bakery. She poured all the forest fruits and red berries into a metal pot and started stewing them down for the jam. Then she pushed her raspberries through the sieve for the juices, but it was taking too long so she tipped it upside down and just crushed down some of the lumps with the back of a spoon.

  She wiped a raspberry swipe across her forehead. Pulled her hair off her face in an ungainly top knot, accidentally smeared her glasses with flour, and yanked off her jumper, it was so hot. Lacey’s table was calm and precise. Rachel’s was a mess. There would be no sieving, no delicate folding, no pinching, trimming, pinking, dusting, gold-leafing or piping. If this was going to get done it was going to be rough. But it would taste fabulous. That was all that mattered, surely? Was her good luck branch extravagant? Had the church had frills? No. Her candle had been simple white. Her branch tied only with silver bows.

  This felt right. It felt comfortable. It felt like going with her instinct.

  This would be village bakery. This would be Christmas fair cake sale. This would be Rachel.

  So while Lacey was curling tuiles, cutting petals, painting chocolate onto holly leaves and fashioning spun-sugar bundles, Rachel was rolling, kneading, tasting, boiling. She was making miniature quiche Lorraine with crumbly shortcrust. Tiny cornish pasties pinched at the top in waves. Crackly cheese spinach pies that burst and oozed together in the oven so were skirted with frills of burnt cheese—the best bits, her gran would say. Her rosemary and tomato Gruyère squares puffed up so high the topping slid off as if it were drunk. Her crème pâtisserie was so wobbly and thick the cranberries almost disappeared. Her croissants were weighed down with almond frangipani so stayed flat like an envelope, moist and dripping with sweet marzipan chocolate. The choux pastry for her Religieuse puffed up in a mishmash of sizes. Her millefeuille were overfilled with cream and the layers slapped on too quickly so they leant precariously. Her macaroons were shocking purple from a distracted tap of colouring while checking the slow-cooking meringues. The miniature tarte tatins had over-browned with thick, glossy apple syrup. Her Sachertortes were slick with apricot jam and the word Sacher illegibly piped over the chocolate icing.

  When she moved her cooling meringues to one side while trying to ice her individual vanilla slices at the same time, she dropped the wire rack and they broke like cracks in icebergs. Chef tutted as she began sticking them together with sweet chestnut purée like miniature Eton Mess. And then there were her little Christmas puddings. Solid brown ugly lumps with a sprig of holly in the top. And tiny chocolate sponge houses, each roofed with three chocolate buttons like a teepee.

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ called Chef.

  Rachel was sweating, her hair slicked back off her forehead, her apron filthy, her face dusted with flour and raspberry and chocolate, but she was smiling. For the first time in the kitchen. She even winked at Lacey as Lacey placed her delicate gold-leafed macaroons with precision onto a doily at the counter.

  Rachel, at the other end of the glass counter, was gulping down the espresso Françoise had put in front of her and piling flat croissants onto a metal tray, dusting them with a generous powder of icing sugar, flaked almonds and grated chocolate in the hope of distracting from the monstrous appearance. Her macaroons she made into a tower that was almost fluorescent. Her pistachio and coffee Religieuse were at the front but their heads kept falling off every time she touched the tray. Her Christmas houses she lined up like a street and the sight of them made her laugh out loud.

  ‘Three minutes.’

  Lacey was artfully arranging holly sprigs and mistletoe while Rachel tied silver bows to a branch she’d found outside on the pavement and rammed into the corner of her counter. Then she chopped up pieces of her cheese pies and tarte tatins for people to taste as they were choosing. Lacey did the same with her hazelnut choux pastry and strawberry buttercream Paris-Brest.

  Abby was piling warm baguettes into the racks behind the counter and stopped when she saw Rachel sit back, wiping her hair out of her eyes and sipping her bitter coffee.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she whispered.

  ‘Everything is bloody marvellous,’ Rachel replied.

  The queue outside snaked round the corner. Word had got around and Henri’s was still a name that could garner attention. This being a competition meant that people could be part of the choices he made, and they liked that idea.

  At eight o’clock on the dot the doors were flung open. The click of the espresso machine went non-stop as people peered and picked and pointed.

  ‘Good luck,’ Rachel whispered to Lacey, who looked frazzled and exhausted, and for the first time she looked Rachel straight in the eye when she spoke to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I want to say good luck to you, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I just want it too much.’

  Rachel nodded. When she turned back it was to see all the faces crowding round Lacey’s half of the counter. They were staring at her delicate creations, pointing for boxes of pistachio, cranberry and chocolate Florentines, cassis and cinnamon truffles, crème de menthe macaroons.

  Rachel popped a bit of croissant into her mouth as she waited and to her surprise it was like a Hallelujah chorus on her tongue.

  So she yanked one out with her tongs and chopped it up, passing the pieces on a plate over the counter for people to taste.

  A little wrinkled hand reached out and took it from her and when Rachel looked up she saw it was Chantal.

  ‘I will hand this down the queue.’ She winked. She was dressed in her usual paisley housecoat and fur-lined boots, her shopping bag was nestled in the crook of her arm and her tea-cosy hat was pulled low over her grey curls. She popped a bit in her mouth before she turned towards the waiting shoppers and said, ‘It is like a little taste of heaven.’

  Rachel smiled and watched her as she chatted her way down the queue of customers, pushing the tray of slap-dash croissant pieces at them until they tasted one. She watched their faces transform from disdain and disinterest to sheer delight as they patted each other on the shoulder urging them to sample.

  Suddenly her queue was growing. Smaller than Lacey’s still but it had potential.

  A moustached man with a cane braved a messy meringue and ate it in front of her. ‘C’est un triomphe,’ he muttered, kissing his fingers, and as he did a granny with a scruffy white dog in her basket asked for fifteen of them in a box.

  Next came a young boy who wanted a chocolate house and when he tried it his mother bought three more for all her children who were watching like baby birds in a nest. A chic woman in fur laughed at Rachel’s vibrant macaroons. ‘They will go perfectly with my decorations.’ She smiled and bought them all.

  Rachel was having a whale of a time, drinking espresso, eating her own croissants and laughing with people as they ate her food. The appearance of which was no longer an issue; in fact they were loving it all the more for its ugliness. Someone even commented on her silver ribbon twig and she sold it to them for ten Euros.

  Lacey however was on fire. Her counter was practically all crumbs. Her stunning brandy cream horns left one man practically on his knees it was so good. Her face was serene as she served; there wasn’t a smear of flour on her—in fact Rachel wondered if she’d actually had time to redo her make-up. Her coral lipstick and pale blue eye-shadow looked freshly applied.

  Chef was watching from the far corner of the counter. Tasting morsels as they were passed around and occasionally strolling past and taking a cherry truffle or a pistachio Religieuse. But he spent most of the morning just standing and watching.

  Françoise slid past to get more beans for the coffee machine and said about a reindeer biscuit, ‘I will steal one of these.’

  As she moaned with delight the three old men who sat every day at the counter sipping espresso ordered their own, chuckling at the little red noses.

  Rachel was loving watching them all eat her food, goods that she had baked. However slap-dash and all over the place she’d been,
it felt amazing to see the final products being devoured. And she knew she could do better. This had been the first step, the first hurdle, her courage was slowly coming back, and it felt nice. It felt right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two hours later it was as if vultures had been in. Crumbs lay scattered on silver platters. The racks of baguettes were empty, the confectionery all gone. The only morsel of food left was a truffle that had rolled to the floor and sat in the corner under a table of leaflets and dried flowers. Everything was gone, picked clean.

  Rachel and Lacey sat side by side, perched on bar stools next to the counter. George and Abby and all the other contestants hovered by the side of them, all with their hands wrapped around mugs of coffee and herbal tea.

  Outside the snow was glistening in the sunlight that was streaming in through the pâtisserie windows. The street was eerily quiet as everyone had left and offices were closing.

  ‘Ça va, mes petites bakers?’

  ‘Oui,’ they said in chorus.

  Rachel was exhausted. Lacey looked knackered.

  ‘It has been a good morning, non? I am proud.’ Chef looked genuinely emotional. ‘I do not say this often, so when I do I mean it. Congratulations to you all.’

  Rachel was taken aback. ‘Merci beaucoup, Chef.’

  Lacey nodded, clearly too tired to even open her mouth to form words. Abby patted Rachel on the back and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  Chef laid his hands flat on the counter. ‘I ‘ave two bakers in front of me. One the things they make look sensational. She is calm, determined, her food tastes—’ he shrugged a shoulder ‘—parfait. Perfect.’

  ‘The other.’ He paused, rubbed his chin with his fingers and thought about what to say next. ‘The other is a mess. Some things she makes they look…grotesque.’

  Abby gasped and stepped forward. George held her back.