The Great Kitten Cake Off

by Anna Wilson

  I chuckled. ‘And indigestion.’

  ‘So I guess the only option is yours then?’ said Mads.

  I was not exactly thrilled at the idea. ‘My family are already finding it hysterical that I am entering The Cake Off. I don’t really want them around while I muck everything up. Charlie’ll want to get involved. He’s such a pain! Then there’s Kitkat – we’ll have to keep him out of the way.’

  ‘Just chill!’ said Mads. ‘You worry too much.’

  ‘OK,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ll text Mumand tell her we’re going into town. I’ll ask her later if you can come round and bake tomorrow.’

  So that was how I found myself being dragged around Cakeland. Mads treats any kind of shopping like an extreme sport: count up the money, give yourself a goal, synchronize watches . . . SHOP!

  I am not so keen.

  ‘Just so you know, Mads,’ I said, as we waited for the bus. ‘I really don’t want to end up spending a ton of money on this. I’m saving up for some new clothes.’

  ‘Don’t stress,’ said Mads airily. ‘Mum gave me some money when I told her we’d entered The Junior Cake Off and needed to practise.’

  ‘Wow, that was nice of her,’ I said. I couldn’t see my mum handing over cash as easily as that.

  ‘Not really. She went a bit green when I mentioned baking, so I kind of already promised we would be doing it at yours. She couldn’t get the money out of her purse fast enough then,’ Mads said.

  ‘You are unbelievable.’

  Mads grinned. ‘That’s me.’

  We got off the bus and headed to Cakeland.

  The window display was awesome: it was decked out in a summer holiday theme with sand to make a beach, and cookie cutters in the shape of shells and starfish strewn about. There were pastel-coloured buckets full of kitchen utensils in matching shades of pink, yellow, blue and green, and there was a huge gingerbread sandcastle in the middle, covered with sweets and icing. On top of the castle was a flag with the words ‘Are you ready for The Cake Off?’

  Above the castle, hung across the shop window, was a long line of pastel-coloured bunting with the words ‘What Are You Waiting For? Bake!’ written on the triangular pieces of fabric.

  I felt my mouth go dry.

  ‘Isn’t it COOL?’ Mads cried, gesturing to the display. ‘I love this place!’

  I swallowed. ‘Mads, I – I’m not sure about this . . .’

  Seeing the amazing window dressing had sent waves of panic through me. I could not even face the school Cake Off, let alone the real thing. What had I been thinking?

  ‘I think we should write to The Cake Off and say you want to do it on your own,’ I said in a rush. ‘I don’t know one end of an egg whisk from the other.’

  ‘Well, you must know that,’ Mads said, frowning. ‘Everyone knows that – the whisking end is the bit which is all . . . whisk-y,’ she said helpfully.

  I scowled at her. ‘You know what I mean. I can’t do this. I’m a terrible baker!’

  I thought about all the episodes of The Cake Off that I had ever seen. The contestants had produced the most amazing creations. One guy had built a barn out of gingerbread with magical, delicate spun sugar all over it to make it look like it had a thatched roof. Another had baked a cake that looked like a swimming pool, with little figures made of marzipan swimming up and down in the bluey-green icing. I thought back to those Play-Doh cookies and winced. How would I ever be able to create a Show Piece, even with Mads to help me?

  Mads put a reassuring hand on my arm. ‘Don’t worry, Ellie,’ she said. ‘This shop has all the right things for you to do the artistic bit. You are so clever, you’ll be able to make something incredible. All you need is the right kind of decorations. We are the Dream Team, remember? You are not alone.’

  I bit my lip and frowned.

  ‘Look,’ Mads went on, ‘if you’re worried about the baking bit—’

  ‘The baking bit?’ I interrupted. ‘It’s all about baking, you noodle!’

  Mads shook her head. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she insisted. ‘You just need some practice. That’s what the school Cake Off is all about. I’m sure you’ll pick it up super-fast. Besides, you need to teach me how to do the arty stuff! Now, come on. We’ve got shopping to do.’

  I sighed and followed her into the shop.

  Mads became extremely excited at the sight of the baking paraphernalia, picking up packets and shoving them in my face. ‘Cookie cutters in the shape of poodles! Cupcake holders all the colours of the rainbow! Special squidgy icing thingummies to squidge icing on to cupcakes!’

  I traipsed around after her as she picked up pot after can after packet of things I had not even known existed before that day.

  ‘Look! We have to get these.’ Mads was showing me some tiny silver balls. ‘And look at this!’ She shoved a can of edible silver spray into my hands.

  We left the shop loaded down with silver bows, balls, sprinkles, cans of ‘pearl powder’ spray, tiny sugar butterflies, flowers, love hearts, roll-on fondant icing, food colouring, piping bags, icing sugar – you name it, we had bought it. And spent all the money Mads’s mum had given her, too.

  On the bus home I could not stop the nagging little voice of doubt in my mind from growing louder and louder.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of stuff here,’ I said, nodding at the bulging shopping bags. ‘Why do we need all this?’

  ‘If we are going to stand out and get noticed in the school Cake Off, we have to do something spectacular,’ said Mads dangerously.

  ‘Cos this is all about getting noticed, isn’t it?’ I teased. ‘By a certain Ted Watson?’

  Mads immediately looked guilty. ‘Nooooo!’ she protested.

  ‘So you don’t think that entering this baking contest is going to get Ted to fall head-over-heels in love with you?’ I asked with a grin.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I just . . . Oh, whatever. Here you are, take the bags. You will ask your mum if it’s OK for tomorrow, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, grabbing everything and standing up.

  ‘We’re so going to own this competition!’ said Mads happily.

  Personally, I wasn’t so sure, but there was no arguing with her.

  There was no getting out of the school Cake Off either.

  We got back after school the next day to find Mum about to leave for a run. Again.

  She has been doing this ever since she turned forty: she waits for me to come home and then dumps Charlie on me while she goes jogging around the park. When I complained about being used as a babysitter, Dad said I shouldn’t worry, it was only a Mid-Life Crisis and it wouldn’t last. Unfortunately Mum heard him and got cross. Dad tried to lighten the atmosphere with a badly timed joke about ‘middle-age spread’ (which sounded like a rather nasty alternative to Nutella), and that’s when Mum started yelling. I put my headphones in to drown out the argument that followed and the words from the song ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ filled my ears, which I thought was pretty ironic. Not that Mum and Dad will ever split up. He is the only one who can put up with her weirdness and she is the only one who can put up with his bad sense of humour. They are a marriage made in heaven.

  ‘Hey, guys!’ said Mum.

  ‘Don’t say “Hey”,’ I said. ‘And what are you wearing? You’re not going out like that, are you?’

  ‘Cool jacket, Kate!’ Mads gushed. ‘Pink really suits you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mum. ‘Charlie told me that on Looking Good Naked they say that “black is very ageing”, so I chucked out my old kit.’

  ‘Pity he didn’t tell you pink is very headache-making,’ I muttered.

  Mum frowned. ‘What’s that, Ellie?’

  ‘Oh, she said pink is very young – er – making,’ said Mads hastily. She hissed at me from the side of her mouth: ‘Don’t annoy her.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ells?’ Mum said, winking at Mads. ‘Am I, like, embarrassing you
?’

  ‘Gosh, no,’ I said with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘Good. So, are you staying for tea, Mads? We’re having toad-in-the-hole. Matt’s cooking it when he gets in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ I said. ‘It may contain real toad.’

  ‘Oh, go on,’ said Mum. ‘It’ll be SMF!’

  ‘I – er, sorry?’ said Mads, looking confused.

  ‘SMF!’ said Mum. ‘It’s text speak for “Super Marvellous Fun”!’

  ‘It is not “text speak” for anything!’ I groaned. ‘SMF doesn’t even exist. And no one in the twenty-first century says “super marvellous fun”. Just stop it.’

  Mum pouted and made a fake ‘sorry’ face. ‘SCNR!’ she said, making her eyes big and woeful. ‘Which means “Sorry, Could Not Resist”,’ she added. Then she did the thing that is most guaranteed to make me want to scream: she clicked her fingers and waved her forefinger downward while waggling her hand and said, ‘Get me and my street lingo.’

  Mads was spluttering with laughter again.

  I scowled and made do with a silent scream.

  ‘Of course, soon it’ll be Ellie cooking for the family,’ Mum added. ‘I hear you have a plan to domesticate my daughter, Mads? Good luck with that.’

  I was fuming now. ‘I thought you were going for a run?’ I said, holding the door open for her. ‘A long one,’ I added.

  Mum took the hint and jogged down the drive, her bottom wobbling like a giant pink blancmange.

  I slammed the door behind her.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Mads. ‘You’ll have the last laugh when you show your family what you can do in the kitchen. Come on, let’s unpack the Cakeland stuff and get baking.’

  Now that we were about to start cooking, I started feeling truly anxious.

  ‘We – we didn’t get any actual cake stuff yesterday, such as – I don’t know . . . cupcake-y type ingredient-y stuff?’ I said, playing for time.

  ‘ “Cupcake-y type ingredient-y stuff”?’ Mads teased. ‘You mean like sugar, flour, eggs and butter? Everyone has those things.’

  ‘Maybe not my family,’ I replied.

  Mads put her hands on her hips. ‘If your dad is making toad-in-the-hole there will definitely be flour and eggs,’ she said.

  She was patronizing me.

  ‘OK, I knew that,’ I said. I crossed my fingers behind my back. ‘But what if we need, like, special sugar? Maybe we should leave it until Mum’s done the supermarket shop.’

  Mads tutted. ‘You are such a defeatist. Mind you . . .’ She began rummaging in a cupboard. ‘There’s a whole lot of rubbish in here.’ She started systematically emptying the shelves of jars and tins, most of which, knowing Mum, were out of date. ‘There must be flour somewhere . . . Ah! Here we are,’ she said, bringing out some more packets from the back of the cupboard. ‘Self-raising flour and sugar. Eggs and butter will be in the fridge.’

  She bustled over to take a look. ‘Eggs – check. Butter – check. Great!’ she said, all business-like. ‘Right. Now, where’s that cookbook your dad gave your mum?’

  ‘The Domestic Angel, you mean?’I said.

  Mum had gone bonkers when Dad had given her that. ‘Domestic Angel?’ she had shouted. ‘I have no desire whatsoever to become a Domestic Angel. If you’re not careful, you’ll have an Avenging Angel on your hands!’

  That had not been a good Christmas.

  Mads had found the book on the shelves and was flicking through it. ‘Cupcakes or muffins . . . there must be a recipe for those,’ she was saying. ‘You can make them look really funky, but they are quite easy to bake.’

  ‘Good luck with finding anything “funky” in that book,’ I said.

  The Domestic Angel advertises itself as a solution ‘for those who can’t . . . or won’t cook’, which is probably why Mum tried to murder Dad with it. The recipes in it are rubbish: ‘How to boil an egg’, ‘How to make a simple sauce’, ‘How to bake the perfect jacket potato’, that kind of thing. I’m not surprised that Mum isn’t interested in cooking if this is the only cookery book she has ever had.

  ‘What’ve you got in the bags?’ Charlie was standing in the doorway with Kitkat cradled in his arms and swaddled in a towel.

  ‘Oh, go away and take that cat with you! It’s unhygienic,’ I said. ‘Why’s he in a towel anyway?’

  ‘I gave him a bath in the basin so he’s nice and clean. He had actually done a bit of a pee,’ Charlie said. ‘In your room, I think.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Yes, I think he’s stressed at adapting to his new environment,’ Charlie went on. ‘Chris Packet from SpringWatchLive says that animals do that. I’ve filmed him doing it so that I can send the clip in for them to look at—’

  ‘GO AWAY!’ I yelled.

  My shouting freaked Kitkat, who immediately struggled out of Charlie’s grasp and made a running jump for the worktop, where he landed right in the middle of the tins and things. He sent a packet of spaghetti and a jar of tomato sauce flying; the spaghetti burst from the plastic and scattered everywhere, while the lid came off the jar, spurting sauce all over the floor. Kitkat made straight for the mess, dancing through it and redecorating the tiles with millions of tiny red pawprints.

  ‘Great!’ I exclaimed. ‘You can clean that up, Chazzer and then you can go away.’

  Charlie’s face crumpled as though he was about to burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, no, don’t go away. We might need you,’ said Mads, rushing to put an arm around him.

  ‘Cool,’ said Charlie. He can recover remarkably quickly from being on the verge of tears, especially when Mads is there to give him a hug. ‘So what is in those bags . . . Oohhhh!’ Charlie shrieked. ‘You’ve been to Cakeland. I LOVE that shop.’

  ‘Freak,’ I muttered.

  ‘I do too,’ said Mads. ‘We’re going to make some cupcakes with piped frosting and your clever sister is going to make them look totally amazing with all the cool stuff we bought.’

  Charlie nodded seriously. ‘Cupcakes are “This Season’s Bakery Sensation”, according to Milly Barry,’ he said. ‘I read it on her website.’

  ‘ “I read it on her website”,’ I said, mimicking my little brother. ‘What are you, ninety or something? Since when did ten-year-old boys go on Milly Barry’s website?’

  ‘He’s right, actually,’ said Mads. She snapped shut The Domestic Angel and put it back on the shelves. ‘That’s a great idea, Charlie – let’s look up one of Milly Barry’s recipes online . . .’She tailed off as she noticed my thunderous expression. ‘Er, right . . . do you reckon your mum has cupcake cases anywhere?’ she said, changing the subject hastily.

  ‘She does,’ said Charlie. ‘In that bottom drawer with all the wrapping paper and silver foil and stuff.’ He pointed at what Dad calls ‘the messy drawer’.

  I picked up a small bottle from the pile of Cakeland shopping. ‘Peppermint essence. Bleurgh!’ I pulled a face. ‘What did you get this for, Mads?’ I unscrewed the lid and sniffed. ‘Smells gross.’

  ‘Raaaow!’ said Kitkat, padding up to join us.

  ‘See, even the cat agrees,’ I joked.

  The kitten sat down abruptly and began to wash himself to get rid of the tomato sauce. He raised his back leg to lick it, and then toppled over in a backwards somersault. I sniggered.

  ‘Peppermint cupcakes!’ Mads said, her eyes lighting up. ‘They would taste awesome. I bet no one else at school would think of that,’ she went on, as she sifted through the chaos in the drawer. ‘Especially if we add chocolate. Think of those chocolate-coated peppermint creams you can get. They are lush. And remember that mint cake stuff that we bought in the Lakes on the trip we went on last summer? You loved it. I bet that has peppermint essence in it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I had gone pretty crazy for that mint cake.

  ‘Here’s a peppermint cupcake recipe,’ said Charlie. He had got hold of Mum’s iPad (which she never lets me use) and was pointing at the screen. ‘I found it on Milly Barry�
�s website, actually.’

  I found it on Milly Barry’s website, actually: give me strength. ‘Are you a member of her fan club, too?’ I said.

  Charlie stuck out his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘Does she have one?’

  I rolled my eyes.

  Mads had taken the iPad and was reading through the recipe. ‘Yes, here you go, listen to this,’ she said. ‘Minty-Choc-Chip Cupcakes’.

  For the cupcakes

  • 225 grams self-raising flour

  • 4 tbspns cocoa powder

  • 1 tspn baking powder

  • 225 grams caster sugar

  • 225 grams unsalted butter

  • 4 eggs

  • 100 grams plain chocolate

  For the icing

  • 115 grams unsalted butter

  • 225 grams icing sugar (sifted)

  • 1 tspn peppermint essence

  • food colouring (blue)

  • 100 grams plain chocolate chips

  (or chocolate sprinkles)

  ‘Oh right, so it’s only the icing that’s minty,’ I said. ‘Not the actual cake part? I guess that’s OK.’

  Charlie had picked up the tomato-splattered kitten and was talking to it in a stupid baby voice. ‘Does Kittykatty think that Ellie likes the recipe?’ he cooed.

  ‘Shut up, Chazzer,’ I said, throwing some kitchen roll at him. ‘I thought you had some cleaning up to do?’

  ‘Miiiaowww!’ screeched Kitkat.

  ‘Making the cupcakes should be the easy bit,’ Mads was saying as she scanned the screen. ‘All the work’s in the decoration – and that’s where you come in.’ She looked up at me.

  ‘This is so awesome,’ Charlie cried, dropping Kitkat to the floor. ‘I’m going to film you baking. If anything goes wrong I can send it in to Barry Bill’s Big Fat TV Bloopers. You get paid £100 for every clip they show of people falling over or hurting themselves—’

  ‘Chazzer,’ I said. ‘You are not filming anything. You are cleaning up this mess. And then you are going to go away and take that with you.’ I pointed at Kitkat, who was now stalking a dry piece of spaghetti under the table.