ohmygod yes please, i loooove your writing! can you write about cooking/baking with tom pls? 💞💞
this has an ungodly usage of the word choux buns and tempering and chocolate. my apologies! Please enjoy!
being a baker was something you’d worked so hard to become and now you were teaching your incredibly inept boyfriend how to bake. Having that said, you meant it lovingly that he was inept. The poor boy nearly set water on fire once.
“What are we making today babe?” He asked looking at you adoringly as you tied the apron around your waist. You glanced at him seeing his full focus and attention on you.
“Just some choux buns with vanilla custard and tempered chocolate,” you smirked smugly seeing his face fall.
You let out a pitiful groan slapping a hand to your face at his butchered pronunciation.
“No baby, choux buns. You know, profiteroles? Eclairs?” You hoped it would jog his memory.
“Oh those are yum!” His excitement when he realised that he knew what it was made you laugh.
“Yeah we’re making that,”
“Wait, aren’t those really hard to make?” He whined two seconds later when realisation hit.
“Choux buns are really tricky to make yes,” you laughed seeing his face turn ghostly pale.
“Fuck me,” he bemoaned leaning on his hands against the counter.
“Oh man up it’ll be fine!” You grinned going over to him, your arms around his waist as you kissed his cheek.
“You’ll help me right?” His voice wavered slightly and his bottom lip jutted out in a pout. How were you able to turn him down when he looked like that?
“Yes I will help you baby,” you smiled letting your fingers dip under his hoodie and you gently ran them along the warm, taut skin of his side.
“Thank you,” he smiled pressing a kiss to your forehead.
“Alright, let’s get the ingredients measured out and we’ll go from there,” you encouraged getting to work.
You had the recipe on your phone as the two of you worked seamlessly in the kitchen, well apart from a few stumbles that Tom made, everything was set out on the counter.
“Okay, we’ve got everything now, what we need to do now is to mix our wet and dry ingredients.” You smiles sneaking a glance at him seeing his pinched eyebrows nodding in concentration. He had already started doing the dry ingredients so you did the wet ones.
“This is fun,” he spoke up after a while and you smiled seeing him taking this so seriously.
“It is and you’re doing a great job baby,” you praised making him flush before he threw you a wink which made you laugh.
“Alright come here now, let’s put this together so you can pipe it,” you giggled seeing his eyes widen.
“Yeah baby, you gotta start somewhere,”
“Alright, well let’s crack into it then,” he straightened his shoulders watching you get the perfect consistency of the choux before putting it in the piping bag and handing it to Tom.
You did the first one just so he had a point of reference then you simply stepped back and watched him.
While he was so into piping you grabbed your phone, filming him and posting that little clip to your instagram with a simple caption of #bakerinthemaking which you knew would drive his fans crazy, but you liked to indulge them in the little things like this, just to let them see a slightly different side of him than they were used to.
“Am I doing this right?” He asked as you started on the custard, you peeked over seeing the wonky and messy shapes but you were so proud of him because he was doing a very good job for his first ever attempt.
“You’re doing so good,” You grinned and he smiled nodding to himself as he finished the last few ones.
“What’re you doing now?” He came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your middle after he put the choux buns in the oven, peering over your shoulder as you began to explain the process of making your own custard. You could tell he was listening intently with the way he was nodding and asking questions here and there.
It made your heart squeeze in your chest at just how genuinely interested he was in your passions and how he put up with you when you simply had to test a new recipe at 2 in the morning for the bakery. He was always your guinea pig when it came to desserts, not that he ever complained, I mean - who would? It was free sweets.
“That looks so good darling,” He smiled kissing your temple when you finished the custard and put the pot to the side. There was no time to waste though because the trickiest part was yet to come - the chocolate.
“This is advanced stuff I’m telling you now, you can give it a go if you want baby but you don’t have too,” You told him as you got the chocolate out.
“Are you gonna temper the chocolate?” He asked as his eyes went over everything you were pulling out.
“Yeah, you can give it a go if you want but like I said, you don’t have too,”
“No I wanna give it a go,” His lip jutted out again, this time in concentration which made you laugh.
“Okay baby, I’ll instruct you as to what you should do,”
He started rubbing his hands together, “Right, okay tell me,”
“We’re essentially heating and cooling the chocolate now. So first what you need to do is just melt the chocolate, that’s easy,” you started explaining, standing by his side as your arm snuck around his middle keeping your eyes on the chocolate as it melted.
“It’s got to get to the right temperature so you need this now, keep stirring,” You handed him the candy thermometer which he placed in the chocolate.
“Is this right?” He watched you as you shook your head, “Not quite there, almost,” While it was coming to temperature you grabbed the rest of the chocolate that needed to be added when it did reach the right temperature.
“It’s there now,” he said just as you came back, “Excellent, add this chocolate and stir it ‘til it’s melted as well. What you need to do now is bring the temperature down.”
“Why do I need to bring the temperature down?”
“Because by tempering the chocolate you’re controlling the crystals in it, thus making a better quality chocolate,” You told him the easy version of why tempering the chocolate was the best.
“Yeah pretty much, also it sets better. Properly tempered chocolate won’t leave any chocolate stained fingertips when you hold it and it has a gorgeous snap and shine to it if it’s done right,”
“You know so much,” He breathed staring at you in awe making you flush under his scrutiny.
“Oh stop,” You flushed gently guiding him to check on the chocolate instead, he just grinned pecking you quickly before returning his attention to the chocolate.
“It’s good, take it off the heat,” He did as you instructed, setting it up.
“Do a test strip,” You suggested, seeing him give up the spatula for you so you smiled and took over, grabbing a piece of glad wrap and coating chocolate on it, before setting it on the counter to cool.
“This way we’ll know if it’s tempered. It sets really fast and it should have a nice gloss and shine to it and a very satisfying snap,”
“I think we did baby, could you please check on the choux buns?”
“Oh right,” he popped over to the oven,
“So take them out, they need a bit of cooling time before we can fill them,”
With that said, the two of you worked together to finish your bake, cracking jokes the way you’d cracked the eggs earlier, both of you a giggling mess by the end of it.
“What a dream team we are,” He stated proudly taking in your counter that was filled with profiteroles and you fell easily into his open arms, breathing him in.
“We’re such a good team, thanks for letting me teach you how to do this,” You murmured puckering your lips.
“You’re a great teacher,” He smiled lovingly as he ducked in, meeting your lips halfway in a sweet kiss.
