Chapter 85: Cooking Revelation Cakes

Lus stepped into the kitchen and sighed. Had it only been a couple months ago that he dreaded stepping into this space? He still felt the flutters of anxiety that he would mess up, but there was also a sense of excitement at seeing what he could create.

And today, he had a new recipe to try. He quickly pulled up the familiar screen and navigated to [Recipes]. He clicked on the newest addition, [Revelation Cakes].

As usual, he scrolled past all the less important information to the paragraph about the associated bonus.

"Revelation Cakes can provide the perfect revelation… of your enemy's greatest secrets and weaknesses. Anyone who eats revelation cake will experience a period of unfettered truthfulness, making this a great tool for interrogations. They will not remember what has happened when the effects of the cake wear off."

Lus' eyebrows rose. That sounded incredibly useful, though he didn't really have a specific plan in mind for how he'd use it.

Shrugging, he scrolled down even further to the ingredients list. He had already checked it before the last supply run to make sure he got everything. Thankfully he had, because the cake required a fair number of unusual ingredients.

He started with chopping everything up. These cakes had a lot of strange ingredients in the batter that he wouldn't have thought about putting in a cake. First he had to chop up some Penca Nuts. The recipe said to toast them, but he had no clue how to do that.

[Put in hot oven for 8 minutes]

Smiling, he dumped the chopped nuts off the cutting board and onto a metal baking sheet, then popped it into one of the ovens and set a timer.

While he waited for the nuts to cook, he started on the Pilapella, a strange, brown fruit with a green top. He had never eaten it before and wasn't sure how to start breaking it down, but it seemed obvious that the green leaves would have to come off, so he started by cutting off the top.

To his surprise, the inside was bright yellow and very juicy. It smelled sweet and tangy and his mouth watered a bit, reminding him that he was hungry.

He stood the fruit back up and turned it in a circle, considering how best to cut it.

[Remove the skin and the hard inner core]

Lus nodded, proud that his [Chef's Intuition] had just confirmed at least part of what he planned to do anyway. He hadn't known about the inner core, so that was helpful.

He set to work with the large knife, trying not to take off too much of the yellow fruit with the brown, bumpy skin. Once he had the skin off, he studied the large, yellow inside of the pilapella. He couldn't take out the core as it was, so he cut it into quarters and sliced off the inside of each quarter.

Setting aside the firm, almost poky center pieces, he then began chopping the soft, juicy flesh into small pieces as the recipe directed.

He snuck one into his mouth and blinked at the taste that resembled bright sunshine. It was sweet with a bit of a sour note at the end and he wondered why he hadn't ever eaten any before. Then he remembered how much of his hard-earned savings he'd had to sacrifice for it.

Still, he only needed half of it for the cakes, so he could save the other half to enjoy. He'd just have to hide it well in the interbox so nobody found it and stole it.

Lus had to stop in the middle of cutting the juicy fruit up so he could remove the toasted nuts. He set them aside to cool and then finished up the pilapella.

Next he pulled out a small jar of Airries, small red, round fruits that he had only ever seen as a garnish on top of very fancy desserts.

They were whole, so he had to fish them out of the pink juice they swam in and chop each one into smaller pieces. The effort went fairly quickly, with only a couple rolling off his cutting board onto the floor before he could catch them.

With a pile of chopped pilapella, another of chopped Airries, and a pan of toasted nuts, he was finally almost ready to actually start the batter. The final fruit to prep was 3 slightly overripe, mashed Ananbas. These yellow fruits were long, skinny, and slightly curved.

The sweet, squishy insides were contained in a thick, outer shell that had to be peeled off before they could be eaten. As they aged past their prime, they turned brown and got mushy and the sweetness became overpowering. 

The ones he had were just getting past their prime. They weren't completely brown and gushy, but they weren't as firm as he preferred them. As directed, he peeled them and put them in a small bowl, then mashed them with a fork.

With the fruit and nuts ready, it was time to start on the dry ingredients. Flour, rising powder, simanin, and salt went into a bowl and he quickly stirred them together.

The wet ingredients took longer. He had to beat the eggs, then add in elsha oil, sugar, niva flavoring, and the mashed bananas. He slowly added the dry ingredients, then stirred in the airries, pilapella chunks, and nuts.

With the batter finished, he needed to get it baked. Instead of baking it in one large pan, it was supposed to be baked in a pan with small sections to create separate cakes. He couldn't find the exact pan in the kitchen, but he did find a fluffin pan that he felt made a proper substitute.

He separated the batter between all the round divots in the pan and put it in the oven to bake, setting a timer to keep track of it.

The next step, while the cakes were baking, was to make the frosting. He quickly pulled all the ingredients out: dessert cheese, milk, and butter from the interbox, fine sugar from the cupboard, and niva flavoring that was still sitting out from the cake batter.

Reading the recipe again, Lus hesitated. It called for softened dessert cheese and butter, but he hadn't thought to get them out ahead of time.

"I can pop them into the microwave heater, right?" he muttered.

[Heat for short bursts, stirring in between]

He nodded and plopped a brick of butter and another, larger brick of dessert cheese into a glass bowl, then slid that into the microwave heater for 30 seconds.

It took four rounds to get them soft enough to mix smoothly. Once they were stirred together without any visible lumps, he took the bowl back to the counter and measured in the niva flavoring.

By the time he finished getting the niva stirred in, it was time to check the cakes in the oven. He stuck a small testing stick in the middle, per the recipe's instructions. It came out clean, so he left them on the counter to cool and returned his attention to the frosting.

The next step was adding fine sugar and milk by turns, and stirring them in as he went. It sounded simple, but proved to be more difficult than he'd expected.

When he first began adding the fine sugar, he wondered how this frosting was going to work. It seemed there wasn't enough of the dessert cheese mixture for the fine sugar to dissolve into.

To his surprise, as he stirred and stirred, the fine sugar did dissolve. Not only did it dissolve, but it somehow made the mixture smoother and less thick. The small dribble of milk helped bring it together, especially as he added more fine sugar.

Each cup of fine sugar was more difficult to stir in, but if he got stuck, he found that he could add the milk and it would mix in.

By the time he finished with the last of the sugar and milk, his arm was quite sore. He stepped back and admired the final result. The smooth, cream-colored frosting looked amazing and he had to stop himself from dipping in a finger like a child.

Instead, he set it aside and grabbed the large fluffin pan. He popped out all 36 small cakes and set them on a clean countertop, then grabbed a dining knife to spread the frosting.

Lus had thought that he was through the most difficult parts of the recipe, but found that he was wrong. Frosting the cakes was much harder than he expected. The frosting got everywhere and he couldn't seem to get it smooth with the knife, no matter how many times he ran the knife across the frosted tops.

When he reached the last cake, he was a sticky, frosting-covered mess. He was about to spread on the last of the frosting when he paused.

"If I want to taste this, I should do it before I combine the cake and frosting so I don't get the ability," he muttered aloud.

Dropping the knife back into the bowl, he tore off a large bite of the cake. It was sweet and soft and spicy with small bursts of flavor from the pilapella and airries. The nuts added a slight crunchy chewy texture that made a pleasant contrast to the softness of the rest of the cake.

He swallowed the cake, then grabbed out a spoon and scooped some of the frosting into his mouth.

While the cake had been a more mildly sweet experience, set off by the spices and the fruits, the frosting was a punch of sweetness. It had some tang from the dessert cheese, but it was rich and creamy and absolutely delicious.

Lus set the cake and the frosting spoon down to take a drink, then looked at them longingly. He wanted nothing more than to try them together, but he couldn't risk spilling all of his secrets for an unknown amount of time.

As he pondered on how he could taste them together without triggering the ability, to his surprise, his [Chef's Intuition] came to the rescue.

[Add something extra to offset the ability]

"Of course!" Lus exclaimed excitedly, hurrying back to the interbox. He grabbed a couple of the airries and chopped them small, then added them to the frosting. It would change the flavor a bit, but he thought it would be a good complement.

The airries turned the small bit of frosting left to a very pale pink. He spread it on the rest of the cake, then closed his eyes and took a large bite.

The sweet, creamy frosting and the dense, rich cake married into a delicious blend of flavors that made him groan. He quickly ate the rest, then looked over the other 35 cakes. He wanted another, but he knew that it would be better to save them.

With a sigh of resignation, Lus washed off his sticky hands and gathered all of the revelation cakes into a paper bag. He had used a clear bag for his cookies and some had disappeared. He hoped using a bag that hid the contents would protect the cakes.

Once he had bagged all the cakes and buried them in the back of the nitrobox, he set to work tidying up. He had to put away all the leftover ingredients and move the dishes to the sink. He took a short break to clean out the frosting bowl with a spoon, deciding that he quite liked having some dessert recipes.

As he finished up, he considered how he might change the recipe in the future so he could enjoy it without spilling all his secrets. The easiest idea that came to mind was to add another fruit or nut to the batter. He'd have to do some research and see what he could find that would fit with the other flavors.

Lus smiled. Realizing that he was feeling confident enough to make his own substitutions and changes to even baking recipes made it feel like he really was a [Chef].