The cooking in this fic is ridiculous, but I am unapologetic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Elena of Avalor.
"Primo. Help."
Two attempts. Three hours. She didn't even make it to one leche.
She can't very well ask her grandmother for assistance - she'd be banned from the kitchen for life. So here she is, standing at the entrance to the council chamber, begging for help with a cake. Elena can't believe that she's coming to the man who put unwrapped tamales in the oven for cooking advice, but everyone else is busy, her dignity is in tatters, and well, it's not like she has any choice at this point.
"What is it this time?" her cousin asks, barely glancing up from the stack of papers on his desk.
"Cake," Elena says.
"Cake?" Esteban looks at her, an expression of mild horror on his face. "Certainly you're not baking!"
"I may have … I may have volunteered. To make tres leches cake. I thought if I followed the directions, it would be easy -" she winces, "Not so much."
His expression of mild horror changes to immediate horror. He leaps up from his desk, shoving his papers to the side. Before she can respond, he is out the door.
"Where are you going?" she says, running after him. "Don't leave me to make tres leches alone!"
"I am making sure that there is still a kitchen left after what you are sure to have done to it."
"Why do people always assume I did something to the kitchen?" Elena says, resisting the urge to wince again. "It's not even as bad as last time!"
"Last time, you nearly burned down the palace!" Esteban says. "I sincerely hope you didn't set anything on fire this time."
They stop at the kitchen door and Esteban opens it. They are immediately met with the faint smell of burning.
Esteban looks at her incredulously.
"Nothing's on fire," she says quickly. "Not anymore, at least."
Esteban pinches the bridge of his nose. "How did baking a cake turn into this?"
"That's besides the point," Elena says, striding into the kitchen, making sure not to step on the blackened heap splattered in front of the still-smoking oven. Her cousin follows, surveying the flour covering the countertops, the floor, the recipe book … well, you get the picture. "Right now, we need to focus on making a cake before the party starts in three hours."
"Right," Esteban says, stopping to stand on one of the less flour-covered parts of the floor. "You find all the ingredients. I'll make the cake."
"But -"
"No buts, cousin. This is the second time you nearly burned the kitchen to the ground."
"I wasn't going to burn -"
"No. Find me the sugar and the condensed milk."
"The sugar's right there," she says, pointing to one of the jars on the countertop.
"No, that's salt." He closes his eyes and sighs. "Please tell me you didn't put one cup of salt in the cake."
"I … choose not to answer that."
"We'll have to find the sugar, then. Where is the condensed milk?"
"Well, about that …"
"What about it?" he asks, with a hint of growing alarm in his voice.
"I couldn't find it," she says. "So I used a substitute."
"What did you use?"
" ... Water."
"This is a tres leches cake! You cannot make it with only dos leches!" He sighs dramatically again before resting his head in his hands. And just leaves it there … for a while.
"To be honest," Elena says at last. "I didn't even make it to one leche."
Her cousin peels his face away from his hands. And just looks at her. "How - You are not touching anything else in this kitchen."
Elena rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, but really, she is relieved.
He finds the sugar (in the cabinet) and the condensed milk (in the back of the refrigerator) and sets off to work. Elena waits. And watches. And tries to push down the jealousy growing within her as he combines all the ingredients together without a single explosion. It comes so naturally for him, and she can't help but feel cheated, even if it is his favorite dessert and he's had over four decades more of experience to improve his cooking skills. But at the end, four hours after she started her first fiery attempts, there is a cake. It is soaked in all three leches, looks delicious, and he didn't even need to sell his soul for it.
Elena definitely feels cheated.
"Elena," says her grandmother over the dinner table that evening. "This is such a delicious cake."
"It turned out a lot better than I expected," Elena says. "Without Esteban's help, I don't think there would be a cake for us to enjoy right now."
"This is true," says Esteban.
"Also," adds Elena. "No one go in the kitchen for the next few hours before we get that cleaned up. It's a big mess."
"This is true, as well."
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the fic! Follows/favorites/reviews are much appreciated!