Cream Tea and Cloudberry Cake, page 1
Cream Tea and Cloudberry Cake
By Laura Briggs
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2022 Laura Briggs
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Image: “Cornish Bakery.” Original art, “Man Traveling Near Seaside” by Artisticco Llc, “Sweet treats” by Elena Mikhaylova , “Quaint Village Street with Water Scene” by Terry Katz, “Luxury old fashioned houses buildings” by Christos Georghiou , and “Spring Ribbon,” by Zandiepants. Used with permission. http://www.dreamstime.com/
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Dear Readers,
Who doesn’t love a good battle of the bakers? The fun flavors, incredible artistry, and occasional moments of disaster are precisely what has had so many of us addicted to episodes of the The Great British Bake Off, me included.
As a longtime fan of the show, I’ve paid homage to it in both A Bake Off in Cornwall and Cornish Sweets and Wedding Treats. But this latest story puts a different spin on baking rivalries—the kind without ‘lights, camera, action’, meaning there's more at stake than winning a trophy, as perfectionist Prue and no-nonsense Dinah square off to see who can woo the most business in the sleepy Cornish village.
Naturally, Julianne is forced to play referee, despite her loyalty to Dinah. If only her latest task as a wedding consultant didn’t have a popular magazine pitting the bakers’ talents against each other in a bid to be featured in an upcoming issue. Will Dinah's cake win the day—or will Prue be the last baker standing with her more precise, if less heartfelt, creation? Julianne is less sure than she wants to be…and it doesn’t look promising for Dinah’s temper to stay in check as Prue subtly begins to push all her buttons with selling tactics that seem just shy of sabotage.
Thankfully, former manor house maid Gemma is on hand to sympathize, although Ceffylgwyn’s most famous author seems a bit lonely to Julianne, who worries the young romance writer is giving up on finding her own happy ending in life. Compelled to get involved, we see Julianne trying, as usual, to make a happy ending appear out of thin air, against the sage advice of Matthew.
It’s escapism, idyllic pastures, and gentle adventure, as always, so pour a cuppa and come along … and a lovely cream-and-jam scone on the side will help stave off cravings for the medley of bakes to follow!
Cream Tea and Cloudberry Cake
by
Laura Briggs
Chapter One
Being the mother of a new baby doesn't leave me with very much time for gourmet cooking, especially with three kids, a husband whose work involves tending gardens far and wide, and an event planning service to run ... you know, when I'm not doing anything else, like a dozen loads of laundry.
This summer, my first two children had been packed on a plane to America for the long-promised summer holiday with Gran and Gramp, my parents, which made my house a quieter version of itself. For one week, I had only fixed two lunches in the morning — one for Matt, who needed protein and extra carbs for long days of breaking soil and mulching plants, and one for our pre-adolescent foster son Joel, who was going through a thing where he only liked crabmeat sandwiches. School was out, the latest wedding on the books for Save the Date promised to give us a new boost of business, and the only extra appointments on my calendar were Joel's bi-weekly therapy sessions and his tutored lessons to help him advance to the next grade after a few academic snafus.
For the first time in seven years, my daughter Sylvia's bed was actually made first thing in the morning, because no one had slept in it — my son Heath's jeans had no surprises in their pockets, because they were the ones I had already sorted for laundering, not the newest pair that might contain a half-eaten cracker-and-cheese sandwich.
I could lounge on the sofa and read a magazine for an entire half hour, with Matt promising to pick up takeaway for dinner if I wanted. But that was only if Lottie hadn't found out that her free-floating days in my womb were now complicated by this awful thing called gravity in the real world — and my personal resolution that we would take these weeks of sweet freedom to both enjoy ourselves and advance a few extra projects that a full house prohibits, like touching up the paint in Rosemoor's tiny rooms.
And cooking meals that don't need the approval of six individual appetites. Hence me stuffing a slow cooker with carrots, mini potatoes, and cloves of garlic, to make Matt's favorite pot roast.
"Watch closely and you can do this next time," I said to my tiny daughter. Lottie waved her plastic spoon with surprising vim for a one-month old strapped into a baby chair.
I splashed a touch of brown sauce — my secret ingredient — with a dash of Dijon mustard from a brand that Pierre Dupine approved, before putting the lid on my pot, and plugging my slow cooker into the wall. This was the part the French chef wouldn't approve, but I couldn't help my limitations of time and my poor brining skills. Plus, Harriet Hardy's latest cookbook, Old-Fashioned English Recipes for a Modern Cook, contained a full chapter devoted to several slow-cooker favorites.
"Now we put some parsnips and artichokes in our little slow cooker, and look up the recipe for Pierre's magic Provencal white sauce," I said, thumbing through my recipe card cheat box, looking for one that had an identifying brown stain on its corner.
Lottie sucked the tip of her spoon as she watched, her little legs flailing in what Matt called 'windmill aerobics' — which is funny to anyone who hadn't felt the kicks of a future footballer against their body's interior walls.
A knock on my kitchen door was usually the signal of the postman when he was bringing me a package — today, however, it opened without my answering it. "Coo-ee," called Dinah in greeting.
"Dinah? You're early!" I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel, then hugged her. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow!"
"The drive down was too dull for me to linger," she said. "Anyway, Pip took her incorrigibles to Guernsey for the summer, so there was no place to stop, given my cousin's decision to move north last year. So I thought I would drive all in one go and see if there was room at the proverbial inn for me."
Dinah, the former chef of Cliffs House during my early years in Cornwall, had been a reigning champion of the Grand Baking Extravaganza and its champions' rematch, and, until recently, owned a bakery in a tourist hub nearer to London than our sleepy little village of Ceffylgwyn.
"Sit, have some tea," I said. "I was getting ready to put on the kettle. Me and baby were making a nice dinner for daddy, weren't we?" I was still on the border of baby talk, which is how every other sentence goes at present. Now Dinah turned her attention to the third person in the room, in bunny sleeper pajamas.
"So this is the newest model," she said. "I see Matt's ears and a bit of his chin already. Isn't she a bit young to be working on hair?"
"Sylvia wasn't," I answered. "That would be Matt's genes at work, probably." I reached for two cups in the cupboard. "So far, all Lottie has from me is the urge to put things in her mouth and eat them."
"Don't be ridiculous. That hair has a reddish tint, she'll be a strawberry head in no time at all," said Dinah, with approving close-up scrutiny of my baby's head.
"Here's a little something to commemorate the occasion," she said to me, producing a tiny gift bag decorated with kittens. "You know how horrible I am at selecting presents, but I asked Pip for help online. That girl is still daft, but she's far better at navigating those baby-themed products than I am. Motherhood does that for one, I suppose."
"I'm sure we'll love it," I said, opening the tea tin. "So did you go by the new building already?"
"I did, but the estate agent was out, so no joy with the keys," she said. "Of course, that gave me an opportunity to drive past that prime property sitting empty by the chemist's, the one I couldn't procure. It's a pity someone beat me to the estate agent's notice on that one, because I had my heart set on it the moment it came up for lease."
"Yes, but the one you're leasing is great, too," I pointed out, as I placed the sugar and milk on the table. "I think being near the corner has advantages. A great window for display, and the kitchen's already installed." It was the former site of a tea shop which had decided to close when the glamorous Perch shops took off, and people were just as likely to have coffee or a cuppa with a pasty at the fish and chips.
"Of course, that prime little spot near the bespoke tailor's would have been nice, too — but I couldn't afford to put a kitchen in was the trouble with it, since the old one had been taken out. Even so, it was a bit lean in years and needed a refit," said Dinah. "That's what ma
"I think it's going to be exciting to have a bakery in town again," I said. "It's just what this village needs. Since the old one closed, you can't have a proper muffin or a holiday cake that doesn't come in a shop wrapper. Now, there's no more going out of town for cakes at hotels and designer bakes down the coast — we'll have the best in residence right here."
Dinah's chest puffed, although she pinched her lips inwards to hold back out of humility. "You could've gone to Michael and had a proper bake locally," she said.
"He's so busy now that he's dating Kimmie, he's in London whenever he has spare time," I said. "Besides, sponges and cakes are still your gift, not his. He's only totally unbeatable on the savory side of cooking."
The current chef in residence at the manor house had fallen for the celebrity presenter and comedian who had swooned for him during the champion-level baking contest which crowned Dinah as a winner for the second time. Until his time had been absorbed by weekends of London bohemian restaurants and sailing down the coast on a two-person sailboat, he had sometimes agreed to craft bespoke wedding cakes for my clients.
They were delicious, elegant, and creative — just not quite as good as Dinah's. It was hard to explain, but once you tasted her twist on a Victoria sponge, or saw her turn a three-tiered cake into a Japanese temple in spring, there was no going back.
"I'll be happy for the business, I will say that," said Dinah. "Opening a new shop is always hard. The first one, I thought I'd never make a go of it, it took eight months to make it solvent. When I moved locations, it would have been quicker, except for the expense of kitchen restoration."
"Will you miss that one?" I asked, sipping my tea.
"Not madly and deeply," she answered. "It's good to be back." She sighed and smiled at me. "Sometimes one wants to go back to where they feel at home."
Dinah's cottage wouldn't be ready for another week, and she was already at odds with herself regarding its paint and repairs, focusing instead on the new shop space. As soon as the keys were available, she had plans to go measure everything, choose display cases for her baked goods, and hire a few painters and the local handyman to fix any cracks or loose tiles.
I volunteered to help her move her things into her residence, and volunteered Kitty, whom I knew would help without too many begrudging remarks. The chef across from me had always had a soft spot for my business partner, and never put up with the nattering gossip about her during those troubled years of young adulthood.
"I still can't believe Michael is seeing that little comedian he taught to bake," said Dinah. "Dating a celebrity — I always thought he was so hopeless at romance there wasn't a chance for him after Gemma."
"Kimmie's cheery pluck is what saved them from drifting apart," I said. "Gem was a lot more afraid of what being Michael's girlfriend meant when it came to the long term." Kimmie had kept coming back after Michael let her go, assuming her on-again-off-again actor boyfriend was the right choice for her instead.
"He's probably meeting celebrities, the sort she and that girl Patricia are friends with," mused Dinah. "Do you ever watch their program? The one on telly, before the nightly Midsomer?"
"I watch it online," I said. "The new skit about the figure skater and her coach is even better than the bus driver one," I said. "Although — the one where Pet was the passenger whose imaginary friend sneaked onto the bus — that was pretty funny."
"Not really my taste, their material," said Dinah, with a sniff. "I preferred the old Sketch Show crew, myself. Not that I'll have much time for telly with a new menu to plan."
"I should probably cut back on it myself," I said. "With the kids away, I'm trying to focus on new projects and finishing old ones." I had even cut back on episodes of The Masked Singer, and repeats of the show about the jewel theft squad that made Kimmie's ex-boyfriend a star.
"I'm certain this little one keeps you busy enough," said Dinah, watching Lottie push the rest of her plastic utensils onto the floor. "The other two off to visit your parents, you said?"
"First time," I answered. "It's going well. Of course, Sylvia cried on day two, and Heath threw up with one of those mystery childhood nighttime ailments, but afterwards things became much more fun." My mom's Instasnap account photos featured Sylvia on her first pony ride at the petting zoo, and Heath helping make a chocolate volcano at the local children's activity zone in what constituted a 'big city' outing in my town.
"I'll make some cherry chocolate biscuits when they come home," said Dinah. "But this little one will have to wait a bit — then maybe a nice ginger digestive." She gave my baby's cheek a tiny squeeze. Lottie stared with wide eyes, still not quite used to strangers. Since I had more time at present, I had spent it with her, either rocking her in her baby seat at Save the Date, or indulging in a little cuddle session during our new 'non-tv' mummy and baby time. It's not as if I needed a babysitter, or to call on Amanda to help me out in a match of four against one.
"The kids will love those," I said. "And so will I."
My freezer supply of Dinah's bakes was running low. Matt and I had indulged in the last pumpkin cheesecake puffs only last night. Another tragic break in my promise to eat healthier post-baby, although I told myself it would be the last for a week, minimum.
_______________________
"That smells fantastic," said Matt, as he pulled off his gardening shirt, exchanging it for a clean one. He lifted the lid of the slow cooker. "Mmm, my favorite," he said. "Sunday roast on a weekday? What's the occasion?"
"Me wanting to be thoughtful," I answered. "We didn't have our date night this week, after all. Ella had to cancel, because she wanted to see that new film. I mean, she would have come, but I told her there was no need." I shrugged. "Dinner for four?"
"I'm starving, so no argument from me." He kissed my cheek. "Let me wash, then I'll open the bottle of wine in our fridge."
"Oooh, now we're really spoiling ourselves," I said.
In the living room, on the parlor sofa covered by a child-friendly afghan, I found Joel sprawled out with a book on the principles of rocket science. "Joel, go wash up after Matt's finished," I said. "Time for tea. Do you want an onion roll or a regular roll? I'm going to toast them with butter."
He shrugged. "Plain," he answered, without looking away from the page. "Can I have it cold?"
"Sure," I said. "I'll pour you some milk for dinner, okay?"
"'Kay." He turned the page.
I was a little concerned at first that the summer tutorial classes that Lorrie arranged were depressing him. Only a handful of other students were taking them, all of them having similar special educational needs like Joel's. So far, I thought the only reason he seemed a little withdrawn was feeling extra exposed, being the only kid in the house besides the baby — the only one with parental eyes on him, in essence.
One of the classes wasn't remedial studies, however, but a summer course on science that was being taught as part of a nonprofit learning experience for students who showed an aptitude for the subject. I had signed him up for it, hoping it would give him something to look forward to this summer, since he couldn't go to America due to red tape and rules beyond us.
I dished up steaming vegetables and tender slices of roast beef, along with the tender parsnips in a sauce I made using Pierre's 'cheat sheet' for a quick version. For me, it was pretty good — almost melt-in-your-mouth good, compared to my usual pasta or risotto.
"Much better than my shepherd's pie," said Matt, with his third mouthful. "My compliments to the beautiful chef who served it."
"I just threw a few things into a pot, as per your mom's old recipe and Pierre Dupine's spices and herbs," I answered. "Although — the gravy came from a packet, just to confess."
