Pumpkin Cake (3)

Chapter 84: Episode 36 - Pumpkin Cake (3)

As we prepared some more of our desserts separately, we made enough so that we could supply them to our classmates who were hard at work on the candy house for 2-A.

It was already afternoon after we completed making our desserts and so we quickly hurried to our classroom to get their opinions before they turned in for the day.

"We brought refreshments!" The four of us announced to our classmates who were excited to see not only us but the food that we brought for them.

"Yes, I was starving!"

"All we did was build things, we didn't even have time to eat."

"Eat up there are lots," I said to them as I held around a tray with our desserts on top.

"You guys are awesome!"

'It seems that coming here was a good idea after all. Maybe after hearing their opinions, we can finally agree to which one we can choose.'

"As you all know, we've come here to supply you refreshments. If you would, we would appreciate it if you give us your feedback on which one you think is the best," I explained to them.

"That's easy!"

"I'll eat all four of 'em and give you my opinion!"

After hearing my explanation, everyone was even more pumped up than before to eat our desserts. We could hear different opinions as they tasted each one saying that they liked the shape of mine, Kashino's white chocolate ice cream that looked like a ghost, Andou's caramel custard cat with the cute drawn-on face, and Hanabusa's pumpkin design that was shaped to form a crescent moon. If anything, all I could hear were the compliments of everyone praising each of our desserts. I could tell that even they were having a hard time distinguishing which one they preferred more.

"Alas, I think Michiko's pumpkin-shaped cake is really different and it tastes balanced overall. I think hers is the best," one person said.

"Hers is good too, but I think I like the design more on Andou's Pumpkin Cat cake. The face is so cute and I liked the caramel custard!"

"I like Kashino's white chocolate ice cream that has a ghost face on it. I think it really cuts the sweetness of the other desserts."

"Hanabusa cut some thin pumpkin slices to design the top of his cake into a crescent. I thought that that idea was creative and there's more of a pumpkin flavor."

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"THIS IS REALLY HARD!" Our classmates all complained as they pouted their faces.

"Sheesh! All of you made this decision really hard on us," Rumi said, laughing to herself.

"Well, we thought that if we came here, we'd at least be able to decide which one's the best," Hanabusa explained.

"If it's hard for you guys too, I guess we won't be able to use your opinions to help us choose," Andou sighed.

"We're sorry we couldn't be of much help," Rumi apologized to us but I shook my head.

"No, you guys were of plenty of help. Thank you," I nodded my head at my classmates.

"Really? How? If you think about it, we just ate all of your desserts without even helping you," Rumi responded sadly.

I observed my classmates who happily stuffed their mouths with our desserts and were continuing with their candy house project. I couldn't help but enjoy the fact that their gloomy spirits from before we came in had lightened up the mood.

"Well, their feedback wasn't all that useless," Kashino spoke up. "It's fine if we think that the whole class made this pumpkin cake together…"

'We all made the pumpkin cake together? I never thought about it like that.'

"...Surprisingly, sometimes you say some nice things, Kashino," I responded with a light-hearted chuckle, but I noticed he turned his head away right after I said that. I shrugged it off and thought of it a bit more.

'Kashino's right. In a way, I guess our class really did make this cake together. We could hear their opinions about what they thought about it, but how could we implement this into our dish? We still haven't decided whose dessert we're going to sell for the next round…'

"What if we just put all four of ours on one dish?" Kashino brought up nonchalantly as if he was being sarcastic. In reality, that thought would help us from deciding whose to put up there but selling all four of ours would just be too labor-intensive and time-consuming. Maybe if we—

"Ah, that's it!" I exclaimed and the three boys looked at me as if I had some screws loose. [1]

"What, you think we should put all four of ours up there? That was just sarcasm," Kashino said in utter shock.

'Although our classmates weren't able to come to a consensus, I heard each of their opinions and I could finally gather something that would put us in the right direction.'

"No, of course not. Although all of ours tastes good by itself, there are elements in each person's dish that each of our classmates liked or thought fit in well with the others. They liked the taste and shape of my pumpkin-shaped cake, Kashino's white chocolate ice cream with the ghost face, Hanabusa's thinly cut pumpkin slices, and Andou's caramel custard filling and drawn-on face. What if we were to combine each element to produce one dish?" I thought out loud.

For a second, my group members didn't respond once they listened, but eventually, I could see their eyes start to widen.

"That's a genius idea!" Andou spoke first.

"Yeah, I like the sound of that," Hanabusa said next.

"Well, it's better than having to sell four separate dishes," Kashino responded bluntly.

"Good, now we've all come to a consensus. It's time for us to start practicing," I concluded, nodding my head in agreeance.

"Thank you, guys!" We bade farewell and left for the cooking lab to quickly start preparing our dish.

As we made it to the cooking lab, we each went over how to make each element of our dish. Since mine would be the main focal point of the dish, it was important that everyone paid attention to how it was prepared and how we could limit the amount of time spent on it by using the sweets spirits' "Sweets Magic" to ice and perfect the pumpkin-shaped cake. Kashino and Chocolat went over how they made their white chocolate ice cream ghost, Hanabusa and Cafe showed us how he wanted the pumpkin slices to be cut, glazed, and prepared on the plate, and Andou and Caramel worked on their caramel custard filling which would be an addition to my pumpkin cake. Since Andou has many siblings and is good with children, he came up with a DIY activity we could implement where customers could draw a face on their pumpkin using edible ink markers.

All in all, it seemed that everything was going well. Since no one could predict how many customers our booth would be having, we started preparing each element in masses. I and Fraise would ready our pumpkin-shaped cake for the next day of the 3rd round. Since we were quick and efficient, we spent all night prepping 500 pumpkin-shaped cakes and placed them in the fridge, ready for tomorrow's service. The three boys and their spirits also prepped a large sum of their element because of the unpredictability of how much we would sell. If one finished before the others, then we would help them get the job done. We truly were a team.

All that was left to do was to arrange them on a platter tomorrow and serve it for the next day.

We spent so much of our time and energy prepping that we hadn't even realized that we fell asleep at our stations.

[1] "Have a screw loose" means to be viewed as crazy or odd.