May Flowers

When there was a baking competition in town, Viper was bound to be there. He looked for any excuse to make and eat copious amounts of sweet things. It seemed like he was the first one there, which was good. The majority of his first hour or so of the morning was spent rearranging things and stuffing gummy worms into his mouth, his chef hat covering his ears.

Finally, inspiration struck. Of course, the French baker was going to make something French. He had decided on making a layered crepe cake. A simple creation, but it was something light and airy. Perfect for spring, in Viper's opinion.

The first task in making the crepes was the batter. Into a wooden bowl went half of a dozen eggs, three cups of flour, a cup each of milk and water. The last thing to go in the mixture was exactly five tablespoons of melted butter-- no more, no less. Viper hummed a quiet rendition of a French lullaby to himself as he stirred the mixture vigorously until it was smooth.

Digging up three more bowls, Viper divided up his crepe batter. He had already known before he started the crepes that he wanted to make something with blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. To color the crepes, Viper decided to use a bit of fruit juice. It was a pain to have to strain out all of the fruit seeds from the juice, but he supposed taking the time to do it would be better than having crunchy crepes.

After coloring the crepes in light pastel shades, the next step was to cook the crepes. To do so, Viper started up a little fire with a pan over the heat. Dropping in enough batter to fill the pan, Viper swirled the pan until the crepe was formed. After it had solidified enough to be flipped, Viper would stack the crepes up on a plate.

There were a lot of crepes to be made. The stack was nearly half the size of Viper himself. Once the crepes were made, Viper would let them rest while he worked on the whipped cream that would be the frosting. It wasn't a complicated thing to make, only needing cream and sugar. The arduous part came when it was time to whip the mixture until it was a suitable frosting texture. It was no wonder where Viper got his upper body strength from.

There were three different flavors of crepes, strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry. Naturally, there would also be different flavors of whipped cream to go with it. Chopping the fruits up into a pulp, Viper divided up a portion of the cream into bowls to mix in the pulp. The cream was colored by the added fruit, although it was a very light, pastel color. He had kept plain whipped cream unflavored. He would use the plain cream to pipe decorations, as well as to coat the outside of the cake in seamless white frosting.

Now that the crepes were cooled, Viper retrieved his best glass cake stand. The bottom layer would be strawberry, the Frenchman had decided. Smearing a drop of frosting on the surface of the cake stand to hold his creation in place, Viper laid down the first crepe. In between the layers of strawberry cake, Viper spread on a thin blanket of strawberry flavored whipped cream. After the section of strawberry would be the blueberry, and finally the blackberry crepes.

When all of the crepes were laid down in their tower, Viper's next task was frosting the outside with a thin coating of the white cream. The sides were smoothed to perfection, while the top was left textured.

Now that the cake was fully built, the last step was Viper's favorite part: decorating his masterpiece. Perhaps it bothered some that they would only be decorating a cake for it to be eaten, but the idea didn't bother Viper in the slightest. In fact, he liked it. Viper had grown up on a farm, where the meals were usually something along the line of corn and a meat product. It had never looked appetizing, sitting haphazardly on a plate, therefore, Viper had never enjoyed it. In the opinion of the Frenchman, decorating something made it taste better. When a cake was decorated, it was loved. The love and care was what made a cake taste good. Well, along with baking it properly.

Viper studied his cake while he slowly mixed the remaining whipped cream in thought. Decorating a cake was a tricky process. It took an awful lot of thought and planning. In the end, Viper decided to just wing it, much like what he did with most things.

Around the base of the cake, Viper piped delicate white peaks. He flourished it with real edible flowers in pink, blue and purple. Turning his attention to the last part of the cake, the top, Viper hummed again. He wanted it to be simple and elegant. In the center of the cake, Viper piled on the berries. Halved strawberries fenced in whole blueberries and blackberries. At the top of the berry stack was a few expertly placed mint leaves.

After Viper had sat on the mint leaves, he stepped back from his decadent creation. The last thing he wanted to do was overdo the decorations. As he stared at his cake, deciding if he would want to make any last adjustments, Viper was heaping spoons of leftover whipped cream into his mouth. The cream stuck to the ends of his curly whiskers and weighed them down.

"Hmmm, I think it's done." Viper concluded with a nod. He paused to shuffle a few remaining blueberries into his mouth. Walking his cake over to display it, Viper grinned at Oli, Cicero, and Cory. "Crepe cake! Very French. Hope you like it." He chirped, brushing some flour from his fur.

Turning back to his workspace, Viper was met with a mess. Oh. He supposed he would have to clean up after himself as well. With a soft huff through his pink nose, Viper started to gather up his dishes for washing.