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Link hates not being good at something, because Zelda teases him when she manages to beat him at anything. Not that she’s mean-spirited about it, but it’s still a source of pride that he keeps the list of things she can do better than him as short as possible. Like folding a functional paper airplane, or reading a book for longer than five minutes, or reaching things on high shelves.
Which is why when she’d playfully bet him she could cook a Valentine’s Day dinner better than he could bake a desert, his competitive impulse rolled right past her joke and eagerly accepted her challenge.
“You’re on!” he blurted without so much as a glance at his list of “Things Zelda is better at than me”. If he had, he might have noticed the word BAKING written right at the top. Half the cupboards in the kitchen being full of Zelda's baking supplies and ingredients stood as evidence to the fact.
There was a pen in her hand jotting down the details quicker than his acceptance. “What are we wagering?”
Link looked around the room for a moment, gaze eventually settling on the woodstove casting a warm glow from its window in the corner of the living room. “Loser has to schlep in firewood to refill the log rack for the rest of the winter.”
High stakes indeed: it was a long trip to the woodshed with a wheelbarrow through the snow. An eyebrow raised almost imperceptibly at him. “How will we decide who wins?” she’d asked, her tidy flowing script documenting the details.
“Whoever does a good enough job that the other willingly goes back for seconds.” Link knew how bad a cook Zelda was. In his estimation, his learning to bake was far more likely than her learning to cook anything more involved than a packet of Ramen, because (he decided at that very moment) he had simply never truly applied himself yet.
This would be a cinch.
“OK, but we each get to choose what the other has to make.”
That finally triggered the red flag he should have noticed sooner. Zelda was being far too accommodating. “Okayyyy…”
“You need to make dinner rolls. Specifically, the ones my grandmother used to make: Loft Wing Nests. And I want you to bake my favorite fruit cake for dessert.”
The fruitcake was predictable, though it might take a try or two to get the frosting and decorations looking as professional as the one he always bought her from the bakery. But dinner rolls? How hard could that be?
Zelda had tipped her hand first, leaving Link with a distinct strategic advantage.There was a brief moment where he wondered if she might have been going easy on him, but even if she was it was wise to hedge one’s bets. He flipped through his mental recipe book for something diabolical.
Stir fry? An absolute laundry list of ingredients to juggle all at once and get the timing just right, but who eats stir fry with dinner rolls?
Perhaps a pot roast? Zelda was an expert researcher and would quickly figure out that’s pretty hard to screw up once you know you can chuck all the ingredients into a crock pot and it’ll always turn out decent.
What about Carbonara? Devilishly tricky because of the heat control required to make a creamy sauce instead of scrambled-egg-covered-pasta. And it’d probably take her at least a week before she found the downtown deli where they sold genuine guanciale.
“Carbonara. With a side of grilled zucchini and some Parmesan crisps,” he declared after a moment to consider some appropriate side dishes.
“A pasta dish, really?” her eyebrow cocked skeptically. “I see you like carbs with your carbs.”
“Hey, it’s Valentines’ Day, the calories don’t count if they’re made with love. And I’m totally going to win. I’m gonna bake so good I’m gonna make you proud of me.”
“No, I’ll cook so well you’ll be proud of me,” she replied, tacking the note to the fridge door with a magnet.
“I’m always proud of you.”
—
The next day, while staring at an amorphous little lump of dough that was supposed to resemble a Loftwing Nest roll and wondering why it was stubbornly refusing to hold its shape like the picture on the website, Link started to get an inkling that he might be out of his depth…
Maybe the heat of the oven will puff them back into shape?
No such luck- the twenty minute stint in the oven produced what could only be described as "rolls" in name only.
Why are they colorless, lifeless blobs rather than the pretty brown braided rolls the recipe had promised? Wasn’t baking just like cooking with extra math and science? (Not that either of those had been his strongest subjects in school) There seemed to be a bit more to it than just following the instructions, so maybe it was time to look for some pointers. He convinced himself it’d be research, not help, and he knew Zelda would be doing a ton of her own too.
Snatching up his phone he began searching for tutorials. A forum called “Breabbit” kept popping up more often than other sites. The webpage’s logo was a cute Sheikah Frog statue baked out of bread, which seemed like a good omen. In the corner was a link which read: “Join our server and come chat with us on Distil!”
Link clicked the link. After making some welcome and introductory comments he found a channel titled “Help me!” Perfect!
>>SubstituteSousChef: Somewhat new to baking.
(an understatement)
>>Looking for help with a Loftwing Nest recipe my grandma left me.
(a lie)
>>I followed all the instructions as written, but they wouldn’t hold their shape and came out underbaked and ugly looking.
He closed the app and smeared some butter on one of the warm rolls before taking a bite.
...It was edible...but far from what could be considered good or correct. And quite dense- it took a glass of milk to wash it down.
This would not do.
In the meantime, a response notification popped up:
>>PrincessOfPastry: Hello and welcome! Can you post your recipe and what process you followed?
>>SubstituteSousChef: Sure!
He typed out the list of ingredients and added the instructions:
>>SubstituteSousChef: “Knead the dough for 3-5min, proof for 1hr, knock down dough and cut into ten equal pieces. Split each piece into two halves and braid into ‘nests’. Allow to rise for 1hr and bake at 400°F for 20 min on a baking stone or baking sheet.”
I threw everything into my stand mixer and let the machine knead it. I used a baking stone too, but they still came out pale and really dense.
There was a long pause and an even longer period where the blinking ellipses indicated a reply was inbound.
>>PrincessOfPastry: Oh my goodness…with no offense intended to your grandma, there’s so much wrong with that recipe. Did an intent AI bot write it? No wonder they turned out bad! First of all, it’s volumetric, and one of the most important things you can do when baking bread is measure ingredients by weight. Do you own a kitchen scale?
Link rummaged around in the cupboard for a moment, Zelda definitely had one in here somewhere…
>>SubstituteSousChef: Yup!
>>PrincessOfPastry: OK Good! Weigh everything from now on. The metric system won’t bite, I promise. And use this recipe instead:
The link she sent led to a blog written by a famous professional baker. The ingredient list was short, but the instructions looked rather involved for something as simple as rolls. A 24 hour proof? Who has that kinda time? And just where the heck was he supposed to get rye flour? Wasn’t rye for making whiskey?
Another browser search turned up a specialty baking supply store all the way across town that had what he needed. That left him with little choice- it was either that or pay twelve rupees plus shipping for a meager two pound bag that wouldn’t arrive until next week. Zelda would be home from teaching soon, which was enough time to drive to the store and back, but definitely not enough time to make another batch. He snatched his keys and ran out the door.
Link had almost made it back home when Zelda shot him a text message with only a picture of his first batch on the countertop followed by a baker’s dozen laughing emojis.
He’d forgotten to toss out the evidence before leaving.
—
After Zelda left for school the next morning, he prepared a batch of dough per the new specifications and put the lid on the bowl to proof.
>>SubstituteSousChef: What temperature should it proof at?
>>PrincessOfPastry: Somewhere around 25°C/80°F is optimal, but it doesn't really matter because it’s going to proof for 24 hours.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Convenient that my woodstove keeps the house around that temperature!
>>PrincessOfPastry: It sure is! I have one too and I love it!
>>SubstituteSousChef: Does the dough really need to sit for a whole day, though?
>>PrincessOfPastry: Yes! A long ferment helps develop the flavor. Trust the process!
Hmm. If you say so, “Princess”. This meant he would only get one try per day, and he hadn’t even started on figuring out the fruit cake yet!
Maybe the bakery would hook him up with their recipe if he asked nicely enough? Rather than watch dough rise all day he decided to get some fresh air and walk there. His phone buzzed as he locked the front door.
Zelda: I’m going to be home late today.
Link: Everything ok at school?
Zelda: Everything’s fine! I offered to do some after school study sessions for a few of my students. Big unit test next week!
Link: Ok!
She’s totally using the home economics classroom to practice and doesn't want to admit it.
His smugness was short lived, however, because the trip to the bakery did not go according to plan.
“You want me to give you our proprietary recipe so you can make it yourself?” replied the incredulous baker to his request, scoffing with offense. “That’s hardly a viable business model for me, now, is it? Get out!”
Well. That could have gone better…
Link drove home under a light snowfall, wondering what to do next. Searching the internet for “fruitcake” didn’t produce a recipe resembling anything near what the bakery made, only examples of the inedible bricks people brought along to share at holiday parties.
He was still puzzling as he hauled an armful of firewood through the front door, when he remembered there was another potential untapped resource for him to study: a recipe book handed down from Zelda’s grandmother.
As he stood on his tip-toes to take her most cherished possession off the bookshelf, a wad of loose pages fell out and scattered across the kitchen floor. Muttering curses as he gathered them up, he set the book on the kitchen table and began flipping through it. The pages were covered in a flowing old style cursive he could barely decipher, but he could read enough of it to stop when he came across:
Loft Wing Nests
Score! There was even a sticky note next to the ingredient list in Zelda’s handwriting with substitutions and modifications to help decipher Grandma’s nearly impenetrable old fashioned cursive. They matched exactly what that new recipe called for! That meant his new Breabbit friend knew her stuff!
Satisfied, he went to shove the loose pages back behind the cover, but stopped when he spotted a picture on top of the pile:
Very Berry Chantilly Fruit Cake
Zelda’s fruit cake! Relief briefly washed away his failure at the bakery, but one look at the ingredients list brought it right back. “Oh sweet Hylia, that’s a lot of cream, butter, cheese, and fruit...”
Another shopping trip would be in order.
Then he perused the instructions and immediately shed whatever guilt he may have had left for assigning Zelda the carbonara: There were three layers of cake, a whipped cream and mascarpone frosting, and a berry infused simple syrup to make. No wonder she always bought them instead of making them herself.
While coming to terms with that, another sobering realization struck him: a pound of flour and two cups of milk for a batch of rolls was one thing; several cakes’ worth of frosting and fruit was going to get expensive, not to mention impossible to eat to hide all the evidence if he didn’t succeed on his first or second try.
Resigning himself to at least one failure, he made sure his shopping list had double the quantity required before bravely sortieing back into the snow. He winced as he swiped his credit card at the register and slipped and slid through an intensifying snow squall to return home.
—
Actually making the cake turned out to be an ordeal.
This cake is made using the reverse creaming method, in which the dry ingredients are first mixed with butter before adding the wet ingredients. Although counter-intuitive, this method works great and yields very soft cakes with a fine, tender crumb.
Of course this one would require extremely specific steps to do correctly…Couldn’t it have called for traditional baking techniques he’d at least heard of before on the Great Hylian Baking Show?
Separately, whisk the heavy cream for a few minutes until it reaches firm peaks. Do not over mix.
How can you tell when it’s been over mixed?
Add the whipped cream to the mascarpone mixture in 2 additions, gently folding it in until combined. You should have a thick and fluffy frosting
What does that even mean, “fold it in?”...
By the time he was finished the kitchen was a disaster, but at least he had produced something resembling a cake. The cake layers sagged worryingly in the center, and the frosting refused to stay where it was spread, having turned out too runny for fear of over mixing.
He cut himself a slice to try it. The flavors were ok, but the textures were all wrong.
He was mid-chew when the sound of Zelda’s keys jangling in the door prevented him from troubleshooting these issues. In a panic he quickly shoved the rest of the slice in his mouth and the rest of the cake into the fridge.
Link swallowed the lions share without the benefit of chewing. “Hey, you’re awfully late! You must be starving,” he greeted nonchalantly while trying to make leaning against the fridge door look natural.
“No, not really, thank you, though!”
A knowing smirk spread across his face. “Carbonara practice going well?”
“Practice? I was tutoring,” she replied, the very portrait of innocence.
“Uh huh. It’s dinner time, you’re not hungry, and you were there until well past when the after-school late bus leaves.”
“...OK fine you got me,” she capitulated. “I’m sorry, but I was testing and tasting so much pasta, I’m stuffed!”
The slice of cake finally bottomed out in his stomach. “It’s fine, I’m not actually hungry either. How has it been going?”
“Well, the side dishes didn’t take me long to figure out. I finally stopped burning the Parmesan crisps after my third try.”
“The smoke detector is a fire alarm, not a kitchen timer,” he nodded sagely.
She glared at his sass icily. “But that sauce is impossible! What’s the secret?”
“What’ll you give me in exchange for a hint?” he winked with a cheshire smile.
“Depends on the value of the hint.”
“OK. You see this knob?” he said, turning around and pulling a knob off the front of the stove and holding it directly in front of her nose. “It’s got numbers on it between “HI” and “OFF”; you should try using those.”
“You jerk! That’s not even worth a kiss on the cheek!”
“What I’m tryin’ to say is you gotta go real low and slow, or you’ll get scrambled eggs every time.”
Zelda groaned and slouched onto a stool, burying her head in her arms on the kitchen island. “I knowwww!” she whined. “I’ve read that tip a thousand times in every single recipe I’ve found, but I just. Can’t. Get. It. Right.” She punctuated each of the last words with a frustrated thunk of her head against the countertop.
“You’ll get there, I believe in you. Try turning the heat off way earlier than you think you need to and turn it back on once everything is in the pan.”
“That’s three free pieces of advice, you know. You must be confident to be so magnanimous.”
A most untrue assessment, especially after today, but there was no way he was going to let her know that. “You know I’m a sucker and can’t stand to see you suffer.”
“Aw, thanks love. Would you like a hint to fix that cake I know you’re hiding in the fridge?”
An involuntary twitch of his eyebrows ruined any attempt at a lie. “What cake?”
“Link, the kitchen looks like a bomb full of frosting exploded in it.”
There was no playing that off. “How do you know it’s not perfect?” he deflected.
“Because if it was you’d already be rubbing my nose in the frosting,” she answered, and walked around to his side of the kitchen.
He waggled his eyebrows at her, “There’s frosting and fruit left over if you wanna get creative with it later.”
Zelda rolled her eyes at him.
“I’ll take that as a solid ‘maybe’?”
“Possibly maybe.”
“Ok, fine. But no hints, please! I wanna get this right for you by myself. Though if you wanna help me with the dishes we can call it even,” he said, pecking her on the cheek and turning on the tap to fill the sink.
“The sentiment is as endearing as it is frustrating,” she said, picking up the frosting bowl and tasting a bit. “This frosting’s undermixed,” she declared, but it didn’t stop her from dabbing a bit on the tip of his ear before seductively licking it off again. She smeared a little bit more on the other ear, “But if you really don’t want my help you better not let me catch you cheating.” She emphasized the warning by gently nipping his ear with her teeth.
Link flinched at the love bite and the guilt.
Yeah, about that…
—
Link’s luck with the Loftwing Nests hadn’t improved the next day, despite the new recipe. He took a picture of them straight out of the oven and shared it.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Here’s today’s batch. Why are they still turning out under-baked? I went the full 20min at 425°F.
>>PrincessOfPastry: Are you preheating your oven?
>>SubstituteSousChef: Of course, why do you ask?
>>PrincessOfPastry: Most oven's internal thermometers aren’t accurate, and the preheat cycle is never actually long enough. And you should preheat the baking stone for at least 30min longer for it to come up to temp. Do you have an analog thermometer?
>>SubstituteSousChef: No.
>>PrincessOfPastry: You should get one, they’re cheap insurance. I never trust what my oven says. You can also leave the rolls in there a little longer until they brown properly.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Won’t they overbake and turn into hardtack?
>>PrincessOfPastry: Not if there’s enough water in the oven to make steam like the instructions say.
>>SubstituteSousChef: OK. Guess I’ll try again tomorrow…
The suggestion prompted him to dig into Zelda’s baking equipment cupboard once again.
Of course she had one, science teacher that she was.
When the rolls were cool enough to touch he sawed one open with a bread knife to see what difference the new recipe had made. They weren’t as dense, but were still underdone, yet for having so few ingredients the flavor was much more complex. He tossed the rest out the window for the birds and set about mixing tomorrow’s dough.
—
Link danced with excitement as he attached a picture of the next batch.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Check it out, it worked! Perfect color! 😄
>>PrincessOfPastry: Good job! 😊 You’re getting better every time!
>>SubstituteSousChef: Thanks! I still can’t seem to figure out the braiding though. How do you make them look like the ones on the blog?
>>PrincessOfPastry: Don’t twist them quite so tight, keep it loose, then roll them up in the same direction as you twist the braids together.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Hard for me to visualize without pictures, but I’ll try! I am going to get these perfect if it kills me!
>>PrincessOfPastry: Don’t hurt yourself! 😂
—
Another day and another attempt had Link’s confidence soaring to new heights.
>>SubstituteSousChef: How do you like those braids? Gotta be my best work yet!
Unfortunately, his satisfaction was short-lived.
>>SubstituteSousChef: Why won’t they keep their shape!? 😭 During the second rise the braids all melted back together, and then they lost what little shape they had left in the oven.
>>PrincessOfPastry: Hmm, I’ve never had that problem. Try dusting the dough with flour as you go. Should keep them from sticking together before you want them to.
>>SubstituteSousChef: I’ll try that next. Well, glass half full: at least they’re delicious. Perfect crumb texture in there.
>>PrincessOfPastry: I bet they are! You should be proud of your progress!
>>SubstituteSousChef: All thanks to you!
>>PrincessOfPastry: Good luck, I presume you’re trying again tomorrow?
>>SubstituteSousChef: Yeah, one more try to see if I can’t get them to look pretty. They already taste amazing, so it’s not like they won’t get eaten even if they’re not perfect. Thanks for all your help and patience, you’re awesome!
>>PrincessOfPastry: You’re welcome! 🫶
—
Zelda came home later every night, each time more frustrated than the last.
Things must not be going well at all, not that they had gone perfectly for him either.
On the evening before Valentines’ Day, Link prepared the last batch of dough. When they got up the next morning Link sent her off with a kiss.
“Bring home a big appetite.”
“We’re going to need to go on a diet after this week, aren’t we?”
“That’s ‘Future Us’ problems. Tonight we feast!”
“Hopefully…”
The twinge of anxiety in Zelda’s voice gave him pause. Wasn’t this supposed to be fun? Perhaps they had both gotten too caught up in their wager…
Link spent the morning baking the cake, tweaking what he thought he should to correct his mistakes. This time there would be no telling how well he did until after dinner. He sampled some of the extra frosting and frowned. A bit grainy. Well, that answered the question of what constituted “overmixed”. Praying the cake itself would hold up, he slid it into the refrigerator and hit the market for some Koyin Gold butter, a bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of wine.
The last of the bowls were dry and put away when Zelda came home, carrying a grocery bag of ingredients with the deli’s logo on it.
“Brrrr!” she shivered, brushing snow from her coat. “Link, I’m home!”
Link returned her greeting, tossing another log into the woodstove. “Hey! Looks like the snow picked up again huh?”
“Indeed,” she sniffed as she started taking things from the bag. “There’s over a foot out there now!”
“I’m gonna start shaping the Loftwing Nests. You ready to haul firewood?” he said, pointing at the now empty log rack in the living room. The bravado was as much to cover the anxiety in his voice as to try and psych himself up. This was his last chance.
Plopping herself on a chair on the other side of the kitchen island to watch him, she replied, “Break a leg, babe!”
“If I somehow manage to do that you’ll definitely be carrying the firewood and shoveling the snow yourself.” Link popped the lid off the dough bowl and, without thinking, snapped a picture to share with PrincessOfPastry. He would take all the moral support he could get.
>>SubstituteSousChef: OK, here goes, last batch.
Zelda’s phone buzzed. She checked the notification and glanced in his direction.
“You’ve been on your phone a lot more than usual this week.”
“I’ve been researching, figuring out how to make these right.”
“Oh really? Just researching? What was that picture for?” She raised an eyebrow at him in the same way she always did when he was on thin ice, only this time he couldn't begin to fathom why.
Link froze, alarm bells ringing. She moved to join him in the kitchen, invading the space right behind him and leaning in closely over his shoulder
“T-to compare it with all my other ones?”
“Really? Are you sure you’re not getting advice from somewhere? Because that’d be cheating, you know.”
Link pressed his phone to his chest to hide the screen. “What?! No I’m not,” he tried to conjure up an excuse, but she had him completely off-balance. “And you never said anything about not getting help.”
“Yes I did! And yes you are!” she snatched at his phone but he yanked it away just in time and made a break for the living room, Zelda hot on his heels.
“OK, mayyyyybe a little bit!” he said coyly, catching on to Zelda’s mischievous mood and holding it out of her reach behind his back and hopping over the coffee table to escape her reaching fingers.
Zelda chased after him, laughing as they ran around the living room until she cornered him. He tried to keep her at arms length, but she snatched him by the wrist and yanked him toward her, tackling him to the couch in one movement. She landed on top of him, Link dodging and weaving the phone every which way he could to keep it from her, but she finally managed to pin his arm down to get a good look at it.
“Ah HA! Is that the Breabbitt Distil server!? Who’ve you been chatting with? Maybe I know them!” she teased with a lilt in her voice..
Surrendering, he grinned sheepishly and turned the screen towards her.
She shook her head and smiled. “I KNEW it!” she shouted triumphantly.
Now he was as confused as he was winded. “You knew what?”
She pulled herself off his chest to get out her phone and opened the app for him to see.
The username PrincessOfPastry glowed back at him in the same bright pink color as his ears, right above the picture he’d just sent.
It took Link a solid minute to find his voice. “No. NO WAY! It was you the whole time?! ”
“Yes, way! It’s such a niche recipe, there was no way anyone other than you would have been looking for help making them right after I asked you to!”
His face fell, the prospect of pushing the wheelbarrow through the snow from the woodshed to the house looming heavily. “Dang. You knew all along?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, but once I realized you were practicing all week I was pretty certain. It was too coincidental for two different people to need help with them at the same time.”
Link deflated even more. So much for making her proud of him too. “So what now?”
“Well, I suppose all that’s left to do is see how well you can follow my instructions.”
Despite not meeting her eyes, Zelda was still beaming at him. If he didn’t know her as well as he did, he’d think she was celebrating a victory over him. But he knew she was simply enjoying the revelation.
Link realized she was going to be just as proud of him as he was of her, no matter what they could or couldn’t do.
A flash of inspiration struck him.
“Do you want to make them together so you can show me what I’m still doing wrong? I’ll help you with dinner to get the sauce consistency just right.”
Zelda replied with a most relieved expression. “Oh goddesses, yes please! I’ve been so stressed out trying to get it right for you and I just can’t do it anymore! We’ll call it a draw?”
“Acceptable terms. The cake is already done and chilling in the fridge. She’s not much to look at, but hopefully she’s got it where it counts.”
“I’m sure it’s edible. Come on then, let’s get started!”
With her guidance and a demonstration of how to roll the braids up, the Loftwing Nests finally turned out exactly as they were supposed to: pleated and dark brown. When they’d cleaned up that mess, Zelda prepared the rest of the meal with minimal inputs from him (he only had to shut the flame off once to prevent the sauce from breaking); the pasta sauce turned out velvety smooth and luscious.
“This turned out amazing, I’m proud of you!” Link poured the wine. “Here’s to you and me. Look at us go, eh?”
Zelda smiled, buttering up a Loftwing Nest. “These are fantastic too, just like grandma’s. I’m proud of you too.”
“Reserve your judgement until you’ve tried the cake.”
“I’m sure it’s better than the last one.”
It wasn’t perfect, but after two glasses of wine the imperfections were hardly noticeable.
And after the meal was finished, Link carried his favorite dessert to the bedroom.
Along with an extra slice of the cake.