Page 34 of Witchblood
“Are they on the recipe cards?” I returned to the mixing area to clean up again and sort through the cards. Yes, muffin recipes. Though they were a little dull. “You have three amazing scone recipes but all you have for muffins is blueberry, banana nut, and chocolate chip? Are you competing with Starbucks for lack of originality?”
“Adair is too busy making pastries to mess with muffin recipes. So we always just make the same. Adair is our only pastry chef. I can follow a recipe, but bread is my specialty. The scones are more popular.”
Because the scones had character. I began to put the first recipe together and decided to see if I could spice it up a little. If they didn’t sell, or everyone hated them, did that mean he’d fire me? Decide I wasn’t mate material? Not that it mattered. I knew these recipes well enough to know how good they were. If people didn’t like the change, the bakery could go back to the mass market crap tomorrow.
The first batch was lemon blueberry with a streusel top. It smelled like heaven and I couldn’t wait until they were finished baking to try them. I portioned them out into the giant muffin cups and put them on the baking rack. The chocolate chip recipe was another easy one to manipulate flavor so long as they had the correct ingredients.
“Do you by chance have avocados in here somewhere?” I asked Liam. He was finished with the scones and onto kneading and prepping bread in trays for the oven. He really was a pro, very intent on his work.
“Produce fridge, if we do,” he replied absently as he shaped another loaf.
I hadn’t noticed it when I’d gotten the blueberries and found the lemons, but I’d look again. Sure enough in a lower drawer were avocados. I rescued them and hoped no one had a particular plan for them since I’d need them all. This recipe was a gluten free double chocolate fudge muffin. Easy to make and super fudgy in the middle, laced with dark chocolate chips on the outside. If someone didn’t know they had avocado in them, they’d have never guessed.
The last muffin was a harder reboot. Banana nut was just so dull. Instead I made gluten and dairy free banana, walnut, cranberry muffins with a streusel top again. Another fudgy and dense muffin, with a refreshing pop of flavor. The first two sets of trays had already disappeared, likely to be baked. Liam moved like a ninja around the kitchen, filling up the glass display case in a dance with the other two bakers.
An older looking man appeared in full chef detail to take the muffin trays from me. He didn’t more than glance at them before whisking them away. Colleen, the woman from the register the day I’d met Liam, appeared in the doorway. Her eyes rolled appreciatively over Liam and gave me a tight smile. “Morning, Liam,” she said.
“Morning, Colleen. You get the coffee started?” he asked without looking at her. Technically we both knew she hadn’t because we’d have smelled it, but maybe he had issues with her follow through in the morning.
“About to start it now.” She lingered a moment longer before disappearing back out into the main part of the bakery.
“I don’t know what these are, but they smell good,” the second as yet unidentified voice said as a woman walked out of the very back with a tray of the lemon blueberry muffins. She was younger, maybe early twenties, with red hair swept back in a braid, and big brown eyes. Her smile was warm.
“Lemon blueberry with a streusel top,” I told her, then looked at Liam. “Can I eat one? I’m starving.”
“Sure.” He reached for the tray. “I want to try one too.” Everyone tried one except Colleen. The display case was filled, and the muffin shelf which was normally shared with the pastries was overflowing with new flavors and handwritten signs. I’d gotten a little bake happy and made larger batches. Liam said nothing, and ate not just the lemon blueberry, but one of each of the others as well. Werewolves. I wished I had their metabolism.
Melanie, the other baker, walked me through how to run the register, though it was pretty straight forward. Liam programmed in the new muffin flavors with only a handful of keystrokes. The entire system was all touch based, and very high tech, but I was hoping they wouldn’t just throw me to the proverbial morning wolves. I could handle the computers. Filling orders, computers, and coffee was a little much even for me.
“I’m going to open the doors. Everyone ready for the morning rush?” Liam asked as he headed to the front. There really was a line forming outside.
“Is that normal?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. Just wait till you see the Monday morning crowd,” Melanie said as she patted my back. “And holidays. Holidays are insane. We start taking pie orders in August every year.”
The doors opened and rush wasn’t even the right word. I felt like a robot, punching things into the computer and spitting out orders for Melanie, Liam, Adair and Colleen to fill. Everyone moved like their hair was on fire, making coffee, tea, or bagging up pastries, moving out empty trays to fill new ones. Racks of bread came and went. The customers smiled and chatted with me like I’d been there for years. Everyone loved the new muffin recipes. Several buying up boxes full of them, until the shelf was empty and had to be restocked with scones instead.
It was almost nine in the morning before there was finally a break. Two other employees showed up, Rick and Joel. They gave me a friendly smile, and got right to work restocking the baked case and filling orders.
“Can you make more of those muffins?” Liam asked.
“If there are more ingredients. I used the last of the avocados and am not sure about the rest.”
“Make a list and I’ll call the grocery to send over supplies.”
“Okay.” I took a spare bit of receipt paper and began to make a list while Melanie filled a large pastry order, then took an order for a custom cake. The Sweet Tooth had no cakes on display, which I thought was odd. If I had my own little bakery and tea shop, I’d have a delightful display of the most heavenly cakes in one of those twirling cases to draw people inside. Apparently the bakery did special order cakes for weddings and such but not just every day cakes. I had over two dozen cake recipes which had been perfected before my world had imploded. In that moment I realized just how much I’d missed having others to bake for, and to craft tea for, and to make smile with the most decadent of desserts.
“Take a break,” Liam told me as he carried another tray of bread out to the shelves. He hadn’t taken a break either. He snatched the list out of my hand as he passed again with the empty tray. “Eat whatever you want from the case. Food and drink are on the house for employees. I’ll get this list over to the grocery. Break, now,” he commanded, and disappeared into the back.
“Um, sure? And kettle, black, but you’re the boss.” I stripped off the hairnet and apron, stretched my back, listening as it popped several times, then headed out the front door.
Chapter 16
The sun was shining and the weather cool as the wind blew through the trees. The area was pretty enough. Quiet. The scent of fresh bread still filled my nose and it felt oddly like home with a little something missing. Tea would fix that, I thought. I could have really used a cup of fresh lavender tea sweetened with just a hint of honey. A slice of strawberry lemonade cake topped with candied lemon rinds would have made the bright morning perfect.
A couple walked by me, nodding their heads in greeting as they entered the bakery. I took a minute to examine the street. I hadn’t noticed much about it the first time I’d come through. Really just about it being some tiny main street in a middle of nowhere town. And it sort of was, only it was cute. Filled with small shops in old buildings, all with small business names instead of big box store ones. Liam’s bakery was The Sweet Tooth, which was a bit of irony since it was run by wolves. There was a small hardware store, a general shop, a grocery store, a couple of antique stores, a furniture store, a bookstore, and a handful of small boutique clothing shops. The bakery shared space with another building area which appeared to be unoccupied at the moment. I wondered why Liam hadn’t just expanded into the space and enlarged the bakery. He could have done an entire sit down area to get people to linger over pastries and coffee and tea.
The windows were covered in paper on the inside. Maybe someone was already working on doing just that. I didn’t know enough about Liam to know if he handled all the financial and business planning or if he had people do it for him. So far he’d been pretty hands on, but only so much could be expected from one person. Even if that person was an alpha werewolf.