Winner Bakes All Page 4

  “Not for my girl,” Mr. Harris said. “You’ll cream ’em,” he added.

  “So you’re saying, nothing is impossible?”

  Mr. Harris looked up from his desk. “What are you up to, Sadie?” he asked.

  “Nothing!” Sadie planted a kiss on his cheek.

  She raced upstairs to get into her uniform. At the game, she made sure that her PLC members were seated right behind her family on the bleachers. “I’m going to go for a long shot, and when I make it, I want you to make sure to remind my dad: ‘Nothing is impossible.’ Got that?”

  Lexi looked puzzled. “Is that code for something?”

  “Yes, it’s code for ‘Fix Mr. Ludwig’s roof!’” Sadie explained. “Just make sure he gets it, okay?”

  “Check that,” Jenna teased. “Operation Convince Daddy is underway!”

  “But, Sadie…what if you miss the shot?” Kylie asked.

  “I won’t. I can’t,” Sadie replied.

  •••

  The Blakely Bears were trailing the North Canaan Cougars by one point with only two seconds left in the game. Sadie grabbed the ball and headed down the court. The Cougar defender on her was enormous—at least a head taller than Sadie—and she was waving her arms in the air, blocking Sadie no matter which way she turned. The girl had her completely boxed in.

  “She’ll never make it!” Lexi cried, covering her eyes. “I can’t watch!”

  “Go, Sadie!” her father cheered. “You can do it!”

  Just then, Sadie faked out the Cougar player. She zigged while defense zagged.

  “Go!” screamed her PLC mates. “Go, Sadie, go!”

  She broke free and headed down court, straight for the net. But it was still a tough shot from far away.

  “It’s impossible to sink that,” Kylie piped up. “Don’t you think, Mr. Harris?”

  Sadie threw the ball, and it landed with a swoosh through the hoop. The Bears won the game, and the team lifted Sadie on their shoulders and carried her down the court.

  “Woo-hoo! That’s my girl!” Mr. Harris cheered. Tyler and Corey fist-pumped each other.

  “Wow, so I guess that means nothing is impossible. Right, Mr. Harris?” Jenna winked.

  Sadie’s dad sighed. “Okay, girls. Point taken. You want me to fix the Golden Spoon’s roof even if I think it’s impossible to fix.”

  “Who, us?” Kylie replied innocently. “I don’t know what you mean…”

  Mr. Harris chuckled. “Well, your pal Sadie sure does. She was planning this all along.”

  Sadie raced to the stands and hugged her family and friends.

  “Awesome shot, sis!” her brother Tyler said. “Almost as amazing as my winning basket over the Groton Gators in seventh grade.”

  “Hey, Dad…” Sadie smiled. “Something to tell me?”

  “You won…and you win,” her father said. “I’ll let Mr. Ludwig know I’ll take the job.”

  Whenever Sadie’s cell phone rang at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning, it was undoubtedly a cupcake emergency.

  “Okay, this better be good, Kylie.” She yawned and stretched. “I was just in the middle of this awesome dream. I won the WNBA championships, and Michael Jordan was handing me this huge, gold trophy…”

  “Rise and shine, Sadie,” Kylie chirped. “We have work to do! I just took a huge rush order from Mrs. Lila Vanderwall, president of the New Fairfield Art Society.”

  “Okay…let me have it. What, when, and how many?” Sadie sighed.

  “What you should be asking is how much—as in how much is she willing to pay us to get this order done for a luncheon tomorrow morning. A ton!”

  Sadie was suddenly wide awake. “Like how much is a ton?”

  “Double our usual price…plus delivery!” Kylie exclaimed.

  “OMG! That’s awesome! Give me ten minutes to get dressed and grab my apron, and I’ll be there!”

  When Sadie arrived at Kylie’s house, Lexi and Jenna were already in the kitchen.

  “This is the plan,” Lexi said, handing Sadie a diagram. “We need to do 250 cupcakes celebrating the art society’s new exhibit of Moroccan art. Mrs. Vanderwall wants the Moroccan coat of arms on every cupcake. We googled it, and now we need to get rolling on the fondant…”

  “We’re making ginger spice cupcakes with a ginger mascarpone frosting,” Jenna explained. “I’m thinking maybe a pinch of cumin for that authentic Moroccan flavor.”

  “What should I do?” Sadie said, peeling off her coat and hat, and tying on an apron.

  Kylie handed her a carton of eggs. “Get crackin’ on that batter!”

  The girls needed nearly two hours to perfect the recipe and another two hours to bake and frost the cupcakes. While Jenna and Sadie made sure the cake and frosting had just the right amount of “kick,” Kylie and Lexi worked to create a bright yellow, green, and red shield on each cupcake. On either side of the shield were unicorns.

  “I think my unicorns need to look more magical,” Kylie suggested, comparing her fondant sculpture to the image they printed off the computer.

  Lexi nodded and brushed a unicorn’s gold horn with luster dust. “Magical enough for ya?”

  After an entire day of baking and decorating, the cupcakes were boxed and ready to be delivered Sunday morning.

  “I smell like a Cinnabon.” Sadie laughed. “Jenna got more cinnamon on me than in the batter!”

  “Well, at least you don’t have mascarpone in your hair,” Lexi complained.

  “Smile and say ‘mascarpone cheese,’” Kylie said, snapping a photo on her phone.

  •••

  The next morning, Mr. Harris drove the girls to the art society and the girls began to unload the cupcakes. There were twenty-two boxes, each one delicately packed with tissue paper between the cupcakes to prevent them from bumping around in Mr. Harris’s truck.

  “I’m so happy to see that you’re prompt,” Mrs. Vanderwall greeted them. “I wanted to have plenty of time to set the table perfectly. Please follow me.”

  She led them through a beautiful room filled with hand-painted Moroccan tiles in shades of turquoise, orange, and gold. Ceramic pots, plates, and lanterns were arranged in a dazzling array of colors and shapes.

  “Wow!” Lexi whispered. “This is amazing!”

  “I thought we would display the cupcakes on these authentic Moroccan platters,” Mrs. Vanderwall explained, showing the girls to a long rectangular table covered in bright linens.

  Lexi opened the first box and gently placed a cupcake in the center of a tray. “Perfect!” she said, examining it.

  “What on earth? What is that?” Mrs. Vanderwall gasped in horror.

  “Um, it’s a cupcake?” Kylie replied, confused.

  “I ordered 250 cupcakes with the Moroccan coat of arms on them,” Mrs. Vanderwall shrieked. “That is not it!”

  “Oh, no,” Kylie winced. “I knew I should have made my unicorns look more magical!”

  “There are no unicorns on the Moroccan coat of arms!” the woman screamed. She was fanning herself with an exhibit program and turning a bright shade of red.

  Lexi shook her head in disbelief. “We must have made a mistake! They all look so much alike! Do you have a Moroccan coat of arms you can show us?”

  Mrs. Vanderwall pointed to a huge flag hanging on the wall. There were two lions on it—and no unicorns.

  “What you have made is the Scottish coat of arms,” Mrs. Vanderwall sputtered. “I will be humiliated at my luncheon!”

  “Dios mío!” Jenna whispered. “We are in big trouble!”

  “It’s not a problem…I promise you, we can fix it!” Kylie tried to calm the flustered woman.

  “We can?” Sadie whispered. “We only have two hours until the luncheon!”

  “We always carry a repair kit with us in case of a cupcak
e emergency,” Lexi explained. “We’ll just take off the horns and reshape and paint the unicorns to look like lions.”

  “I feel faint…I must sit down!” Mrs. Vanderwall moaned. “My luncheon is ruined…I’m disgraced. Whatever shall I tell the Moroccan prime minister’s wife?”

  “Don’t tell her anything!” Kylie pleaded. “Just give us a chance to fix this!”

  While the girls did plastic surgery on the unicorns, Sadie mixed red and yellow food coloring to repaint them a golden hue. The girls all brushed on the color with lightning speed and were just finishing the last cupcake as the first guest entered the room.

  “What beautiful Moroccan cupcakes,” a lady gushed.

  “Oh, I’m so relieved to hear you say that.” Mrs. Vanderwall reappeared, mopping her brow with an embroidered hankie. “We’re so sorry your husband, the prime minister, couldn’t be here to join us as well.” She gave the girls a dirty look and escorted her distinguished guest around the exhibit.

  Sadie looked down at her shirt, pants, sneakers, and hands. Everything was stained with red food coloring. “I look like a ladybug,” she groaned.

  “Technically, ladybugs are red with black spots,” Jenna corrected her. “Just sayin’…”

  “Let’s just get our check and get out of here,” Sadie sighed.

  The girls made their way through the crowd to Mrs. Vanderwall, hoping she’d forgive and forget and hand over their $1,200.

  “Well, I’m glad everything worked out and you’re happy,” Kylie said, putting out her hand to get paid.

  “Happy? You nearly gave me a heart attack today! I am anything but happy! And I do not intend to pay you one cent for this frightful experience.”

  “What? You have to pay us!” Sadie cried. “We worked all day on your cupcakes…”

  “And they were wrong. I do not pay for mistakes. Now leave immediately.” She turned her back and stomped away.

  “I’m so sorry, Sadie,” Kylie said, putting her arm around her friend. “I know you were counting on your share of the money.”

  Not only was she counting on it, she was planning on using it to buy her new basketball uniform.

  “Well, it could have been worse…” Jenna said.

  “How?” asked Sadie.

  “Give me a minute…I’m working on it.”

  “I got it: we could have made a coat of arms…with arms on it,” Kylie joked. “Like an octopus!”

  “I have to hand it to you!” Jenna laughed.

  “You guys are so corny! Get it? Uni-corny?” Lexi giggled.

  Sadie couldn’t help but laugh, too. “We got no money…but we’re still funny!” she added. No cupcake catastrophe could stop the girls of PLC!

  Mr. Harris and his crew had worked two weeks on the Golden Spoon—and it was still nowhere near ready to reopen.

  “We can’t patch the broken rafters. We need to start with brand-new decking,” Sadie’s dad tried to explain to Mr. Ludwig.

  “I don’t know what that means…and I don’t care,” Mr. Ludwig moaned. “Just fix it.” The entire store was now covered in ugly black tarp, and Mr. Ludwig couldn’t bear to see his beautiful Golden Spoon in such a state of disarray.

  “Wow,” said Sadie when her dad took her to visit the site. “This is one big hot mess, huh?”

  Mr. Harris nodded. “You’re not kidding, kiddo. This is some fine job you got me into.”

  •••

  “I think my dad is going to kill me for making him repair the Golden Spoon,” Sadie told her friends at lunch the next day at school. “It’s taking way longer than he thought.”

  “Tell me about it,” sighed Kylie. “Without Mr. Ludwig’s order, we’re down about $900 in sales these past two weeks.”

  “That’s not good.” Jenna whistled through her teeth. “We can’t stay in business unless we get more business.”

  Sadie had done everything she could. Their only option now was to wait for her dad to finish his work on the Golden Spoon—and hope that its customers came back.

  The only good news in her life was her math quiz score.

  “An A-minus! Sadie, that’s wonderful!” her mother declared when Sadie showed it to her after school. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I guess I’ll have even more time to study with our cupcake business drying up.” Sadie sighed.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” her mom said as she hugged her. “I know how much it means to you girls. Maybe it’ll bounce back.”

  Sadie went to her bedroom where she could think. She dribbled a ball on the hardwood floor. It was what she did whenever she was worried or upset.

  “Money, math, Mr. Ludwig,” she repeated with each bounce of the ball. “Mom, Dad, divorce. Peace, Love, Cupcakes.”

  She threw the ball, and it bounced off the back of her door, just missing the net. She was about to take another shot when her iPod touch rang. It was Kylie calling her on FaceTime.

  “Put that ball down, Sadie…we’re going to battle!”

  “Huh?” Sadie asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Remember that video we sent in auditioning for Battle of the Bakers? Well, I got an email today from the producers. They want us to compete in two weeks!”

  “Are you serious?” Sadie gasped. “We’re going to be on TV?”

  They both jumped up and down and screamed.

  “I am calling an emergency meeting of PLC tomorrow after school,” Kylie said breathlessly. “We need a serious battle plan—and more hands on deck. I’m thinking we should call my camp friend Delaney and get her on board, too. And we’ll need to watch every episode from the past three years and take notes.”

  Sadie’s head was spinning, and things got even crazier as soon as Lexi and Jenna heard the news. They came to the teachers’ lounge kitchen the next day with a long list of what the club needed for battle.

  “Let’s start with a dozen more tips for piping,” Lexi said. “If we want to look like professionals, we need the right tools.”

  “And I wrote down key ingredients we have to bring,” Jenna said. “Ten types of chocolate, three types of vanilla, some imported spices…”

  “Whoa, guys, slow down!” Juliette said. “I think it’s fine to create a wish list, but you have to be smart about this. You don’t have an unlimited budget.”

  “But how will we win if we don’t have all this?” Lexi insisted. “Those other bakers will be much more prepared.”

  “You’ll do the best with what you have,” Juliette replied. “You always have, and your cupcakes are amazing. This isn’t a contest about who has more money to spend. It’s about being creative and smart.”

  Kylie sighed. “In other words, we don’t stand a chance. We’re totally out of our league.”

  “If the producers thought that, they never would have asked you to compete,” Juliette pointed out.

  “Maybe they thought we’d provide some comic relief on the show,” Jenna said. “We did leave in the part where Sadie got a flour shower.”

  “They obviously saw star quality in your club,” Juliette said. “So let’s just be optimistic, and you girls do what you do best: bake cupcakes!”

  •••

  Kylie thought it would be most efficient to divide and conquer, so she gave each of the girls an assignment. Lexi packed boxes with fondant, modeling chocolate, molds and assorted sprinkles, sanding sugars, and edible glitter. That way, they’d have tons of options for decorating, no matter what the challenge. Jenna was entrusted with all of PLC’s recipes. She organized them by theme, flavor, and filling, and printed them out on recipe cards.

  Sadie, Kylie, and Delaney divided the sixty-six previously aired episodes of Battle of the Bakers between them and took notes on what the judges liked or disliked and what the winners baked. Every episode consisted of two mystery challenges and ingredients—plus
a final presentation round for the finalists. The last bakers standing were the winners.

  “I’m definitely seeing a pattern,” Sadie reported to her clubmates. “The judges hate when you use anything artificial like food coloring. This one baker won with a red velvet cupcake she made with beet juice.”

  “Eww, gross!” Jenna cried. “No beets are going near my cupcakes.”

  “Then there was this other guy who made a kale cupcake…” Sadie explained.

  “Kale?” Delaney made a face. “As in that green stuff?”

  “Yup,” replied Sadie. “Topped with cream cheese frosting and crushed hazelnuts. The judges said it was ‘divine.’”

  “Beets, kale…doesn’t anyone do a plain, old chocolate cupcake anymore?” Jenna sighed. “Has the entire world gone loco?”

  “I think it would be fun for you to expand our horizons a little,” Juliette suggested. “Beets or no beets, you should get a little creative.”

  The cupcake club decided a little practice would be a good idea. “Pretend I’m the judge,” Juliette instructed. “This is just like Battle of the Bakers, girls. I’m going to give you a category, and you’ll have sixty minutes to create a cupcake that is both delicious and artistically pleasing.”

  “I can handle the artistically pleasing part,” Lexi said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that!” Juliette chuckled. “Your category is caveman cupcakes, and your time starts now!”

  The girls looked at each other, completely stumped.

  “Did cavemen even eat cupcakes?” Sadie asked.

  “Do you mean real cavemen…or like The Flintstones?” Jenna asked.

  “Up to you! Any theme could come up on Battle of the Bakers,” Juliette insisted. “Think outside the box!”

  Kylie closed her eyes and tried to picture a prehistoric setting. “I’m thinking swamp beast…” she said.

  “Ooh, swamp beast cupcakes. Yum!” Jenna said sarcastically.

  “What about mud? Like the Mississippi mud pie cupcakes we once baked?” Sadie suggested.

  “Exactly!” said Juliette. “Think about what you’ve perfected already and how you can adapt it to the theme!”