TREATS AND SWEETS
Chapter 2
Leia stared at the dough in the bowl in front of her. It was barely dough; more like cake batter. She looked at the directions. To the best of her knowledge, she'd followed them.
She then came across 'chill dough for at least two hours' in the instructions.
"We need to put this in the cooler for a couple hours," Leia informed the troops.
"Why? I wanna bake NOW," Jacen proclaimed.
"If it's cold it'll be easier to use." Leia assumed that that was the reason for the two hour chilling period. "Now, go find something to do."
This was met by considerable groaning and moaning, but the kids headed off to their room. Leia only hoped that they'd be able to find something that would amuse all three of them and not create too many arguments. She knew that this was most likely wishful thinking. In the meantime, she had work that needed catching up on. She'd elected to 'work at home,' which really translated into 'waiting for the kids to go to sleep so that I can actually attend to something, assuming my husband doesn't distract me.'
The kids were quiet at first, and Leia grabbed a datapad and began to read a report. Tariffs was not exactly a favorite subject, but it needed examination.
Her comm went off. "Hey Flyboy," she said to her husband.
"Do I have the right house? I'm not hearing any shrieking," Han asked, laughing.
"It's only been ten minutes. Give them time. What's up?"
"Chewie and I are just about done here." They'd been working on the Falcon, as per usual. They were taking Winter Fete off, which was not unusual. They'd done a lot of deliveries in the weeks prior.
"Great. Reinforcements are good," Leia said, laughing.
"Did you drug the kids?" Han's tone was teasing, but as soon as he said it, shrieking had commenced, along with footstomping that suggested an army of voxyn as opposed to three small children. "Okay, I've got my answer. See you soon, sweetheart." Han was laughing as he ended the comm.
"Give that back!" Jaina shouted at Anakin.
"No way!" The three were racing about the apartment, screaming about a toy that Anakin was carrying.
Leia glared at the three. "Stop the arguing, or I'll take every toy out of your room and none of you will have anything to play with!"
The kids were seemingly unimpressed and continued arguing loudly.
"In your room!" Leia shouted over them.
The three did heed that, although they were still pumping up the volume. Leia sighed. She went to the cooler to see if the dough had become more, well, dough like. Unfortunately, it had been too short of a time to see any results. She closed the door.
"Mom, is it time to bake the cookies?" Jacen said, sticking his head out of the bedroom door.
"Not yet," Leia said. "By the way, Dad's going to be home soon."
"Yay!" The three hadn't seen their father for eleven days and he'd be able to distract them. It would take Han and Chewie sixty to ninety minutes to tie everything down on the Falcon.
The kids retreated again to their room. A few minutes of peace was followed by a cacophony of voices but at least the door was closed and Leia could return to reviewing the incredibly boring document.
"Can we make the biscuits now?" Jaina called out to her mother.
"Not yet." Barely ten minutes had passed.
"When's it gonna be time?" Anakin echoed her.
Leia sighed. There's no rest for the wicked, she muttered to herself.
The dough was basically cold batter. Leia decided that maybe adding more flour would do the trick.
She pulled the bowl of dough out of the cooler and started to add more flour, and was pleased to see that it was finally turning into dough. Once it seemed as if it could be handled, she knocked on the kids' room door.
"Time to make the biscuits!" She called to them, and was nearly knocked over by the kids as they made their way to the table with great alacrity. Leia spread the pastry cloth she'd picked up, checking the recipe for the next instructions. It said, flour the cloth.
"Okay, each of you, grab some flour, rub it on the cloth," Leia instructed her youthful assistants. All three enthusiastically grabbed small fistfuls of flour, and then repeated the procedure again.
"Not too much, guys!" Leia warned them. They were now throwing flour on each other. She had to laugh. They were enjoying the task.
"Can we put the dough on now?" Anakin asked.
"I wanna cut the shapes out!" Jacen informed his siblings.
"All right, let me see," Leia said, picking up her datapad. "Roll out the dough - oh, feck!" She'd forgotten to get a rolling pin. But she was known for her resourcefulness.
"You guys, pat the dough down so it's thin enough to make shapes out of," she said, and the four embarked at the task at hand.
"Here's my hand!" Jacen proclaimed happily.
"We're not gonna cut out your hand," Jaina said, her tone bossy, not terribly unlike her mother's at times.
Leia wasn't sure how thick the dough was, but she handed cutters to the kids and let them go wild on the dough. They were randomly shoving the cutters in, and Leia placed them on the baking sheet, the only one she and Han owned. It had been taken off the Falcon once she and Han began living together.
She smiled as she watched the kids enjoying themselves.
"I bet Daddy's gonna like these!" Jaina said, her eyes sparkling.
Leia wasn't sure what he thought, but she knew her husband would definitely try them, if for no other reason than that the kids created them.
The biscuits came out anything but even in thickness, and as they continued to pat out the dough after there was no more room to set down another cutter.
"You know what we need?" Jaina asked her mother.
"What, sweetie?"
"A Millenniun Falcon cutter!"
Leia smiled. "I don't think they make those."
"But I bet Dad could make one! He can make anything!" Jacen proclaimed.
"I don't think he's ever done a biscuit cutter."
"How do you know?" Anakin pressed her.
Leia smiled. "He'll be here soon. You can ask him." She stuck a sheet full of very imperfect biscuits into the oven. It said bake for eight to ten minutes. Leia set the alarm for eight minutes and smiled as the kids patted the dough out again. The dough was becoming very dry and crumbly.
"My biscuit won't stick together!" Jacen said unhappily.
"Let's put some water in it. Put it back in the bowl," Leia instructed him. She added carefully so as to not create another bowl of batter.
The door into the apartment whooshed open, and the task was momentarily forgotten.
"Daddy!" The kids shrieked as they bombarded their father. Leia chuckled as they climbed all over him, getting flour and sugar all over him and hugging and kissing him.
"Hey, guys, what's up?"
"Daddy, we're making biscuits!" Jacen said gleefully.
Leia smiled and came over to her husband, the two sharing a kiss that spoke of more to come later on. Right now, it was family time.