Undercover bakers

Three days worth of hangover hit me square in the face this morning. I felt rotten, and had a busy day to come: the first meeting with my mentor, and a trip out to Salford to talk policy with a partner. Did I smell like booze? I hoped not. And then college later on too? You’ll be lucky. I decided to cut class.

Yesterday I’d arranged to drop off my keys at Dunk’s as part of a plan to support his stealthy baking of a cake for Kate. One problem: last night Kate had said she was staying at his – if she saw my Stormtrooper keyring on the doormat as she left, would it give the game away? Far too risky.

Dunk swung by at tea time. As he mixed the ingredients for the cake, we talked about decorating it. The cake was a rich, thick chocolate sponge, with a dark and drizzly mixture. It left its luscious muddy prints in lot of places. Dunk put it into the oven, and we made some pasta.

I started the dough for the pizzas, enough for twenty-four, with three kilos of flour. As I mixed and kneaded, Dunk started to play around with ideas for decorating the cake. Coconut ‘snowball effect’ feathers? Good one. Biscuits for eyes? Yes please. An ice-cream cone beak? Why, yes, that’d be spiffing. Chocolate-dipped and coconut-coated cones for long owl ears? Genius. The dough was rising fast.

It was a surprise cake, so we had to clear all signs of what we’d been up to. Sure, we could get away with some baking paraphernalia because of the pizza dough, but most of what was there had to go. I felt like the Evidence Cleansing Teams from the film Men In Black. We went through a series of sweeps across the kitchen, leaving and then going back into the room, cleaning all that we could see that was incriminating.

Finally, satisfied with our subterfuge, we slept.

And all night long, and even now, the pizza dough rises…