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[leadinglady]

Do alarms like that normally happen here? It was quite a wake-up call! I'm glad I wasn't drafted, but...

[ she's pretty concerned about people who are. Platina glances worriedly off to the side, then turns back to the feed. ]

I hope they'll be all right. In the meantime... does anyone know how to make a cake?

[ pointing the camera at her disastrous-looking attempt. yyyyes, wrong canon, but the girl is not a cook! it's her birthday and she wants cake damnit o9" also action is cool for anyone living in pokehouse too. ]

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[leadinglady]

Right. Let me see...

[ after pouring in the last cup, she searches the drawers for pans, looking them over curiously. ]

... You don't have any custom cake pans, do you?

[cilantro]

[Platina...] ...As a matter of fact, I do. They're right over there.

[Pointing to some cake pans...the ones we prepared earlier about oh, forty minutes ago or so give or take before we started mixing ingredients. But it's okay I nearly forgot we even did that already myself. ^^;;]

[leadinglady]

Oh... there they were. O-of course.

[ whoops, well backreading backtags is apparently not what I a lady does!! she sheepishly pulls the prepared pans closer so he could pour. ]

[cilantro]

[Cilan just smiles at that before he goes ahead and pours the cake batter into each pan, trying to make sure there's an equal amount of batter in each pan before he sets their bowl aside and gently taps each pan against the table to rid it of air bubbles.]

We'll let these bake for about...25 minutes, and then we'll check to see how our cake is--we'll have to be careful not to over bake, otherwise it'll end up with a drier taste than desired.

[acuity]

Then I'll definitely be careful. There's probably a timer we could use, right?

[ hmm hunting for oven mitts in preparation for putting the pans in. maybe some with cute patterns shhhhh shh 8D/ ]

[cilantro]

[Considering that this kitchen is used by Cilan, there probably are oven mitts with ridiculously cute patterns on them in here... ^^;;]

Of course--ah, here it is. [Here's the timer--preparing to set it for 25 minutes. When he notices what Platina seems to be looking for, he hesitates for a second, but then he goes ahead and points to a drawer nearby.] The oven mitts should be in there--I'm sure I don't have to say that getting burned would be quite a painful taste to endure, so please be careful, alright?

[If you had been Ash or Iris we would have insisted being the one to deal with that but...Platina might be a little more careful than they would have been about putting and taking things out of the oven, right?]

[acuity]

[ you would hope so!... and maybe being a little too careful because you don't even need mitts to put something IN the oven after all but hey, it's the thought that counts. she digs out an owl oven mitt and uses it to slide the pans inside. ]

Whew... finished! Well, I imagine the complicated part is.

[cilantro]

[suddenly I really wish I had owl oven mitts in my actual kitchen...]

That's right. Now it's a matter of waiting. [...Oh right, nearly forgot:] But while we're waiting on the cake to bake, we could get an early start on preparing the frosting to use for the cake once it's been baked and cooled, if you'd like.

[acuity]

Of course. Frosting on the cake is just frosting on the cake~

[ hmm her bodyguards would've come up with something wittier. she turns as if going to look for it in the fridge or drawers before... ]

Where would it be, again?

[cilantro]

Well, pre-made frosting is usually kept there [pointing at the indicated place] and can be used for cakes and other treats, or we can also choose to make the frosting for the cake ourselves--usually for red velvet cake, the most common flavors are either a cream cheese frosting or a similar white frosting with a fluffier taste in appearance to it.

[But it's your cake, he'll leave it up to you what kind of frosting you want to use or make.]

[acuity]

[ pondering for a while... hmm maybe making the frosting would be enough filler time for the cake to bake, that's her reasoning. ]

How long would it take to make our own frosting, Mr. Cilan?

[cilantro]

Well, that usually depends on what kind of frosting you want. There are some with simple tastes that can be made in less than ten minutes, or a few complex ones that can take up to twenty or longer depending on the equipment or ingredients you might have...ah, but time hopefully won't be too much of an issue for us--once the cake layers have been baked, they'll still need a little more time to cool afterward before we'll be able to add the frosting to it.

[So...yeah, we should theoretically have enough time to make our own frosting for this?]

[acuity]

In that case, I'd like to try making our own. A complex taste would be nice... but, knowing my skill level, I'll trust your expertise in deciding what kind of frosting we should make.

But by kinds, do you mean flavors?

[cilantro]

Of course! [Yes, very good Platina!] What type of flavors do you usually like as the frosting on your cakes?

[acuity]

... Actually, until now, I didn't even know frosting had flavors. I thought there was only just the one.

[cilantro]

There's actually quite a few--vanilla and chocolate are often the most common flavors, as well as making frosting with cream cheese for some types of cakes. There's also buttercream frosting, and I've come across mentions of some flavors used for cupcakes such as strawberry, lemon, mint or even expresso-flavored for people with particular tastes...

[Though we're pretty sure you don't want those kind of flavors (like expresso haha) for your red velvet cake in particular, but the ones mentioned before are at least more normal sounding to have...]

[acuity]

[ WOW it's like sophie's choice!! thinking over which sounds like the classiest flavor instead of which might compliment the cake best... ]

Which flavors would we have the ingredients for? That could narrow things down.

[cilantro]

[He steps over to take a look through his own cabinets a little, just to be sure.]

Well, we should have the necessary ingredients for making frosting with cream cheese, as well as possibly vanilla and chocolate too...and while I'm sure the other examples I gave before would be...ah, a unique taste to have, I'm afraid we'd have to do some grocery shopping to pick up what's needed for those.

[Sorry Miss Platina. ^^;;]

[acuity]

[ WHY SORRY this is awesome!! vanilla and chocolate are all well and good but she's attracted to novelty so the obvious choice is... ]

I don't think I've ever heard of cream cheese frosting before. Let's go with that one! It sounds like it'd have an interesting taste!

[cilantro]

[He nods in agreement as he acquires and moves over some of the ingredients needed towards us on the table.]

We let this margarine and cream cheese soften a little more to room temperature--one of the fastest ways to do that can usually be by microwaving them carefully, or sometimes even grating them can help bring them closer to room temperature soon enough. [And the mun doesn't even remember if we have microwaves in Luceti, but we're pretty sure there's probably a cheese grater around here somewhere at least.] Once that's done, we then cream and mix them with our sugar here, and adding vanilla to the mixture afterwards. [Indicating the sugar and vanilla we've got here. Not too many steps to making frosting, this time.]

[acuity]

A microwave... ah, the commoner's heating device! But I suppose grating would work just as well. Let's see.

[ glancing around in the drawers before realizing... she totally doesn't know what a grater looks like. FIRST WORLD COOKING NEWB PROBLEMS. ]

[cilantro]

["Commoner's heating device", pffft...

When it looks like Platina is having trouble finding it, he leans over to see where she's looking before he points to it.]

Here, this should do. [He'll reach in and take it out, holding it up for Platina to look at.] I take it you've never seen one of these used before?

[acuity]

[ about to say no, but... then again it looks simple enough, I bet I can do this!! she takes the grater and the cream cheese and just stares at it.

and then puts the grater on top and tries to push down on it like she can squeeze the cheese into shreds. surely this is how it works?! ]

[cilantro]

[And he's going to just gently stop you right there when she starts trying to push the grater down on top of the cheese.]

Ah, I'm afraid that's not necessarily how you use it. Here--[He picks up the cream cheese and shows how to correctly grate it along the sides of the edges of the grater.]--like this, see?

[acuity]

R-right. That was my second guess!

[ D... EFINITELY. she follows his lead, grating slowly, then picking up in speed somewhat. oh this isn't too hard after all! pretty soon there's a nice pile of shreds 8|b ]