Winner Bakes All (5 page)

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!”

“We could add marshmallow rocks on top, and I could do different dinos out of chocolate, like a stegosaurus and a T. rex!” Lexi chimed in.

“What about cave paintings? It's a caveman cupcake…let's do some cave paintings on a chocolate cave. We can mold the cave shape by pouring milk chocolate into a funnel!” Jenna added.

“Brilliant, ladies! Get to it!” Juliette called. “You have fifty minutes left!”

They raced around the kitchen, tripping over each other and spilling batter and chocolate everywhere. When the cupcakes came out of the oven, the cake was rich and gooey, and Jenna piped an extra large mound of chocolate marshmallow frosting on top. In the end, they presented three different cupcakes to Juliette on a platter—each one delicious and elaborately decorated.

“By George, I think you've got it!” Juliette cheered. “You could actually win this, girls!”

“Good thing we didn't make a
Tyrannosaurus wreck
,” Jenna joked.

The girls groaned but felt revved and ready for battle!

The night before the
Battle of the Bakers
, Sadie couldn't sleep a wink. She sat on the edge of her bed, dribbling her basketball and trying to go over all the things Juliette told them to remember: stay focused, double-check each measurement before you put in an ingredient, taste everything before you serve it to the judges. It was a lot like cramming for her math test. She knew she had to keep her cool and not panic, even if the clock was ticking down and they had thirty seconds left to finish the round.

When her alarm finally went off at 6 a.m., she grabbed her skateboard, raced downstairs, and waited anxiously at the door for Juliette's car to pick her up and take her to the TV studio. The rest of the audience—including Sadie's parents—would be in the studio for the taping at 10 a.m.

“She's not going to be here for an hour, hon,” her mom said, yawning. “You want some breakfast?”

“I can't eat—I'm way too nervous!” Sadie said. “This is huge, Mom. Really huge. This can make or break a cupcake business!”

“I know, Sadie, but I want you to keep things in perspective. It's just a baking contest. It's not the end of the world if you guys don't win. You know that from basketball. It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”

Sadie knew her mom was right, but this felt so much more important than any basketball game she had ever competed in. Maybe it was because PLC was something she had worked so hard to build from the ground up. This was the biggest and best thing that had ever happened to their cupcake club. They just
had
to win!

Juliette pulled up to Sadie's house fifteen minutes early. Kylie was already in the backseat and yanked Sadie in next to her. “Get in! Hurry! We have three more stops to make, and I want to be there super early!”

Sadie was happy to see that her BFF was as much a basket case as she was. “I couldn't sleep,” Sadie confided.

“Me neither. I was up counting cupcake wrappers. I wanted to make sure we had enough for all the rounds—just in case we make it to the 500 cupcake finale!”

“Didn't I tell you guys to get some rest?” Juliette sighed. “You're going to fall asleep over your batter.”

“Not a chance,” Kylie assured her. “I'm not sleeping through PLC's TV debut!”

They picked up Lexi, Jenna, and Delaney and headed on the highway to the show's Westport studios. As soon as they entered the on-ramp, they were in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“We're never going to get there!” Kylie whined. “Maybe try the right lane…or get off at the next exit and go on local streets?”

“No backseat drivers,” Juliette replied. “We'll get there in plenty of time, I promise.”

She kept her word: they arrived before any of the other contestants and had time to look around.

“You must be Peace, Love, and Cupcakes.” A man wearing a headset rushed over to them. “I'm Jules Goldberg, associate producer.”

“What gave us away?” Jenna joked, pointing to their PLC T-shirts.

“Yes, the shirts.” Mr. Goldberg nodded. “But I also recognized you from your audition video. Very impressive!”

“We try!” Kylie smiled. “Are we the first bakers here?”

“Oh, yes. I don't expect the others to arrive for a while. This is old hat to them. They pretty much just show up for the taping.”

Lexi gulped. “Old hat? You mean all of our competitors have already been on the show?”

“Yes,” the producer said, checking his clipboard. “Or on other baking competitions. Or in national championships. We have quite a few champions in the house.”

Sadie looked anxiously at Kylie. “Champions? They're putting us up against champions?”

“Relax, girls,” Juliette assured them. “You're very well-prepared for
Battle
of
the
Bakers
.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” Lexi said, picking up a strange plastic tool off a countertop. “I don't even know what this is.”

“Um, I believe that is an icing comb,” Juliette offered. “You use it for making ridges and swirls on cakes.”

“Or for fixing your hair,” Delaney said, pretending to touch up her blond ponytail. “Do I look ready for my close-up?”

“Have you ever
seen
a kitchen like this?” Sadie gasped. She glided around the floor on her skateboard. “It's huge! There are like six ovens and four fridges! I'm going to need my skateboard just to get from one end to the other!”

“What do you suppose this does?” Kylie said, picking up a strange tubelike object with a trigger. She pressed a button and a blue flame shot out.

“It's a blowtorch,” Juliette said, grabbing it out of her hands. “You use it for desserts like crème brûlée. Do not touch! We don't want to set the place on fire before we even start baking.”

Sadie was zipping from corner to corner, checking out the equipment. “And, Sadie, no skateboard,” Juliette added. “I'm not sure the judges will appreciate cupcakes on wheels.”

“Go on, ladies, get acquainted with your space. Set up your tools,” Mr. Goldberg called over his shoulder. “You have plenty of time. I, on the other hand, have camera angles to check.”

Three hours flew by as the girls made notes of everything that was in the pantry and tried to figure out how to start the timer on the industrial oven.

“Are you sure it will ring at twenty-two minutes? We don't want our cupcakes to burn!” Kylie said, watching Sadie punch the numbers on the digital panel.

“Kylie, we've practiced a dozen times. It works just fine,” Sadie insisted.

“This is just so different from our kitchens at home,” Kylie added. “It's all so big and modern. I'm used to my mom's old KitchenAid—not this high-tech blender-mixer-thingamajig.”

“They really do have everything a baker could want,” Juliette said. “It's amazing. You girls should be very excited to have all of this at your fingertips.”

“I have never seen so many piping tips.” Lexi's eyes were wide. “I think I've died and gone to cupcake heaven.”

“That's the spirit,” Juliette said. “Think of the possibilities!”

Just then, a noisy group entered the studio.

“OMG!” cried Sadie. “That's him! That's Benny Volero, the Cake King! That guy's won every Food Network competition he's ever been on. He's a pro! He built a replica of the
Titanic
out of cake and sank it in a swimming pool!”

Lexi nodded. “He's a legend. Seriously, how can we ever expect to win against him?”

Sadie glanced across the kitchen set. Benny was signing autographs for the cameramen. He had two commercial mixers, a fondant roller machine, and his own personal piping tips—not to mention a team of six guys in white chef coats. Her stomach did a flip-flop.

“Didn't anyone tell him the kitchen is fully stocked?” Delaney wondered out loud.

“He's Benny. He's the best of the best—so he needs the best stuff,” Kylie explained.

“He's not so tough,” Jenna piped up. “What's he got that we don't?”

“A hit TV show, a chain of bakeries, about a dozen cookbooks with his name on them…” Sadie sighed. “I think he even has a street named after him in Stamford.”

“Oh,” Jenna winced. “Good point.”

“But what we lack in experience, we make up for in style!” Kylie tried to cheer on her team.

“That's right,” Juliette insisted. “You girls have come a long way, and you're going to give these bakers a good fight.”

The girls watched as the rest of the bakers filed in. The next ones to arrive were the Connecticut Cupcake sisters, Cece and Chloe.

“They are so organized,” Sadie whispered. “Look at all those ingredients in perfect little pink jars and boxes. They even have pink bows in their hair to match!”

Then there was Dina Pinkerton, Sugar Fingers owner and a two-time
Battle
of
the
Bakers
winner.

“Oh, no…not her!” Kylie pretended to bang her head against the kitchen counter.

“The judges love her…we're doomed,” said Jenna. “She's a whiz with vegan cupcakes. You can't top her tofu frosting, trust me.”

Sadie had to admit the competition looked pretty fierce. How could a group of fifth-graders stand a chance? Then she remembered a basketball game she'd played two years earlier against Rye Country Day School.

“You never know! Sometimes, at the last minute, someone steals the ball,” she told her cupcake club.

“There are no basketballs here, Sadie,” Kylie reminded her. “Just cupcakes.”

“And your skateboard.” Jenna giggled.

“My point is I was once up against this
giant
girl from Rye Country Day School,” Sadie continued. “She was nine years old and about six feet tall! Everyone thought she was unbeatable. Well, I stole the ball right out from between her hands and I won the game. We creamed those Rye Reptiles!”

“So you're saying there is someone who is actually
taller
than you in elementary school?” Jenna asked. “I don't believe it.”

“I think what Sadie is trying to say is ‘nothing is impossible,'” Kylie stepped in. “Am I right?”

Sadie smiled. “I knew you'd get it. And I swear, this girl was at least a head taller than me!”

•••

Jerry Wolcott, host of
Battle
of
the
Bakers
, suddenly summoned everyone to attention. “That's my cue to go to my seat in the audience,” Juliette said. “Break an egg, girls. Make me proud!”

There was no more time for nerves or self-doubt. “Cupcake bakers, may I please have one representative from each team in the center of the kitchen?” Jerry called. “This person will be the team captain.”

Benny strolled over, looking confident. And Cece stepped forward (after she and Chloe thumb-wrestled for it). Kylie looked at Sadie. “You go,” she said. “Sadie, you're a real competitor—you know what it takes to win. You never give up.”

Sadie gulped. “Me? But Kylie, you're the club president. You should be the leader. Besides, what if they give us something to read? What about my dyslexia?”

Jenna gave her a little push. “Come on,
chica
, you can do it. Put on your game face and get out there!”

Lexi gave her hand a squeeze. “We believe in you, Sadie.”

Sadie walked slowly to the middle of the room where three other bakers were gathered, awaiting instructions as the camera crew tested the spotlights. She stood next to Dina Pinkerton, who was adjusting her apron. She looked cool as a cucumber. Sadie nibbled her nails.

“Hey.” Dina smiled. “I've heard some great things about your cupcakes.”

Sadie smiled back timidly. “Thanks.”

“You nervous?” Dina asked.

Sadie thought about what her basketball coach had told her a million times: “Don't let the other team see you sweat. Put on your best game face.”

“Um, no, not at all,” she lied. “I'm cool.” She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince, Dina or herself.

“Good!” Dina replied. “Because I'm a wreck! I am before every competition. But adrenaline is a good thing, you know?”

“It is?”

“Sure! Just try to focus on taste, texture, and presentation, and keep an eye on the clock. And whatever you do, don't put maraschino cherries on your cupcakes.”

“Why?” Sadie asked, puzzled.

“Because the head judge, Fiero Boulangerie,
hates
them. You'll lose if you do—trust me!”

Sadie smiled. “Thanks for the tip!”

“I've got another tip for you,” whispered Benny. “Make sure your cupcakes have some zip and zing…if you know what I mean.”

Sadie scratched her head. “Um, no, I don't know what you mean.”

“A little extra excitement—something that takes it over the top,” Benny explained.

“Oh!” said Sadie. “Like the time you made a Fourth of July cupcake on
The
Cake
King
show and it exploded?”

Cece rolled her eyes. “You don't have to throw in all those splashy tricks,” she advised. “Just make sure your cupcakes are moist and you use the best quality ingredients. That's how we've become a success.”

Sadie tried to take it all in: zip and zing, no cherries, best ingredients. She thought her head was going to explode like Benny's Fourth of July cupcake!

“Places! Places, everyone!” Jerry summoned them. “No more talking. I'd like to introduce you to the judges and then we'll start filming.”

Sadie stared out at the audience—it was a packed room. Everyone was watching! Her mom and dad were in the front row, waving at her. Please, Sadie thought, don't let them fight!

Three people walked onto the kitchen set: Fiero, Carly Nielson, owner of Jimmies, the world's first cupcakery, and…