You've got flour on your eyebrow
In which John feels like baking.
No warnings except abuse of cake ingredients, sorry.
A trip to the local supermarket for groceries meant that the cupboards were fully stocked up at the residence of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. There was a particular high reward after the last case was solved for an MP and so this week, there was a higher budget for food. Of course, Sherlock doesn't go food shopping (ever), and even though it's technically his money, the consulting detective didn't get a say in what John splashed the cash on.
Not that he cared.
There was tea and milk and what could an Englishman want more?
It was a lazy Sunday and perhaps, John decided, a few cakes would go well with their tea today. He felt particularly joyful at the fact he managed to join Sherlock with that last case, while attending all the shifts at the surgery and not missing any prior arrangements! Oh he was delighted. Finishing his latest chapter in his medical journal Saturday night was just the cherry on top. Of the cake. Which John was making.
Despite any misconceptions of the matter, due to John's manly exterior and bravado, baking wasn't something he hadn't tried before. He quite liked it actually. Though, the last time he baked was probably in primary school. Cooking class was fun.
Anyway, back to the cakes.
A quick look on Google (beloved, beloved Google) gave plenty of ingredients to add on the shopping list which the soldier managed to search and subsequently find in the aisles.
Once he got home, all the items were placed on the kitchen table - John had to clear it first though. Since he was determined to try baking more often, he went to Mrs Hudson's to borrow a few books to inspire him and encourage him. The lovely woman was more than happy to comply, ensuring she was given a treat now and then.
Equipment was also provided by her: whisks, trays and bowls.
He tied a pink and green apron decorated with large lilies, peonies and roses around himself and started.
"Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 160 for fan ovens," John muttered to himself. Did he have a fan oven? What's a fan oven anyway? He called out, "Sherlock! Do we have a fan oven?"
At first, there wasn't a reply, but then there was a scuffling, and a tall, dark haired man appeared, eyeing him.
"What are you doing?" he asked, almost accusingly.
"I'm baking."
"Why? You've never baked before?"
John rolled his eyes. "Well, it's good to try new things."
"I see. I like your apron."
"Don't mock me, Sherlock. Now, are you going to tell me whether this oven fans or not?"
Sherlock opened his mouth then shut it. He narrowed his eyes then opened his mouth again but nothing came out. Taking a step forward, still eyeing John, Sherlock said, "It is a fan oven. If you're using the grill, the unit is gas mark but if you want the main oven, it's this knob here."
"Thank you," John said simply, glancing back and forth between the oven and the recipe book in his hands.
"Don't break my knob."
"I won't break your knob. I won't even touch it."
"Well of course you'll have to touch it. I don't mind you touching my knob; just don't grab it too hard."
"Yes, fine Sherlock, I'll be gentle with your knob."
There was a short silence.
"Thank you," the detective said, unconvinced but not eager to continue. "Do you want any help?"
"With what?"
"The baking."
"No, absolutely not," John replied incredulously. "As if I'd let you near cake mix or the oven."
Sherlock spun round and walked out of the room. "That's an unwise choice, considering you don't even know how to use my oven."
"I know how to use the bloody oven and its knob! It's as mine as it is yours, Sherlock!"
"John, please," he cried back, "I beg you to stop speaking of my knob. Also, take care of my tongues on the grill!"
John swore under his breath and he quickly opened the grill door and grabbed the tray of fried human tongues lying side by side in a pan, shoving it to the side, away from his view. "Christ's sake, I live with a mental man."
A few moments later, thankfully, John was able to preheat the oven and get onto the good stuff. What was after the preheating again? "Grease two 8" round baking tins and line with non-stick paper. Right."
He turned to look at his ingredients, in order to figure which item would be most suitable for greasing. Butter? Unsalted or slightly salted? Maybe margarine then. To be safe, John went to Google it. An array of results came up. Hummingbird Bakery, he thought, is a trusted source.
The first suggestion from the blog was to grease the tins with flour. This was something John had never heard about before and it seemed like a strange tip, especially since the instruction was to grease, and flour was rather, well, dry. He wasn't the expert so he flipped open the lid of the plain flour, proceeded to stab and rip the protective paper film before spooning a tablespoon of flour on each baking tin he brought out.
Shaking the tins to spread the flour seemed like a good idea. At the time. John's face and chest was covered in flour in two seconds flat and he spluttered and coughed (he had his mouth open) for a minute. Moving on. He dusted the white powder off his clothes, washed his hands and rubbed his face to clean it. The next step was to line the tins.
After finding out what that meant by watching one of the guide videos, he drew an outline of the tins on baking parchment and proceeded to complete this instruction. Perfect. Now John just had to cream the butter with the sugar so he carefully measured these out with the scale they had. Sherlock seemed to use this incredibly modern and fancy scale for his experiments. It was rather high-tech, John thought, and accurate to 0.0001 grams. Not that he needed that level of accuracy. He creamed the butter and sugar.
He added the four eggs required. "Oh bollocks," he muttered, realising he was supposed to add it one at a time. Nevertheless, he began to stir and mix with his utensil, hoping that the mixture was supposed to look sludgy. Vanilla extract. "Fold in the flour, adding milk if necessary. How the hell do I know if it's necessary?" he asked the innocent book, sighing and annoyed. What was with these technical terms? Can you even fold a mixture?
He got a smaller bowl and measured out the flour. He paused and checked the book for the next instruction. Dumping the bowl of plain flour into the bowl, John began to stir vigorously, humming a gentle tune. At this point, Sherlock wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a packet of crisps. He opened it and ate, leaning against the table beside John. He was watching the other man mix curiously for a few moments when he chose to interrupt.
"I hope you don't mind me saying-" he began.
John cut him off, "I do mind."
"But," Sherlock continued unaffected, "I'm quite sure that the mixture shouldn't look like that. In fact, I don't think you've even put in the correct ingredi-"
"It's fine, Sherlock!"
He stopped, staring at his flatmate. "John, you've got flour on your eyebrow."
John's face twitched and Sherlock was quick to catch this.
"Well, good luck!" he exclaimed, rushed, before dashing out of the room.
The doctor mumbled and carried on stirring once more, ignoring his friend's comments. When he decided it would be enough, he poured the mixture evenly in each tin and placed them both carefully into the oven, suddenly pleased with himself.
He set the timer for half an hour and began to clean the room and his eyebrow. The clock ticked away muted, as John tidied the place. He was undisturbed as he washed everything. The burning smell didn't even affect him.
Wait, burning smell?
John spun around and rushed to the oven, peering inside. Sure enough, the top of the cake had blackened over. He quickly grabbed the gloves and opened the door, trying not to be disheartened when the smell attacked his nose full on. The two cake tins were placed on a cooling rack and its baker felt crestfallen as he stared at the two abominations.
The middle had sunken right in and the outer ridge that hadn't sunk was black all over, producing an awful odour. There was no way John could salvage this.
"There's no way you can salvage that."
Turning his head slightly, he saw Sherlock, goddamn Sherlock, standing in the doorway, arms folded as he approached the table, staring intently at the "cakes". John was not in the mood for this.
"Yep, just as I thought," the great Mr Sherlock Holmes said, "you used plain flour instead of self-raising, so it didn't rise. You probably didn't use baking powder either, did you? There's a leavening agent in the self-raising, which is absent in the plain flour, and it creates small gas bubbles which help rise cakes - it's why there are small holes in cakes, have you ever noticed? Honestly, you should have read the recipe more carefully."
"For fuck's sake, Sherlock," John yelled, exasperated. "I was just trying to bake for us, okay? Leave it!" He chucked the oven gloves on the table and yanked off his apron, throwing it carelessly on the table. He stalked out of the room.
Sherlock followed him out and grabbed his arm in the living room. "John, wait, I'm sorry."
The other froze, not used to hearing an apology from him.
"I'm sorry, John, don't be angry at me," he whispered, almost inaudibly.
There was a pause, not awkward, just heavy. "It's okay."
"Are you sure?" Sherlock asked, letting go of his arm.
John turned to meet his gaze. "Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I know you didn't mean to hurt my feelings or whatever."
"Do you want to bake together?"
"I don't really feel like it anymore, to be honest with you."
"Please?" Sherlock asked.
John gave in, sighing. He felt bad. Maybe the poor man just wanted to be included too? Normally, it takes a lot more for him to get up from wherever he's sitting but while John was baking, he got up voluntarily. Twice. "Sure."
They both went back into the kitchen. John put on the pretty apron again and Sherlock scraped out the burnt cake, ignoring the lump of uncooked flour stuck underneath the baking paper.
"The first to do is grease the tins," Sherlock said, sliding a tin over to John, as he easily greased the one he had with butter. "Just like that."
"I didn't know you baked."
Sherlock cast a few glances to the right where the other stood, trying to copying his own actions. "I've always liked baking," he admitted softly, "I find it relaxing and it's rather similar to chemistry. Except the products are much tastier."
John smirked. "What a Sherlocky thing to say."
He ignored the slight heat on his cheeks. "Well, it would make sense for me to say 'Sherlocky' things, would it not?"
"Perhaps."
A moment of quiet peace occurred as they both lined the tins. "Now, if you take the butter and sugar," the consulting detective instructed, as he poured the sugar in the bowl without measuring, "and just cream that, so press the butter into the sugar like so."
John watched until he was passed the bowl. "Like this?"
"That's perfect."
Adding an egg, he mixed it in, noting that it wasn't sludgy this time. He carried on mixing as Sherlock adding each egg, one at a time. Vanilla extract.
"When did you get into baking?"
"I was around seven," he explained, "and it was during the summer where I was introduced to my mother's friend who was very much into baking. She came over and declared that I should not waste my days in my room conducting experiments but I should help make a cake for tea instead. Of course, I refused but she said it would be similar to an experiment because you could change things around and add your own ingredients in.
"In fact, Mycroft is an avid baker too. We were both forced into it by this stranger we had just met, but it was more delightful that I would have ever expected and we've been baking since. Not that there's usually enough ingredients for me to bake with."
As he measured out the (self-raising) flour, John grinned at the thought of the two Holmes brothers baking together in their kitchen. "Sherlock, what is folding?"
"First, let's sift this into the bowl," the other said, producing a sieve from the dark depths of their cupboard. Once he did that, he began to teach John how to fold. "Folding is when you want to mix a delicate ingredient, like this flour, into a thicker mixture, like the one we have here. It's important to do this so that we keep the mixture light and make sure they combine properly otherwise the cake will come out inconsistent.
"You have to use a rubber spatula like this one here and you just gently lift the heavier mixture by drawing a figure of eight."
John observed Sherlock's demonstration before he tried it himself. Once the flour was incorporated, he divided the mixture.
"Wonderful," Sherlock smiled, patting John's arm fondly. He bent down to put the tins in the oven, setting the timer too. As he stood up, he felt something hit the back of his head, accompanied by the sound of cracking and Sherlock judged, by the slimy substance that slid down his hair, his face and his back, that his fellow flatmate had just smashed an egg into his head.
He slowly rose, keeping his face blank as he turned to see John standing there rocking on his heels nonchalantly, intrigued by the painting on one of the walls.
"John Hamish Watson," Sherlock growled, "I am going to kill you."
And John was off, running out of the room as soon as he saw the quick detective pick up not one, not two, but three eggs, and launched the first at him. Missing and landing on one of the armchairs, undamaged.
"It's Dr Watson to you!" John teased, laughing loudly as he picked up the egg from the chair and bowled in right into Sherlock's forehead. The former then ducked immediately, avoiding the second egg by an inch, and it cracked onto the wall behind him. "Wow, your aim is quite terrible," he taunted gleefully.
"John, duck!" Sherlock cried, and on instinct, John did so, meeting an egg hurled at his face. Then the detective burst out, cackling and clutching his stomach.
"Fuck," he yelped, covering his face in pain. John swore and stumbled into the kitchen, wiping the egg shell out of his eyes as he winced in pain.
Sherlock, concerned, rushed to him. "John, I'm so sorry! Are you alright? I didn't mean to-"
Suddenly, his face and mouth was covered in flour which stuck to the egg all over his face. He stood there, gobsmacked and speechless and John laughed, springing away from him.
"I thought you were actually hurt," Sherlock whined.
John giggled, "You should have deduced that I wasn't!"
Sherlock scowled sourly but then after a few moments, chuckled too. "We've made a mess. You've got flour all over my poor tongues. The ones on that tray and the one in my mouth."
"How does it taste?"
"Bland."
They stared at each other then started laughing again, just as the timer went off. "You've got flour on your eyebrow, Sherlock," John grinned, approaching the sink to wash off the egg bits. "Don't even dare," he sniggered when the other reached for the flour.
The joking left them with a bubbling, blissful satisfied feeling within them. Sherlock prodded John to take out the cake and he trod into the bathroom to get rid of the white powder still decorating his already pale face.
When the tall man returned, he combed his fingers through John's hair with affection, letting his hand rest there and he talked. "You can use a sharp knife to cut off the top, just so it's even and easy to ice then you can put in a filling and stack them. Oh, we can make this great cheese cream icing to accompany some jam or something, it's rather wonderful."
"Alright, I'm not your pet now," John joked, swatting the other's hand away. He searched for a knife then bent down so the cake was eye level and started cutting.
"You're the right height to be."
"Oi."
They decorated the cakes excessively with fruits, chocolate and a bit of every kind of sprinkle that ever existed.
"Do you think Mrs Hudson will want some?"
"Don't be silly, you'll give her diabetes."
"Stop sneaking chocolate!"
"It's proven to be good for you, though."
"Sherlock, you don't seem like the type to be very health conscious."
"That's absurd."
"You're absurd, nicotine patch man."
"You just made that up, John."
"You're made up."
"No, I'm not a fraction of your imagination, as if you could seriously dream of something and someone as intellectual, cunning and witty as- argh! John! That's cold. You're supposed to decorate with that cream."
"I decorated your face."
"I'm going to decorate the walls."
"Great comeback."
"With your blood and intestines."
"Love you too."