Completely Worth The Calories: "The Great British Bake Off" Episode of Supernatural
Chapter Three: The Technical Challenge
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The Technical Challenge, as always, is a surprise.
As the film crew pans over the other bakers' looks of dismay, Crowley attempts to clamp down on his own smug expression. If only the actual case was going as well as the baking competition.
"You're looking rather confident," Sandi remarks to him, as the others pour futilely over the paltry instructions left to them. Only the Vietnamese baker, with a slight moue of concentration, is already at work.
Thoughtless of the film crew hovering just beyond the bench, with their cameras pointing directly at him, Crowley cheerfully and rather thoughtlessly mentions that he has more than once enjoyed their challenge, Îles flottantes, in Parisian cafés alongside heir apparent Eddy, before the promiscuous playboy had been crowned king. Ah, the good old days. He sometimes wishes the Steampunk community could truly fathom the reality of that age of steam power and Edwardian gentility.
"Alas," Crowley proclaims while his meringue whips, perhaps a tad too dramatically, "its progeny were all monsters and no manners."
The film crew exchange concerned glances and swiftly move to another baker.
He's feeling rather cheeky, a dangerous prospect. Pride always was Crowley's downfall. He makes a concerted effort to banish his smug bemusement and focus on the task at hand.
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"Dean! Glad you could join us."
Beckoned over to the chair Prue Leith was sitting in not moments before, Dean thanks the production assistant who guided him over to the judges' tent and stumbles over to the table.
"Yeah – no! Thank you! This is – " Dean swallows, loudly. "This is such an honor!"
With a smile, the celebrity chef gestures invitingly at the displays of the Technical Challenge arrayed in front of him. "Would you care for an Îles flottantes?" The desserts, which Dean assumes Crowley is in the midst of making himself in the Tent, look to be some sort of pudding with a white, thick foam on top. The whole thing is drizzled with caramel and nuts, and displayed in martini glasses. Eels flow-tent, or however he's supposed to pronounce it, looks to be some snobby smuck's idea of vanilla pudding with whipped cream.
"Did you make this?"
"I did." Paul sounds a little proud of himself. "I don't often make the weekly challenges anymore. Bit of carpal tunnel in the wrists. But, since I knew I'd be hosting a special guest…" And he offers Dean a spoon.
Dean's fully aware that his mouth is open and his shoulders are rising up to meet his ears, but there's nothing he can do about it. "Oooh-kay, yeah! Yeah, there is no way I am turning down something made by Paul Hollywood!" Dean accepts the spoon, and reaches for one of the desserts. The custard is a little softer, a little silkier, than pudding. And the meringue has an entirely different texture than whipped cream. But other than that, Dean wasn't too far off. Still, it's damn delicious.
Paul pours them both tea, and enjoys a few spoonfuls of the Îles flottantes he pretended to eat for the filming of the last segment.
"Can't eat too much, of course. I'm about to try twelve others in a bit. So. Shall we get started?"
Dean wipes clumsily at the corners of his mouth, straightens his jacket, leans back in his chair. Gotta remember this is a case he's working here, and the lives of the missing bakers may very well be depending on him. "Right, yeah. So, Paul – " he's proud of himself for saying the name like it's anyone else's – "tell me about baking in Ireland."
The judge smiles, and looks around curiously. "Aren't you going to record this?"
Oh, right. Dean fumbles his phone out of his pocket, places it at the far end of the table, so that both the interviewer and his guest can be seen. He clears his throat self-consciously, smiles, and begins again.
"Okay! Here we go. Interviewing Paul Hollywood. On site of The Great British Bake Off!" Is this really happening? Dean's half convinced he's having some djinn-induced hallucination right now. "So, Paul. What can you tell our followers," he waves awkwardly at his imaginary vlog viewers, "about the baking customs of Ireland? And how you might have incorporated them into this season of The Great British Bake Off?"
"Well, of course there's Irish soda bread, which just about everyone's familiar with. The soda in it original derives from the ash of wood, which can be used to leaven bread without yeast. It was actually," and now Paul is leaning back in his chair, entirely in his element and happy to go on for as long as Dean will let him, "originally discovered by the indigenous peoples of your homeland, America, before it came to Ireland. The bread was often cooked in a pot over a fire – the same sort of pot you see represented as the leprechaun's pot of gold. And we're actually going to have the bakers make soda bread in that traditional Irish fashion later in the season. If," he says, his brows knitting together, "we make it past this first episode."
The celebrity chef pauses. "You will, of course, wait to release this until after the full season airs. And maybe…edit out that last line?"
Dean, chin on hand and with a besotted look on his face, just nods.
"And we're going to ask that they cut the bread like this – " Paul demonstrates two long cuts running perpendicular – "to form a cross in the crust of the bread. Irish families traditionally did this because they believed it would let the faeries out of the bread, or in other cases, to ward against evil."
This all seems important to the case. Dean suspects he should be paying closer attention.
"Then there's barmbrack, a short loaf studded with fruit and nuts. If made right, I absolutely love it. Barmbrack is the Irish bread associated with Halloween, or as it's more properly known, the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. This was the time the Celtic people believed the dead could cross over into our world and cause mischief. Having fruit during the winter was a great luxury back then, and preserving it inside the harvest loaf of barmbrack was one way to do that."
Paul continues to rattle off more interesting ways culture, climate, and history have impacted breadmaking in Ireland. Dean lets him talk.
When the impromptu lecture comes to a close, Dean pulls himself together. "So, let me ask you – considering you're filming in Ireland, land of magic – " Boy, does Dean hate that word. " – anyone on the production crew or the judges or contestants do anything on the set they thought would make it more, you know, magical?" He's fishing now, but maybe there's a bit of leprechaun luck floating around in the tent, something to give them a lead. "Pagan ritual? Tossed about the old rune bones? Pretended to, I don't know, summon an elfin maid to churn their butter?"
Dean's a little worried about eliciting the same stare the judge gives contestants when he knows they've included fresh fruit in their recipe when they should have used dried to avoid adding extra moisture. But Paul just laughs, clearly thinking his interviewer is having him on.
"No, no. Nothing like that. Would have been fun, though. Wish we'd thought of something like that earlier."
"Yeah. That's, uh, that's too bad. Would have been something really fun for the show. I mean – the vlog! But, yeah, also your show. The show." Dean spreads his hands like he's imagining something in broadway lights. He's fairly certain he's smiling like an idiot.
The omnipresent production assistant appears again in the flap of the tent, and motions. Time to wrap it up. Dean turns off the recording on his phone and the interview of a lifetime is over.
"Well, um," Dean laughs self-consciously as he rising to his feet, "I really appreciate you taking the time for me today, Paul. This has been a dream come true for me, you have no idea."
Those blue eyes twinkle at him. "Not at all, Dean, it was my pleasure. Would you like to take one or two of these with you?" He gestures to the remaining Îles flottantes.
Dean eyes the desserts. He absolutely does want to take one or two or three of them with him. He nearly whimpers at the thought of leaving the proffered desserts behind. "Honestly? I'd absolutely love to, but they don't exactly look friend on-the-go vlogger food. But, hey! You mind if I stick around for a while? Watch the show?"
"Be my guest," Paul says, and Dean bumbles his way out of the judge's tent before he can embarrass himself any further.
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There is no end to the cleaning up.
There are mixing bowls and pans, pots and molds, whisks and spoons and spatulas, enough for twelve bakers to have three of everything they might possibly need, and using every single one of them. As soon as Cas delivers one dish bin to Iva, he is back in the thick of the Tent to collect more dishes. And to make matters worse, he must not only be on the lookout for messy workstations and discarded bakeware, but also for supernatural maliciousness and constantly be cognizant of where he is in relation to where the film crew is pointing their cameras!
He thinks that perhaps leading a garrison of angels into Hell to rescue the soul of the Righteous Man and either avoiding or destroying all the demons they encountered along the way was easier.
"Oh, Castiel, dear!"
At the semi-secluded portion of the Tent near the front, usually hidden from view when the show airs, and where the washing station is located, Rowena lingers at the edge of the flap. With the bakers hard at work in the Tent and the judges currently off-set, there is little work for her at the make-up station in the production tent. She waves him over, even as his arms are straining with the considerable weight of the dish bin.
"When you have a moment, sweetie pie, would you mind bringing me a cuppa? Thanks ever so!"
"Rowena, I do not – "
But she's gone and out the Tent before Cas can explain that he neither has the time to make her a cup of tea nor knows where the tea station is located.
"Rowena!"
She waves jauntily over her shoulder to him, without looking back.
Castiel stares after her, confounded and perhaps slightly annoyed. Despite his best efforts, he cannot, in this moment, remember how the witch likes to take her tea.
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While Crowley has everything well in hand for the Technical Challenge, he doesn't particularly appreciate interference. And even seated on the other side of the television, he'd always found Noel to be somewhat – and consistently – irritating. That there would be a bit of a fuss between them, however unintentionally, was always going to be unavoidable, and an unwelcome distraction from the challenge – and the case, of course.
"Just taste testing, mate."
"One more finger in my crème anglaise," Crowley warns, "will result in my ten Îles flottantes each being served with a Fielding finger as part of the decoration. Understood?"
The host just laughs, and continues to badger him. The former King of Hell feels his eyes narrow. He's quite aware that simply telling the supposed comedic relief to fuck off is not an option. A decisively demonic glare might be the answer – or get him removed from the Tent.
Crowley finally resorts to the most caustic of actions.
"Do you know," he remarks casually, "I much rather preferred Sue Perkins as host. She has the appealing attribute of actually being funny."
Wounded, the comedian wanders away to torture someone else.
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The public records office is a bust. The local newspaper went under and was replaced with a regional conglomerate years ago, and the old paper's records are all archived with the historical society. Sam even walks the two miles further east to the parish's church, St. Patrick's, to speak with a priest or vicar, only to learn he is out bicycling through the countryside visiting his parishioners. Sam ends up having an awkward afternoon tea with the prim housekeeper of the parish, who, it goes without saying, has no time for such nonsense as legends or lore.
Sam can only hope that the others are having better luck.
He's walking back through the village of Armoy, enjoying the bright summer sunshine and a stroll through the Irish countryside despite his lack of success, when a shop he'd absently passed before now catches his eye. It's a beautiful old stone building, the type tourists and the tourist industry love to refer to as "quaint," with large cottaged windows and the aroma of something buttery drifting out through the open door. A cat lounges in one of the windows, and blinks lazily at Sam as he approaches.
The wooden sign hanging from a post over the door reads Fluffloaf Factory and underneath that Artisan Bakery, Lending Library & Cat Café.
Curious, Sam steps inside. An entire wall to his left is covered in books. The glass case of the bakery wraps around the other two sides of the shop, the shelves under the glass filled with croissants and scones and turnovers and muffins with tops so large they resemble toadstools. The shelves behind the counter are loaded with pumpernickel and sourdough, marbled rye and traditional Irish soda bread. The whole shop smells heavenly, and running to and fro across the wooden floorboards or sleeping in sprays of sunlight are cats.
"Hello, there. Cup of afternoon tea?"
The woman who appears behind the counter is quite stunning, with her gold-red hair and welcoming smile. She moves gracefully but purposefully around the glass case and through the cats, to pull back a seat for Sam at one of the small tables for two.
Sam hesitates. "Actually, this is going to sound odd, but…would you mind if I asked you some questions?" When the woman raises an eyebrow but continues to smile kindly, Sam explains, "I'm, uh, I'm a writer, doing some research into local legends and lore. And I was wondering – I was wondering if you might know of any?"
Her smile turns teasing. "You Americans. Always so fascinated with Irish mythology. Faeries and banshees, goblins and sprites. The fae folk. Don't you have any of your own stories of magic and mischief?"
Sam laughs self-consciously, shrugs his massive moose shoulders. "More than you'd guess."
"You don't want to go messing around with the fae folk, whether you believe them to be real or not. Ghosts and faeries, monsters and demons, none of that is anything to be taken lightly."
The slow, familiar realization that he might be speaking to someone who is aware of the actual existence of the supernatural sweeps over Sam. But in a culture where the "veil between worlds" is already accepted to be so much thinner than in his own, he's hesitant to inquiry directly. The last thing he needs today is another door shut in his face.
"I'm not looking for trouble," he promises the woman, now regretting having dismissed the offer of tea. Sam gestures to the table for two, hopeful.
Now it's her turn to hesitate. Likely, this isn't the only writer or the only American who has encountered an Irish lass and wanted to talk about faeries. It's easy enough to get burned, with all these crystal worshipers and modern-day moon goddesses wandering about the country on vacation, hoping to stumble into a faerie circle or catch a glimpse of pixie wings glinting in the sunlight.
After a moment, she relents, but insists on putting the kettle on and placing a fresh-baked scone with whipped Irish butter and rich raspberry jam in front of Sam. She lifts a reluctant tuxedo cat out of a chair, and snuggles it in her lap while Sam enjoys a proper – and pleasant – afternoon tea. Strangely enough, Sam finds himself talking more about Eileen than lore, how she might join him after his "research" is finished and the two of them tour her childhood home of County Cork. He doesn't mention that the two of them are supernatural hunters and scholars, and when the topic of conversation comes back about around to Irish mythology and local legends, Sam is sure to tread carefully.
"So, you've never seen or experienced anything that might make you think the supernatural was real."
The redheaded baker gives him an amused and superior look that would do Crowley proud. "I haven't said anything one way or another, have I? What are you on about, really?"
There's a connection here, Sam is almost certain of it. The people who have gone missing are bakers. This woman is a baker, in the same area. There's something here that he's not seeing, and by now he's fairly certain it has to do with faeries.
The last time the Winchesters encountered the fae folk, it was in Elwood, Indiana, when a clockmaker inadvertently made a deal with faeries that saved his business but saw the "feast and fat of the land" – the first born sons of that town – taken away, supposedly to Avalon to "service" Oberon, King of the faeries. There were disappearances then too, explained away as UFO abductions. Sam barely managed to save the day by spilling salt before the fae folk – faeries were notorious for needing to count every spilt grain of something like salt or sugar. The difference between the two cases seems to be that when the bakers disappear, their bakes disappear with them.
"Do you do anything special," Sam asks, "just in case faeries are real? Anything to ward them off? Or is there anything you avoid doing, so as not to – you know – potentially upset them?"
The look she gives him makes Sam think that maybe she's trying to decide whether or not he knows that the supernatural is real.
"When it comes to humans and the fae," she says cautiously after a moment, pouring herself another cup of tea, "it's always best to be polite. The custom here in Ireland is that if you bake something, especially if it's something for a special occasion or particularly grand, it's always best to make an offering."
"An offering?"
"Set out a piece, just for the fae folk. Give them their share. Nothing much, just as tribute. You bake a cake? They get a tiny sliver of it. You make a particularly nice batch of scones?" She waves at the remains on Sam's plate. "You leave a few crumbs on the windowsill. If the stories are to be believed, this land belongs to them far more than it does to us. The fae can be kind; more often, they're mischievous. No reason to go earning their ire by forgetting to give them their due."
And just like that, Sam has the answer to the disappearances of The Great British Bake Off bakers. He thanks the woman for her time, offers to pay for the tea and the scone and is declined, buys a loaf of pumpernickel and one of marbled rye, pets all the cats, and sets off down the road towards the Dark Hedges.
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Crowley takes second in the Technical Challenge.
His molded meringue, poured into a snowball mold lined with caramelized sugar and then steamed in a bain-marie in the oven, cooks and chills to perfection. He places them delicately on top of his crème anglaise, which set at just the right consistency, and garnishes with caramel sauce and praline powder. His Îles flottantes – floating islands – are a thing of beauty.
Some of the other bakers have done equally well. Others, not so much.
He is particularly amused by the middle-aged woman, who cursed her crème for being as useless as a cockwomble as she'd dished it into the display glasses, and thumped her tray down onto the judge's table as if the desserts were ill-behaved babes about to receive a well-deserved walloping.
Crowley does his best to pay equally attention to those who appear to be doing poorly, and thus wanting to injure a more competent baker, as those who appear to be doing well, who might want to oust any tight competition. It's not as easy as with the Signature Challenge – sitting on stools in a row means he can't observe all the contestants, only the two seated on either side of him. And it certainly doesn't help that he's beginning to rather like all of them.
And then, mistaking his scrutiny for nerves, the pyromaniac of a Disney princess to Crowley's left reaches over and takes his hand. She gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Yours look so professional," she whispers, as the judges make their way back into the Tent.
"Yours don't look half bad either, luv," Crowley finds himself offering softly in return.
Bloody Hell. If demonkind could see him now.
He comes second in the Technical only because the farm lass in rumpled overalls did a slightly better job at decorating. Apparently a bit more wrist action with the caramel was required. Second place will do – for now.
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It's well and truly dark by the time the day's filming is done. What with all the prep, baking, and clean up, an average day is a good sixteen hours, and everyone is ready to head back to the hotel for the night. While the bakers and judges hop in their mini bus for the ride over, the production crew closes down the site.
Cas lingers in the Tent on the entirely justified pretext of finishing the washing up. It provides him the opportunity to sweep the space after the last challenge, searching for any hexbags, sigils, or anything else out of the ordinary. It also is the only bit of peace and quiet afforded him for the entire day.
There certainly isn't any waiting for him back in the pub.
"What the bloody hell is that in your mouth?!"
A cooled, congealed red velvet and mascarpone cream soufflé halfway to his mouth, Dean pauses and eyes the irate demon standing beside their secluded booth. He's fairly certain if Crowley wasn't holding a whiskey in each hand, he would snatch the apparently offending pastry and fling it across the crowded room.
"What? It's from my Baker's Basket. And, it's delicious."
"Meaning it's not the first one you've thoughtlessly shoved into that gaping maw you call a mouth." Crowley sighs as he sets one of the whiskies down onto the table and slides into the opposite bench next to Castiel. "What part of 'don't eat the baked goods' didn't you understand, Squirrel?"
"The part," Dean says after he swallows, "where we accepted a case at one of the world's most renowned amateur baking competitions and I'm not allowed to eat these – " he reaches under the gingham cloth and pulls out a lobster, tarragon and cognac soufflé – "scrumptious little morsels." And he pops the whole thing into his mouth.
Crowley looks like he's about to throttle the hunter. Cas' expression is torn between mild disgust and resigned affection. Sam, who's put up with his brother's eating habits their whole lives, doesn't even look up from his notes.
"Hey," Dean mumbles around the mouthful, with a look of indifferent challenge directed at Crowley, "this is your fault. You're the one who insisted on 'widening my palate.'"
"And your equally widening waistline is also my fault, I suppose?"
"You bake too damn well!"
"Besides," Crowley coolly decides to take the accusation as a compliment, "I was not aware that encouraging you to eat something other than bacon cheeseburgers and diner-plated pie might eventually lead to your untimely death by bespelled baked goods."
Cas, as always, takes Dean's side. "Sam has already explained it is not the baked goods. It is the failure of the television production team to honor the local custom of leaving tribute in the form of baked goods for the fae folk."
"And I totally knew that before I started eating these eggy pudding cups."
At least they've more or less solved the case. According to local customs, the fae folk are being shortchanged by the production of The Great British Bake Off here in County Antrim, and in typical mischievous fashion, have been spiriting away each week's best baker and their baked goods. The boys are fairly certain that all four missing bakers are still alive, on the other side of the veil in the world of faeries. But getting them back is an entirely separate challenge.
"I'm fairly certain you lot can handle that one on your own, yes?" Crowley inquires, leaning back in the booth and at least attempting to enjoy his whisky. It's a very fine black bush blend, from the original Bushmills distillery not 20 km west of the village.
"You've got something better to do with your time?" Dean asks.
"I'd like, if it's not too much trouble," the demon smiles with all his teeth on display, "to practice my recipe for tomorrow. It's the Showstopper challenge, you may recall."
Dean looks like he's about to object, but Sam cuts him off. "There's nothing we could do tonight, anyway. Look, I spoke with Rowena, and she thinks that we could broker an agreement with the faeries. Every week, the production team puts together these Baker's Baskets, right?" Sam gestures to the nearly empty basket in his brother's hands. Dean reflexively pulls the basket out of Sam's reach. "They made an extra one for Dean. So? Every week, they make an extra one and leave it out for the faeries. That's their tribute."
"And we get the other bakers back how?" Crowley asks.
"Rowena's offered to meet me tomorrow, while you three are on set, near the Dark Hedges. We can summon the faeries there. Negotiate a return of the bakers. She's even going to work some spell so the two of us can temporarily see them. All we need is a cake or something to use in the summoning."
"Huh!" Dean smiles around cheeks bulging with grapefruit vanilla soufflé. "Sounds like we got it all worked out, then! Who's up for a drink?"
"Where is Rowena?" Castiel inquires with a frown.
"And considering Dean has eaten every crumb in his Baker's Basket," Crowley grouses, "where, exactly, do you intend to find a grand enough baked good with which to perform the summoning?"
The other three look at each other. Then they look at Crowley.
"Hey man," Dean tips back his glass and drains the entire dram in one swallow. Such a waste of good whiskey. "You were the one who said you needed to practice."
Bollocks.
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