Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Week One: Cake

In which Gold meets his fellow bakers, takes an instant dislike to more than one, and interacts with the lovely Miss French for the first time.

Also, Jefferson contemplates a banana and does exciting things with pineapples.

“Dad! If you don’t get a move on, you’ll miss your train!”

“Raymond Gold! I know you can hear us! If you can hear a ewe in labour crying in the next field, you can hear us hollering at you from up here!”

Gold glanced up at the farmhouse on the top of the hill, where his son and his aunt were hanging out of the upstairs windows yelling at him, but he made no response. Beside him, Dove chuckled.

“She’ll be threatening to come down here and drag you in by the scruff of your neck in a minute,” the taller man said, his voice matter-of-fact.

“Rum, don’t make me come down there!” Aunt Elvira squawked.

“Told you so,” Dove said. “You’d better make a move, Mr G.”

Gold sighed. “I know, but I really don’t want to. This entire venture was a bad idea.”

“Oh, you won’t think that when you get there. Besides, whatever happens, you’ll get to meet the lovely Miss French in the flesh.”

“Even if the extent of our interaction consists of her telling me my Swiss roll is the worst she’s ever tasted and me just standing there unable to speak.”

Dove raised an eyebrow. “You could have used a better example than Swiss roll, I feel.”

Gold rolled his eyes. “Sometimes you’re as bad as Bae,” he muttered, and he shook his head. “This was a very bad idea.”

“I hate to be the one to say it, Mr G, but you’ve come slightly too far to back out now.”

“Rum, if you don’t get back in this house in the next ten seconds!”

“I’d better go in then.” Gold sighed again. “You’ll be all right whilst I’m away? I’ll be back for evening herding tomorrow.”

“We’ll manage without you for one night,” Dove reassured him. “Go on, before she starts threatening arson.”

Gold set off in the direction of the house, wondering for the umpteenth time what he’d let himself in for. It was all Bae’s fault. They’d been watching the Bake Off last year, and Bae had, in complete earnestness, told his father that he ought to apply. When Gold had shown no signs of actually doing it himself, Bae had taken matters into his own hands and before Gold knew it, letters had started arriving inviting him to come to baking auditions, which up until that winter, Gold hadn’t known were even a thing.

Against his better judgement, he had gone along with it, reasoning that he couldn’t possibly get through to the next round, that he would turn up and the producers would take one look at him and send him straight home again. Except, each time, new letters arrived inviting him to the next stage of the competition, until, well, now. Only a couple of very short hours away from baking Swiss roll in front of several cameras in a small marquee with eleven strangers, scrutinised by the infamous Diana “Granny” Lucas and the wonderful, talented, and incredibly beautiful Belle French.

“Come on Dad!” Bae exclaimed as he entered the house, grabbing his crook and sticking it in the umbrella stand by the back door before manhandling his father towards the stairs. “You can’t go on TV looking and smelling like you’ve just been herding sheep!”

“I have just been herding sheep! Bae, you’re in charge of the girls whilst I’m away.”

Bae looked back at the two border collies that had followed Gold into the house and were sitting placidly by the oven, looking up at him expectantly.

“Yes, yes, of course, I’ll take care of Chip and Imp, but I won’t have to if you don’t get a move on! Anyone would think you didn’t want to go!”

“I don’t,” Gold pointed out, halfway up the stairs. “I still can’t quite believe I let myself get dragged into this.”

“Dad.” Bae folded his arms and gave his father a knowing look. “Do you really want to pull out now and miss your chance to meet the lovely Miss French face to face?”

“Yes! At least this way I’m guaranteed not to make a fool of myself.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bae asked. “What will Belle think of you if you don’t show up? She’d be so hurt that you didn’t want to meet her, and that you were so scared of meeting her that you went AWOL at the last minute.”

Gold’s eyes narrowed. “I can already tell I’m going to regret this.”

Bae just smiled.

“Wait there,” he said before running off in the direction of the kitchen again. Gold dutifully waited, halfway up the stairs, wondering what on earth could have got into Bae this time.

“Rum!” Aunt Elvira squawked from the landing. “What are you doing, man?”

“Waiting,” Rum replied patiently, because anything that delayed the inevitable in his mind was a godsend and not to be sniffed at.

“Whatever for?” Aunt Elvira exclaimed. “You’re going to be late! Oh, for goodness’ sake, this is turning into a disaster!”

“It’s all right, Aunt Elvira.” Bae reappeared. “It’s my fault.” He raced up the stairs, holding out Gold’s cane, the gold-handled one he hardly ever used. “Well, take it,” he said, pressing it into his father’s hands. “Unless you were planning on limping around the tent. You can hardly take your crook.”

“Bae, I really don’t think…”

“It’ll bring you good luck,” Bae said, and Gold looked up sharply, but there was no cheeky grin on his son’s face. His smile was completely in earnest. He took the cane, the metal cool against his hand. “Or, at any rate, it’ll give you courage. Just don’t use it to beat the other contestants into submission.”

Gold gave a snort of laughter and made his way up the stairs to take a shower and get ready to quite possibly meet his doom. He only ever used that cane when he had to leave the safe confines of the farm and go and do something particularly unpleasant, like talking to the bank. Whilst the experience was going to be an infinitely different one, the fear was still the same, and hopefully he would be able to pull through. After all, it wasn’t every day that one got to meet Belle French. He sighed, hoping that he wouldn’t make too much of a fool of himself in front of her. It was all very well having a hopelessly unattainable schoolboy crush on a lovely woman on a TV screen hundreds of miles away, but to be in the same room with her… Gold was utterly terrified.

Just focus on the cake, he told himself crossly. That’s the only reason you’re there.

“Rum?” Aunt Elvira’s voice came through the bedroom door.

“Not now, Aunt Elvira, please. I’ve already had to talk myself out of drowning in the shower.”

“Oh Rum.” Aunt Elvira sighed. “I just wanted to say… You know you’ve got nothing to prove.”

Gold raised an eyebrow in the mirror and snorted. He had everything to prove; that was part of the reason why he was so scared about this whole arrangement in the first place.

“I know you’re getting cold feet, but think about it, not trying at all is more cowardly than trying and failing.”

Gold rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Aunt Elvira. That’s very helpful.”

“I’m doing my best!” Aunt Elvira said, affronted. “This is a big thing, Rum. You’ve already come this far and that’s a huge achievement. Just don’t throw it away now.”

Gold sighed, and, satisfied that he was ready and couldn’t possibly spin in out any longer, opened the bedroom door. Aunt Elvira threw her arms around him.

“You’ll be fantastic,” she told his shirt. “And if Granny Lucas makes any impertinent comments about your Swiss roll, trip her up with your cane.”

“To be honest, it’s not Granny I’m worried about when it comes to impertinent comments,” Gold muttered, but before anything more could be said, a taxi could be heard traversing the winding drive up to the farmhouse, and it was time for Gold to go.

X

“Thank goodness you’ve arrived, we were starting to worry, I mean, I know the trains have been ridiculous all week but this time they’ve really outdone themselves, if you’d just like to follow me please, I have a couple of waivers I need you to sign for the insurance and then we’ll be ready to go and you can meet your fellow contestants and…”

The little woman who had met Gold at the entrance when he had finally arrived at the filming location had not stopped talking from the moment he had got out of the taxi. She’d taken his box of personal ingredients and handed it over to a runner who had borne it away so quickly he might have teleported, and Gold had been left wondering if he would ever see his homemade cherry jam again, but before he had any time to protest, she had been dragging him through the stately home that served as a base of operations for filming and explaining the weekend’s proceedings at light speed.

“I’m Astrid, by the way,” she said, holding out a hand, but as they were still walking and Gold’s ankle was already protesting at their pace, he was in no position to take it. Thankfully, Astrid took this all in her stride and continued her chatter. Gold was getting tired just listening to her. “I hope I’m not talking too much. Leroy always says I talk too much when I’m nervous, and I am nervous, it’s my first day. But you’ll be nervous too, I expect, with all the cameras, at least I get to stay out of sight and…” She tailed off as they came to a door. “Well, everyone else is in here. I’ll let you get acquainted.”

She pushed open the door and waved him inside cheerfully. “I’ll be right back with the paperwork.”

As he entered, everyone else in the room turned to look at him. It was clear that he was the last person to arrive, and the weight of so many pairs of eyes on him felt incredibly heavy.

“Well, looks like they’ve rounded up the straggler at last,” someone said, a dark-haired young man wearing a leather jacket in the middle of the room. Up until the moment of Gold’s entry, he had been talking to a blonde woman who was wearing a look of extreme distaste, and Gold couldn’t tell if it was directed towards her conversation partner’s discourse or his own tardy arrival.

“Now, now, Killian, don’t be mean, darling.”

Had Gold not been so equally embarrassed and terrified, he would have smiled at the welcome intervention. There was no mistaking Ella Furrier. She was already a larger than life personality on the TV screen, but seeing her person was something else. The contrast of her two-tone hair seemed even starker now as she came towards him, wafting expensive perfume that covered up the cigarette smoke. It was entirely possible that he was more scared about meeting her than meeting Belle French, but that was because Ella always looked like she was about to devour her conversation partner whole rather than out of any kind of attraction on Gold’s part. She had reached him in the doorway and put her arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the fray.

“Now, darling, you must be Mr Gold. Raymond. Or do you prefer Ray?”

Gold shook his head. No-one called him Ray, and only Aunt Elvira called him Rum. “Just Gold. Everyone calls me just Gold.”

“Very well then. I do like a bit of mystery.” She was still walking him around the room. “Let’s get you introduced. I’m sure you know Ursula, of course.”

Whilst Ella’s co-host (and, it was rumoured, girlfriend) was marginally less outrageous than her partner, Ursula Tempest was still a force to be reckoned with, and between the two of them, Gold was certain that they would either make his life a complete nightmare or become his strongest allies. Right now he was more inclined towards the former.

“Pleased to meet you, Gold,” Ursula said. “Oh Ella, I don’t know what you’ve done to frighten him. He looks a little like a deer in the headlights. It’s all right, no-one here is going to eat you.”

Gold wasn’t entirely sure about that. The man in the leather jacket, Killian, was still looking at him with a sneer. His blonde companion gave Gold a brief smile. He nodded, unsure what else to do. It would all be all right once they actually got started, he told himself.

On the other side of the room, Astrid had come back in and her radio burst into life; she listened to the crackled message before rushing over to Gold and the two presenters.

"Ursula, Ella, make-up want to see you. They were saying something about your eyebrows, Ella," she added with a somewhat mystified air before pressing the insurance waivers into Gold’s hands. Ella gave Gold an apologetic look and left him in the middle of the room of strangers. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a production runner moving around the room fitting everyone with mic packs, and he took a deep breath. He could do this. This horrible state of limbo surrounded by his competitors hopefully wouldn't last too long and then they could get down to the real reason that they were all here. Baking.

Seeing him looking rather lost, the blonde woman who had been talking to Killian purposefully extracted herself from the conversation and came over.

"Hi, I'm Emma," she said as they shook hands.

"Raymond, but everyone just calls me Gold."

"Ignore Killian," Emma muttered under her breath, nodding over at her previous conversation partner, who was now attempting to flirt with the runner fixing his mic. "I've only known him five minutes and I already want to upturn a bowl of not-quite-set meringue all over him. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise."

"Hello there, welcome to the madhouse." Gold turned and had to do a double take on seeing the man who had spoken. He was wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch with a cravat, and Gold felt incredibly underdressed in his jeans. For a moment he wondered if the man was somehow involved with Ella and Ursula and was a new presenter; he seemed to share Ella's outrageous eccentricity. "Jefferson's the name, carrot cake is the game."

Gold shook his hand, still wondering what on earth he'd managed to let himself in for.

His late arrival meant that he didn't get the chance to meet everyone else in the room before other logistical things started happening. Aside from Emma and Jefferson, there was also Leroy, who looked like he wanted to be there about as much as Gold did; Aurora, a student who'd had to get up at half-past three in the morning to get to the location on time and couldn't stop yawning, and a worryingly enthusiastic redhead named Zelena who instinctively made Gold want to run three miles in the opposite direction. It was far too early to be scouting out potential competition, but Killian-And-His-Leather-Jacket kept looking over at him through narrowed eyes.

Once all the contestants were miced and had their photos taken, there was a quick health and safety briefing whilst Astrid rushed around taking lunch orders, and then they were off, down towards the Baking Tent of Destiny wherein dreams could be made or broken with a single mispiped buttercream rosette. It took them a couple of attempts as the runners kept rearranging the order in which they would enter the tent so as to stop them running about madly trying to find their assigned workbenches. Gold found himself towards the back, nicely out of the way, behind a young woman with very pale, almost white, blonde hair whom he'd not had the chance to speak to in the room before they started. Emma was behind him and she gave him an encouraging wave as they put their aprons on. Gold tried to smile in return, but he feared that it might have come out more like a grimace. He had been nervous many times in his life and would freely admit to being a naturally nervous person, but he didn't think that he'd ever been so anxious about the outcome of a cake before.

"Good morning bakers!" Ella's voice pulled everyone's attention back to the front of the tent. Gold didn't know what make-up had done to her eyebrows, but he couldn't detect any change in their starkly painted thickness to when he'd seen her before. His gaze wandered from Ella and Ursula over to the judges. This was the first time that the contestants had seen them in the flesh, and Gold suppressed a small sigh. Belle French, the nation's favourite baker, was even more lovely in real life than she was on the TV. Dressed in a bright yellow dress that could rival the sun outside for radiance, and the most ridiculously high heels he'd ever seen, she was casting a practised eye over them, already sizing up who she thought could go the distance. Over the course of the programme's run, Belle had picked up the reputation as 'good cop' to Granny's 'bad cop', but her comments could be devastating if something wasn't up to her standards. Gold shifted sideways a little in the hope of concealing himself behind the woman in front of him.

"Welcome to cake week, and your very first signature challenge!" Ella continued.

"Today, Belle and Granny would like you to make a Swiss roll. You're free to use whatever ingredients you like, but it must be a roll and you'll get extra points if it speaks French," Ursula added.

"You have two and a half hours on the clock. On your marks!"

"Get set!"

"Bake!"

Gold tore his eyes away from Belle and focussed on the workbench. There were three chances to prove himself this weekend and he didn't want to throw away the first one because he was too busy making moon-eyes over one of the judges. All around him, people were moving around, measuring out ingredients and switching ovens on, and Gold tried his hardest to tune them out and concentrate on his own work. Swiss roll. He could make Swiss roll. He'd been making Swiss roll for years; it was Bae's favourite sweet treat and they'd both laughed when he'd received the instructions telling him what they would have to bake each week. He could do this. Just as long as he didn't do something completely stupid.

Behind him he heard Emma swear violently as she dropped a heavy mixing bowl on her foot.

"Don't worry, we'll edit that out," Ursula called from the front of the tent.

Gold gave a snort of laughter and concentrated on measuring out his ingredients. Sponge in the oven first so it had enough time to cool and didn’t melt the decorations, then temper the chocolate to make it look pretty, whip up the cream...

"Good morning Raymond."

Gold looked up from the melting chocolate and gave a squawk of alarm on finding Ella, Belle and Granny standing in front of him expectantly with a cameraman.

Belle gave him a sympathetic smile. "Shall we go away and do that again so you're more prepared?"

Gold nodded, grateful for the reprieve and mentally kicking himself before remembering to check the temperature of the chocolate and hastily taking it off the heat. This time he looked up in time and was not taken by surprise.

"Good morning Raymond," Ella said brightly.

"Good morning."

Gold glanced over at the camera before Ella waved surreptitiously to get him to focus on her.

"So, tell us all about your Swiss roll," Granny said. There was something rather challenging in her gaze and Gold felt himself practically wilting.

"It's a black forest Swiss roll," he said, deciding that it was easier to address Ella than either of the judges who were making him tongue-tied for entirely different reasons. "Chocolate sponge with cherry jam and whipped cream, and chocolate decorations."

"I love cherry jam," Belle said wistfully, and Gold allowed himself a small smile of victory. At least he'd started out in her good books. If she'd come along saying that she couldn't stand cherries then he'd be in for a bumpy ride.

"It sounds very interesting," Granny said, evidently reserving judgement. "Just make sure that the cream doesn't ooze too much."

Gold could only nod dumbly, feeling like he was back at school and had just been reprimanded by the headmaster, and the two judges moved on to their next victim, the cameraman following them. Ella lingered for a while.

"You know, if you're nervous, just imagine the judges naked," she said, her voice completely matter-of-fact. Gold felt his face flame as he watched Belle's shapely legs make their way across the tent to Jefferson's workbench. That would have the opposite effect to the one intended and would not help in the slightest.

Ella just raised an eyebrow and patted his hand, leaving him with a conspiratorial grin.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Gold groaned, resting his head against the bench. He knew that time was ticking away and he really couldn't stay like that, but the idea of having to actually face the world again was not a welcome one.

"Are you all right?"

"I've completely made a fool of myself on national television but yes, I'm fine." Reluctantly he raised his head a little to see who was addressing him. The white-blonde girl from in front was crouching down at the end of his bench, her eyes peeping over the top of the wood.

"Elsa," she said, holding out a hand covered in icing sugar which she quickly wiped on her apron.

"Gold."

"It'll be fine. That's why it doesn't go out live. And you can't be worse than me. I mean... look."

It was then that he noticed that her entire frame appeared to be coated in icing sugar.

"Yeah, at least you haven't filled the swear jar," came Emma's disembodied voice from where she was sitting on the floor gazing into her oven. "I keep telling myself that this is a family show and my ten year-old's going to watch it but I can't help it. This equipment's so bloody heavy! There I go again."

Somewhere in the tent a timer was beeping, and Gold knew that he had to get a move on. Elsa rose as well and went back to her own station, which looked like the centre of a blizzard. Maybe that was the intended look; a winter wonderland themed Swiss roll perhaps?

Across the tent there was a torrent of expletives from one of the other bakers that far surpassed Emma's. Peering through the bustle of people and cameramen, Gold saw that someone had dropped their sponge whilst getting it out of the oven.

Well, he couldn't say that it was a boring experience. If he got to the end of the day without having a heart attack it would be a miracle, but there wasn't any time for pondering the state of his nerves when there was a black forest gateau Swiss roll to assemble. He was vaguely aware of the cameras moving around, and Ella and Ursula passing on the occasional word of encouragement, but ultimately he pushed it all to the back of his mind. He was at home in his own kitchen, there was nothing to worry about...

"Bakers!" Ella yelled at the front of the tent. "Fifteen minutes remaining!"

Ok, perhaps having nothing to worry about wasn't entirely true. Gold's hands were shaking as he piped whipped cream swirls onto the top of the roll, topping each one with a chocolate dipped cherry and dusting the whole thing with chocolate shavings, shoving it down onto the end of his bench with five minutes to spare. He breathed a sigh of relief. Just the moment of truth to come.

Waiting for the judges to come around was the very definition of a nightmare. It took a lot longer than it did on the TV as there was a lot of running around cleaning up the tent and making it look presentable, and taking lots of elegant shots of the bakes before the judges cut into them and disturbed the finished beauty. Even once the judging finally started, there was no way of knowing who was going to be next as they zig-zagged all over the tent. At least for this first challenge the judging was somewhat private. Sure, the rest of the tent occupants were deathly silent and all eyes were on the current victim, but being judged at bench was slightly less nerve-wracking than having to transport one's work up to the front like they would have to do tomorrow.

Emma's chocolate orange Swiss roll was universally praised; Elsa's white chocolate and marshmallow confection was criticised as being very messy and sticky, but apparently it tasted amazing. Gold tried not to think about Belle's very pink lips as she took a forkful of his own creation.

"I love cherry jam," she repeated, a smile in her eyes. "The flavour here is really good, you've captured the essence of a black forest gateau really well."

"Yes, the flavour is good," Granny agreed. "The sponge is a bit dry, probably left in the oven for a minute or so too long, but it looks very neat. I was worried you'd have cream oozing everywhere. All in all that's a very decent Swiss roll."

Gold was too relieved to pay any attention to the rest of the judging. Elsa gave him a sugar-dusted thumbs up.

So far, so good.

X

After giving soundbites to camera about how they thought it was going so far, the contestants were left to their own devices during the lunch break back in the reception room; Astrid hung around long enough to distribute the little lunch bags and then rushed off to do something else, stopping to exchange a few words and a kiss with Leroy.

"Do you think there's some kind of conflict of interests there?" Emma observed. "May I?" she added, indicating the empty space on the sofa beside Gold.

"Be my guest. I know what you mean, but I really don't think that Astrid is in a position to be influencing the outcome of the judging. I'm not sure what her role is but it seems to be general dogsbody."

"Yeah. I do think it's cute. Ever since we were first introduced I don't think I've seen Leroy with an expression other than wanting to kill someone, so it's nice to see him smiling now."

Gold looked around the rest of the contestants, gathered in groups around the room with their own lunches.

"These are sweet," Emma continued, unpacking her own lunchbag. "I think everything about this entire venture is designed to be as happy and sweet and fluffy as possible so that all the nervous breakdowns and screaming fits are confined to the tent and the cameras." She glanced sideways at Gold. "Wondering who everyone is?"

Gold nodded.

"Ah, the curse of amended train timetables. Well, you've met Leroy and Zelena; he's a builder, not sure what she does but then she's the kind of person who's got that sort of repellent aura about them that makes you want to get away as quickly as possible without the small talk. Jeff you know, he's a tailor. Did you see his joconde sponge for the Swiss roll? It was amazing, all patterned with hand drawn strawberries. Aurora's studying medicine, Elsa works in publicity for an ice-cream company and used to be a Disney princess in Paris; can't remember which one. Over there you've got Archie, he's a psychiatrist, and Regina, who does something important in local government. Killian does something to do with boats, I kind of zoned out whilst he was talking to me."

Gold gave a snort of laughter.

"The others are Lance and Mal but I haven't really met them properly yet," Emma concluded. "And I'm in the police. It's been a logistical nightmare trying to sort my shifts out so I've got weekends free. What about you? What do you do when you're not baking?"

"I have a sheep farm. The income comes from wool mostly, my aunt and I hand-spin it, but we make small amounts of artisan cheese as well."

Emma's eyes lit up.

"You have a spinning wheel? Like Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tales?"

Gold nodded, amused.

"That's cool. My son Henry would love to meet you. He's obsessed with fairy tales at the moment."

"How old is he?"

"Ten, but you never really grow out of fairy tales, do you? Do you have kids?"

Before Gold could reply they were interrupted by the arrival of Jefferson contemplating a banana.

"Don't look now but I think something interesting's about to happen," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, perching on the arm of the sofa beside Gold and continuing to study the banana whilst sneaking surreptitious glances over at Killian, who was chatting to Aurora and Elsa and getting slightly too close for comfort.

"Sheesh, does he flirt with anything that moves?" Emma asked.

"Quite probably," Jefferson replied. "Should I go over and flirt with him? You know, give him a taste of his own medicine?"

Jefferson was saved the effort by the arrival of Lance on the scene, seamlessly interceding.

“Killian,” the tall black man said calmly, “leave the ladies alone.”

Killian turned to the perceived intruder, giving Aurora and Elsa the chance to slip away, and Gold could see him squaring up, but there was something in Lance’s solid build and unimpressed expression that made him back down. Probably wise; Gold wouldn’t put money on Killian winning in a fight against the other man.

“I wouldn’t mind but I practically told him outright ‘I like girls’,” Aurora was muttering as she and Elsa passed the sofa.

Elsa laughed. “Don’t put ideas in his head, he’d probably get off on that.”

“Lord preserve us from leery men in leather jackets,” Jefferson said before glancing at his pocket watch. “It must be time for the next challenge now or there won’t be enough time to finish, get the judging done and get all the chatty bits afterwards filmed.”

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “Cake’s usually a pretty short technical. They get longer as they get more complicated. The souffle one the other year was nasty; I hope we don’t get one of those.”

“I’d be quite happy to do without the chatty bits,” Gold said, helplessly aware of how hopeful he sounded. Jefferson raised an eyebrow.

“You do realise what you signed up for when you signed up for this?”

Gold nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately I didn’t technically sign up for it. My son signed up on my behalf and once that was done, well, I couldn’t bear to let him down.”

“He sounds both terrifyingly intelligent and incredibly sneaky,” Emma observed. “Put him and my Henry together and they’d rule the world.”

Gold sighed. Although he still didn’t know quite what he’d let himself in for, he was trying his utmost not to make Bae regret his actions. It was fear of letting Bae down that was his main driving force in this competition. Well, that and a fear of letting Belle down, but no-one else needed to know that just yet. He glanced around the other contestants and he wondered if any of them had guessed his secret from the way he’d interacted with the judges. That would be… awkward.

He was spared the cringeworthy train of thought by the arrival of the production runners in the reception room. It was time for the most nerve-wracking part of the competition - the technical challenge.

X

Gold was under the distinct impression that he was going to drown in cherries. After his black forest gateau Swiss roll, their technical challenge was to make a perfect cherry cake. Gold liked cherries, but one could have too much of a good thing sometimes. The main problem in a cherry cake, one that Gold had never quite been able to master himself, was stopping all the cherries from sinking to the bottom of the baking tin. Or the top, in this case, since they were using ring moulds and the finished cakes would end up upside down. There were various different tricks to it, he knew - washing the cherries, drying the cherries, coating the cherries in flour or a combination of all of the above - but no matter what he had tried in the past, he always ended up with a thick layer of cherries on the bottom of the cake and not much in the middle. Despite having got off to a relatively good start, this might be the thing that broke him.

Conferring with the others was forbidden and he felt like it was cheating to take a look around the room to surreptitiously see what the others were doing, so he cut his losses and decided to do all three methods of ensuring even cherry floatation and pray that at least one of them worked. Making the cake itself wasn’t going to be all that difficult, but the entire point was that the easier a cake was to make, the fewer places there were to hide in it and the more likely it was that any mistakes would be picked up by the eagle-eyed judges.

This was one of Belle’s recipes, so she’d be judging even more critically than usual. She had a great eye for detail, as evidenced by all her years judging showpieces, and if his cherries were not perfect, she’d be sure to let him know. At least she wasn’t going to be wandering around the tent during this one providing visual distraction.

The technical challenge was judged blind, with Belle and Granny only finding out whose cake was whose after they’d ranked them. It was the part of the weekend everyone unanimously dreaded because they had no way of knowing beforehand what they were going to be making, and as the weeks went on the technicals became more and more obscure, with very few people ever having heard of the weird and wonderful confections they were being asked to bake. At least everyone knew what a cherry cake was and what it was supposed to look like.

Hoping for the best, Gold shoved the cake in the oven, set the timer, and set about making the icing that should ‘drip softly down the sides without being runny’, according to the recipe. Nope, that wasn’t going to be difficult at all. He chanced for a glance around the tent. They’d all swapped places for the afternoon and he was now nearer the front, sandwiched between Aurora (still yawning) in front of him and Zelena behind. She gave him a slightly too bright smile when she caught his wandering gaze and Gold quickly looked away; there was something in her eyes that gave him the creeps. Killian was at the bench directly opposite him, and the younger man was making no effort to hide the fact he was trying desperately to copy what Elsa was doing. Elsa for her part just rolled her eyes.

He glanced out of the window, over at the other little tent where Granny and Belle would be ensconced, filming their piece and getting ready for the judging, and he found his thoughts wandering away from cherry cake and towards Belle. There were worse reasons for wanting to do well in this challenge than just to please her, weren’t there?

“Eh, Gold,” Aurora said tentatively, bringing him back to the present. He looked down to find that he was on the verge of pouring his icing sugar out over the workbench instead of into the bowl and quickly corrected his mistake.

“Thanks,” he muttered, feeling his face begin to flame at having been caught daydreaming, although he knew that Aurora had no way of knowing exactly what he had been daydreaming about.

“Seriously, I’m the one who’s supposed to be zoning out all the time.” She laughed and leaned back against the workbench. “Did you wash your cherries?” she asked before bursting into a fit of the giggles. “Sorry, that sounds really dirty. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Behind him, Gold could hear Zelena giggling as well and he began to feel somewhat outnumbered.

“Heaven help me,” he muttered. “Besides, I thought we weren’t allowed to confer?”

“Yeah, but the cakes are in the oven now so there’s not a lot of harm in it. I washed mine, but then when I was chopping them up a load more syrup started coming out of the holes where the pits had been and I had to wash them again. At least they’re going to be really clean, even if they do all sink.” She glanced across at Killian and Elsa. “Can he please do really badly?”

The fact that Killian seemed to have gained the universal loathing of the rest of the tent should not have given Gold a spark of happiness, but it did. Since the man had gone out of his way to be intimidating and antagonistic he couldn’t think of a better retribution.

“All right, Gold?” Ursula asked. Gold jumped but recovered himself in time and nodded. The presenters really needed to stop sneaking up on him like that whilst he was lost in thought. Perhaps he shouldn’t spend quite so much time lost in thought, that would help.

“Well, it’s in the oven, so there’s not much more we can do now except pray,” he said.

“That’s the spirit. Besides, you’re good with cherries, you should ace this one,” Ursula said. She sounded a lot more confident about that fact than Gold felt and he just raised an eyebrow in disbelief, not quite trusting himself to say anything yet. Ursula patted his arm gently. “You need to have a little faith, Mr Gold. Just remember that no matter how bad it gets, there is always going to be someone somewhere who’s done a worse job than you.”

“Yes, but if that person isn’t in the tent then that doesn’t exactly help me.”

The cameraman had moved on to go and observe Aurora for a bit as she began to make the cake icing, but Ursula hung back.

“Between you and me,” she hissed under her breath, “you’re definitely doing better than some others who shall remain nameless.”

Gold had no idea if that was true or not, but it made him feel marginally better as he got on with his icing, listening to Aurora’s happy pattering chatter in front of him.

From the back of the tent there came a loud exclamation.

“Bugger! I forgot to leave some cherries for the decoration!”

All eyes in the tent turned to Mal, who had been the one to speak. She sighed, running a hand through her mass of curly blonde hair, and shrugged in despair. Lance and Regina went to reassure her. It was strange how they had managed to get a sense of camaraderie in such a short space of time, Gold thought. None of them had really known each other for that long, and despite the fact that they were all in direct competition, there was still that spirit of community and helping out. Aurora didn’t need to have mentioned his earlier slip and could have let him ruin his icing completely, but she’d saved him at the last minute. Zelena on the other hand… She was smirking cruelly as she continued with her bake, and Gold had to wonder whether he ought to watch his back. Literally.

He bent over to look through the oven door. It was not uncommon for people to sit in front of their ovens watching the bakes inside until the last moment, but Gold knew that if he did that then he wouldn’t be able to get up again, and he’d already received more than one funny look because of the cane hooked over the edge of the workbench. There was a wolf-whistle from behind him and he straightened sharply, looking around for the culprit. Zelena was looking worryingly innocent, and whilst in any other circumstance he’d blame Ella, she was over on the other side of the tent trying to console Mal, who’d already had one disaster that morning and with the absent cherries on top of everything else didn’t think she could handle any more. He looked back at Zelena, opened his mouth to say something along the lines of “don’t you have more important things to watch than my arse?” and decided against it, turning back to his workbench and trying to think no more about it. It was almost time for the cake to come out and then it was a question of making sure it cooled in time not to melt the icing. There were a few laments from around the tent about icing consistency - too stiff, too runny, or in Killian’s case ‘it’s setting like cement! I can’t get the spoon out!’

“I don’t think that anyone’s ever been this stressed about icing before,” he muttered to the cameraman, who laughed.

“Oh, believe me. I’ve been filming for the last three seasons. When it comes to stressing about icing, this is mild compared to some of the things I’ve seen.”

Ella and Ursula were making their way back to the front of the tent and Gold knew that time was up before they’d announced it. Once again, there was a long pause between the challenge finishing and the judging beginning, and as they took their places sitting in the middle of the tent, Gold couldn’t help thinking that they looked like they were about to face the firing squad.

At least with the firing squad it was all over quickly. This judging was going to be torture.

Belle and Granny entered and began to attack the cakes with vigour, and Gold tried to distract himself from impending doom by thinking about how pretty Belle looked when she pouted at Killian’s icing-less cake; the fact she could still look so lovely whilst also being the picture of disappointment really defied belief.

“There’s no icing,” she said. “The cake just looks a bit sad without it, don’t you think? And thanks to the fact that there’s no icing, I can see a very large concentration of cherries on the top here. It just doesn’t look pretty at all.”

At least all of the others apart from Mal’s had all the correct components in them, even if cherry distribution was a sore point. Despite his best efforts, Gold’s had indeed sunk, which Belle attributed to their not being chopped small enough. He could have kicked himself, but it was too late to change things now. He could only hope that the next time she judged his work, Belle’s disappointed pout, however lovely it looked, would not be directed at him.

When the time came to rank the cakes, Gold’s was ninth, ahead of Killian, Mal and Archie, who’d had similar cherry sinkage issues. Aurora came first with Jefferson a close second, and really, Gold knew that his own bake couldn’t compare with theirs.

It was time to give soundbites to camera again, and they all hung around in the tent whilst Astrid and the other runners rushed in and out grabbing people to talk to under the particularly picturesque trees outside. The judges stayed in the tent with them this time, since there was no more judging to be done. Some people were heading out after they had said their pieces; those who lived locally enough to go home at the end of the day rather than staying overnight in a hotel nearby. Gold stayed, trying to catch glimpses of Belle and maybe, just perhaps, exchange a few words with her that were not in the context of her critiquing his baking skills. He sighed and shook his head, staying sitting on his stool instead of seeking her out. What could he even talk to her about? They had nothing in common, apart from baking, and it seemed crass to talk shop. Inane and obvious. He would only make a fool of himself, so in the end he settled for just watching her from afar. She was gracious with all the contestants, even those that he himself did not enjoy interacting with.

“Hello there.”

Gold turned to find Zelena leaning on the bench beside him in a manner that would have looked nonchalant had it been anyone other than her leaning there.

“Hi,” he said. He didn’t think that he’d ever met someone who instinctively raised his hackles as much as Zelena did.

“So, we didn’t really get the chance to chat before the competition started,” she said. “I’m so interested to hear all about you. You’re like an enigma, so quiet and stoic. A nice little mystery to be solved.”

“I’m really not that interesting,” Gold protested, leaning away from her as much as he could and looking for some kind of escape. “I’m a sheep farmer, there’s really no profession more boring than that.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Listening to Killian going on about reef knots for half an hour at lunch makes me think that sheep farming could be extremely interesting.” She quirked an eyebrow, leaning in a little closer, and Gold almost fell off his stool, grabbing his cane for balance, and possibly to use as a weapon to fend her off with.

“Zelena!” Astrid was calling her from across the tent. “You’re up next.”

The red-head gave a sigh of protest and pulled herself away from Gold’s workbench. “Shame. Just as things were starting to spark.”

“No sparks there except in your malfunctioning machinery,” Gold muttered. Perhaps it was time to leave the tent and seek safety elsewhere. Although it felt bad to be leaving so suddenly, he desperately did not want to be cornered by Zelena again. Maybe next week he ought to source some pepperspray from somewhere.

“Leaving so soon?”

Another voice made him turn, and he saw that it was Killian who had flagged him. There was a challenge in the words, and Gold sighed. Why Killian felt so threatened by Gold’s presence he had no idea, but there was something in the hostility that the younger man was constantly showing that made Gold think of blustering alpha males of a species doing their utmost to impress the females.

None of the females in the tent, however, seemed to be having any of it, Emma and Elsa just looking at Killian with distinctly underwhelmed expressions.

“Yes,” Gold replied simply, and he turned to leave the tent before he could get drawn into a confrontation that he really, after such a nerve-wracking day, did not have the energy for. He had long since learned that he had to pick his battles, and this was one battle he did not have the strength for.

Tomorrow was another day, and he would take whatever the tent and his fellow contestants threw at him.

(Hopefully not anything literal. Having witnessed Mal in action, he strongly suspected that she’d have an amazing overarm with an overcooked bread roll and could well knock someone out with it.)

X

Gold crawled down into his hotel room bed, astounded at just how exhausting baking anxiety could be and half-tempted to stay there for the remainder of the weekend, but movement was necessitated by the persistent buzzing of his phone telling him he had a message.

How'd it go? Bae asked.

Gold had to wonder at that. How had it gone, really? He could quite happily tell himself that it had all gone terribly, but in reality it hadn't been that bad. Apart from his first slip in the morning when the judges had taken him by surprise, he didn't think he'd disgraced himself that badly. He hadn't come last in the technical, at least.

After due consideration, he replied with the thoroughly uninformative not awful and closed his eyes. The last thing he needed was to go into the second day on no sleep.

Sleep, however, had other ideas.

X

Gold was one of the first into the reception room the next morning, having woken feeling not exactly refreshed, but having had enough sleep not to make a fool of himself and knowing that he would never get to sleep again. Since filming was going to be beginning comparatively early so that everyone could start making their way home in the afternoon, the production team had provided a breakfast of fruit and pastries. Elsa and Lance were already there and Gold hung back a little, picking at a chocolate croissant whilst he tried to work up the courage to go and join them.

"Thanks for making Killian back off yesterday," Elsa was saying. "Is it bad to hope he really messes up his bake today so he'll go home and we don't have to worry about him?"

Lance chuckled. "It's not the worst reason for wanting someone to go home," he said, and he waved to Gold, inviting him over to join the conversation. "But what about you, Gold? Zelena appears to have taken something of a shine to you."

"Yes. It's unfortunate that there's something about her that just makes you immediately uncomfortable," he said. "I'm sure she's a lovely person really, I just have no desire to find out."

"I'm not so sure," Elsa muttered. "She's the type I really wouldn't put it past to sabotage someone else's bake and make it look like an accident. Everyone watch your mini-cakes like a hawk!"

"Sadly I think we might have to put up with her for slightly longer than Killian," Lance said. "She is actually a pretty decent baker. I sampled her matcha Swiss roll yesterday; it was very good even if it was a disturbing shade of green."

"Stranger things have happened," Elsa commented optimistically, but Gold did not share her enthusiasm. "Still, miniature cakes." She sighed. "I really wish we didn't start with cake, it's really not my strong point. I'm better on pies and puddings. And ice-cream."

"We're expecting perfection from your baked Alaska then." Emma had joined them, hoarding breakfast pastries into her bag.

"I have to survive that long first. Bread's not my forte either."

"Nor mine," Lance admitted. "Pastry's my best subject. What about you two?"

"Well, cake's my strength," Emma said, "so I'll have an excellent first week and just go downhill from there."

Gold smiled, thankful that the arrival of a large group of the others into the reception room prevented him from answering. He quickly moved behind Lance to try and save him from Zelena's attentions, but it was to no avail. She seemed to have some kind of homing instinct and considering they'd only known each other for about a day, he thought it quite a remarkable, if slightly unnerving feat.

“You scuttled away quickly last night,” she said. There was a smile on her face but Gold did not see it as a particularly friendly expression. “When I got back into the tent you’d vanished. Really, anyone would think that you didn’t want to spend any time getting to know me.”

“Anyone would be right,” Lance muttered under his breath, but Zelena did not appear to have heard. Or if she had heard, she wasn’t paying any attention.

“And I’m so interested in getting to know you,” she continued. Gold took a step back, out of touching distance, still trying to put Lance between himself and Zelena. He felt a bit sorry for the other man; to be called upon as a shield for young women fending off predatory men was one thing, but Gold couldn’t help thinking that he really ought to be able to fend for himself against Zelena. He didn’t really fancy his chances though; her blood-red nails were long and talon-sharp, and for a moment he felt them digging uncomfortably into his arm. He looked down to realise that they actually were digging into his arm; she’d grabbed him in a vice-like grip to prevent him escaping her clutches this time.

“You know, I think it’s so wonderful to find a nice, mature man here,” Zelena purred, and Gold raised an eyebrow.

“Nice way of saying ‘old’,” he snapped. Her grip lessened slightly and Gold tried to shake her off, but it was to no avail.

“Oh, I don’t mean that,” she said hastily. “I was just meaning that you must have so much experience.”

“Still sounds like you’re calling him old,” Emma pointed out. “Also, we were in the middle of a conversation here that you rudely interrupted.” She gestured to herself, Elsa and Lance. “We’re standing right here, you know.”

At last the talons let go of his arm; Zelena was positively fuming and although Gold was infinitely grateful that she was no longer clinging to him and doing a passable impression of a barnacle, he was slightly worried about what kind of revenge she might wreak on his new-found friends. With any luck she’d be too worried about her own bake to try sabotaging anyone else’s, but Elsa’s words from earlier echoed eerily in his mind. He hoped that the others would keep a very close eye on their work.

With Emma unyielding and it being obvious that she was not going to get Gold to herself, Zelena flounced away in a huff, going over to talk to Mal and Regina, who seemed just as disinclined to talk to her as the rest of the bakers were; but Gold couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for her friendlessness. She ended up chatting with Killian, and Gold thought that they deserved each other. He tried to put her to the back of his mind and focus on the coming challenge, but inevitably, that brought his thoughts full circle back to Belle and her opinion of his baking, and the butterflies in his stomach increased tenfold.

It was going to be a very long day.

X

Although the judges were supposed to stay segregated from the contestants in the time before the challenges and only talk to them afterwards when the pressure was off, Belle could not help but tiptoe down the corridor and peer into the break room where the twelve possible candidates for star baker were gathered, attempting to enjoy their breakfast before filming began. Well, that was a lie. There were not really twelve candidates for Star Baker. Some of the bakers were definitely skating on thin ice. She looked at Killian, loud and aggressive and dominant, and her eyes narrowed. It was a good job that he was one of the ones that Granny agreed was on their shortlist for leaving the tent, as she might have had some unsavoury thoughts about rigging the results to get rid of him as soon as possible. He was the kind of personality that could easily become a bully in the competition, if he wasn’t already. Hopefully coming last in the technical challenge and the comments he’d received for his lacklustre signature bake had been enough to curb his ego a little going into the second day, but she was not so sure. He still appeared to think that he was God’s gift to women. Mal was on shaky ground as well; her Saturday seemed to have been plagued with disaster, but she still had the chance to pull it all back today as long as there were no more accidents or incidents. If she was the most accident-prone baker, then Elsa was definitely the messiest, but her bakes were solid and there was no danger for her. She moved around to peer at the other side of the room through the slit where the door did not quite meet the frame. Jefferson and Aurora were both strong contenders for the crown, with excellent performances in both challenges the previous day. Gold had had a good signature but let himself down in the technical. She paused; there was something about the nervous man that endeared him to her, and she smiled, hoping that he would increase in confidence and get used to the cameras during his stint in the tent. And she hoped that he’d be able to avoid Zelena. Belle’s eyes narrowed. Like Killian, she was definitely another one to watch. You could always tell the ones who seemed to delight in the misfortunes of others when things went wrong.

The trouble with Zelena was going to be that she was actually very good at what she did, and being mean to the other contestants and needling them wasn’t really something that could get her disqualified. She and Granny could only comment on their baking ability and Zelena’s was good; not the best but by no means the worst. It was a shame that she had given such a bad impression to start with, and bitterly, Belle wondered if perhaps the network would play up the volatile relationships that she was beginning to build with the rest of the competitors in the name of better ratings and more drama for the viewers. She sincerely hoped not. The entire point of the show for all its seasons had been that really, it was quintessentially British and that was what made it stand out from a lot of the other culinary shows out there. It wasn’t cut-throat, it didn’t lend itself to drama among its contestants, only drama when their individual bakes went wrong. As long as everything focussed solely around the cake, then it was all right, but Belle could see sparks flying between the people before the run was out.

She caught Ursula’s eye where she was peering through the crack, and the host rolled her eyes on seeing Belle peeping in, surreptitiously shooing her away. Ursula and Ella, for all their antics, were incredibly good at reading people, and with any luck, she could rely on them to be her proxy in the tent where she herself had to take a step back and remain impartial.

She moved away from the door as the runners came in to start setting up mics and getting everyone sorted out for the day’s filming. Only time would tell.

X

Soon enough, they were being ushered back down into the tent, donning aprons and waiting patiently for the announcement that the challenge could begin. Gold looked around him. Zelena was, thankfully, on the other side of the room, but unfortunately her eyes met his and she smiled a predatory smile, making Gold want to dive for cover behind the nearest fridge. He looked away quickly, busying himself with making sure that all his ingredients were in the proper place on his bench. His nervousness was showing and he knocked his cane over; the clatter and thud as it slipped and tumbled to the ground was deafening to Gold’s ears in the quiet tent, and he could not look up as he bent to retrieve it, trying to avoid the weight of everyone else’s eyes on him.

Ella saved him by beginning to speak, and he fixed his gaze firmly on her, not looking around at the other contestants.

“Good morning bakers. For today’s showstopper challenge, Belle and Granny would like you to make thirty-six miniature cakes. Specifically, thirty-six classic British cakes. They can be shape or flavour, decorated in any way you like, but they must all be identical.”

“Good luck to you all, please ignore Ella’s requests for gin until the sun is over the yardarm. You have three and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

With that one encouraging command, Gold’s world was once more reduced to his workbench and the ingredients on it. He had a plan - Elvira had made him write one down - but now that he was here, he was rapidly losing confidence in his ability to stick to it. He had just about managed to complete the challenge to time when he was practicing at home (Mr Dove had gone home with several miniature cakes that week, but he had accepted them all with good grace, claiming that he was passing them all on to his several cousins who were enjoying them immensely.)

It was just a question of continuing to go through the motions, and trying to ignore the noise and bustle going on around him. He could not lose his cool now, at this stage of the proceedings.

This time when Belle, Granny and Ursula arrived he was prepared for them, and he looked up, smiling with a confidence he didn't feel and hoping that the expression didn't come out looking too much like a grimace.

"Good morning," Belle said, giving him a reassuring smile. "So, tell us all about your miniature cakes."

"They're coffee and walnut," Gold said, and Granny gave a nod of approval. Thank goodness for that. "Coffee and walnut cakes with coffee buttercream icing and walnut decorations.”

"Are you using brewed coffee or coffee essence?" Belle asked.

"Both. I've got filter coffee in the cake and coffee essence in the icing.”

"Do you find that the coffee makes the cake rather wet?" Granny commented, but Gold refused to be cowed.

"Not at the strength I'm making it."

"So it's a five to one ratio of coffee grounds to water?" Ursula suggested, and Gold nodded with a chuckle. The host tried to surreptitiously take the cafetière off his workbench.

"Ursula, put that back!" Belle laughed, pulling the other woman away as they went to move on to their next victim.

"But it's early!" Ursula protested. "I need to stay awake! Can I have any leftovers?" she asked Gold.

He shook his head in good-natured despair as the camera crew moved away across the tent to speak to Lance, who was zesting lemons with an ease that suggested he'd been zesting lemons every day for his entire life. For all this was the last chance of the weekend to prove himself, Gold felt a little more relaxed this time. He was getting a bit more used to the idea of the cameras tracking his every move and he didn't feel quite as in danger of making a fool of himself, and with Ursula and Ella's antics providing the comedic relief, the attention was more focussed on them than his nervousness. Perhaps that was the whole point. Ella and Ursula had always proved themselves very adept at calming down stressed out bakers, and diverting the audience's gaze away from the more nervous ones, like himself, was all part of that process. He would have to thank them later, once he was no longer feeling quite so incredibly highly-strung. At least he felt slightly more confident coming into this challenge.

Of course, it could all go horribly wrong, Belle could hate what he baked and he could be sent on the first bus home, but that was a chance he was going to have to take.

“Jefferson, why do you have a pineapple on your workbench?”

Gold looked up on hearing Ella’s incredulous voice across the tent, and saw that Jefferson did indeed have a large pineapple sitting on one corner of his workbench.

“I thought that it would be a talking point,” Jefferson said with a wink. “Always bring a pineapple to a party, you never know what might come of it. And we can always make pina coladas later to celebrate our successes. Or commiserate our failures.”

“Oooo! Pina coladas!” Ella clapped her hands together in anticipation. “Perfect. I mean, I prefer a good G&T but I’m game for anything.”

“And don’t I know it,” Ursula chimed in from where she was talking to Emma.

Gold snorted with laughter and returned his attention to the task at hand. It was his last chance to prove himself. Nothing could go wrong. He seriously wished that he’d brought earphones with him so that he could drown out the rest of the sounds of the tent, but he supposed that a lot of the pressure in the competition came from having the constant noises and distractions around them in the tent, putting them off in the most non-malicious way. He blocked as much of it as he could from his mind, ignoring the other bakers, ignoring the pervading scent of pineapple coming from Jefferson’s bench, ignoring Killian attempting to flirt with Belle, as if sweet-talking her would make her give him a higher mark for his work.

Three and a half hours had never gone by so quickly, and the minutes of clean up and rearranging in the tent had never gone by so slowly. Looking around at his rivals, Gold’s eyes widened at the spectacular feats of baking engineering that he could see. Showstopping was definitely the right word, and for a long time, whilst the others were being judged, all Gold could think about was the growing sense of panic, that he really wasn’t good enough to be here and next to all the others, he was a complete fraud and they were going to pack him on the next bus home...

“Raymond,” Belle called from the front. “Would you like to bring your cakes up please?”

“D’you need a hand?” Emma asked under her breath, but Gold shook his head. Transporting several delicate cakes was easier said than done when one only had one free hand, but he’d thought of that, taking the handle of his cake stand and carefully lifting it off the bench. It seemed that the entire tent was watching him with bated breath, waiting for his ankle to give out and his offerings to be sent sprawling across the floor whilst he landed in a heap on his ass, but none of them seemed to realise that Gold had been living with his injury for almost fifteen years and adaptation was key to survival. If he didn’t want to drop something, then he didn’t drop it, and he certainly didn’t want to be accepting aid with cake logistics on the first week of the show. Gold wasn’t proud of a lot in his life, but he did retain an ounce of dignity, and he would not lose it yet.

The cakes were safely delivered to the judges’ table and Belle and Granny took a moment to admire the presentation before each taking one of the cakes and cutting into it. Gold was very glad that he’d coated the outside of the cakes in chopped walnuts, it hid a multitude of sins.

Belle was smiling as she popped a piece of cake into her mouth, the swirl of coffee buttercream on the top smearing at the corner of her mouth. She giggled, a soft, beguiling sound, and swiped the confection away with her thumb, sucking it off. Her eyes met Gold’s as she did so, and she gave a little smile.

Gold blinked; was she flirting with him?

In a split second, the private little smile was gone, and she was back to the business of marking up his cakes, leaving Gold to flounder helplessly as he tried to work out her intentions. It couldn’t be anything, could it? Could it? He was reading far too much into this, it was only cake for crying out loud.

“This is wonderful,” Belle said, bringing him back to the present. “You’ve really managed to capture the coffee essence properly, normally it gets cooked out. It’s a very difficult balance to achieve and you’ve mastered it well. This definitely makes up for yesterday’s mishaps in the technical.”

Elsa gave him a double thumbs up as he passed her workbench on his way back to his own before she was called up to present her own miniature lemon and raspberry batternbergs. She’d tried to hide the ones with the messiest marzipan coating on the bottom of the stand but Granny’s eagle eyes still found them, and she heaved a sigh.

“You’re very consistent with flavour, Elsa, but your presentation is… eclectic,” Belle said.

“You can say messy, it’s all right,” the younger woman said with a shrug. “But I reckon that as long as they taste good, then that’s the main thing really isn’t it? You know. Baking’s all about taste.”

Gold had to agree with her there and the judges conceded the point, but stressed that the bakes really ought to look appetising as well as being tasty. Elsa gave Gold a shrug as she returned to her station, and he tried to give her a reassuring smile in return. He really didn’t think that she would be sent home on the grounds of her presentation; not when there were definitely worse bakers in the tent than she was. Killian was taking his Victoria sponge cakes up to the judges’ table and despite them being neatly presented, Belle announced that they didn’t taste of anything at all. For the first time during the weekend, Killian actually looked perturbed by the judges’ response to his offering, as if it was just dawning on him that this was his last chance to prove himself and that he had definitely failed to make the grade. Gold knew that it was uncharitable to wish failure on his fellows, but this was a competition after all, and as friendly as the show was, a little bit of rivalry was natural. Especially towards someone with as domineering a personality as Killian’s.

The last person to be judged was Jefferson, whose miniature carrot cakes had been baked in the shape of actual carrots.

“You know, Jefferson, I was sceptical when I saw the pineapple but I believe I may have been converted,” Granny said. “It makes the cake so wonderfully moist and adds a lightness to the flavour.”

Belle agreed. “I was worried that the taste would be too strong and it would drown out the other flavours in the cake, that it would lose something in the process and become a pineapple cake rather than a carrot cake, but I can still taste the quintessential carrotness in there too. Well done.”

Jefferson looked justly proud as he made his way back to his workbench. It was clear from the expressions of the other bakers that they were mirroring his thoughts - if Jefferson did not win the crown for Star Baker this week, then the judges might not have their heads screwed on properly.

There was a ridiculously long wait before the results were announced, as the cakes were cleared away out of sight of the cameras and the tent was rearranged ready, but then the runners were shepherding them away from each others' cakes and back to sit down on the high stools in the centre of the tent. Gold nabbed the one of the end so that he could hook his cane over the workbench beside him and wouldn't need to worry about being sandwiched between Zelena and Killian. The runners seemed to have some kind of sixth sense and ushered Zelena over to the other end, for which Gold was extremely grateful, and he found himself next to Elsa, swinging her legs and lamenting her flour-covered shoes with a sigh.

"I think I've definitely got the reputation as this year's messiest baker," she said, looking down at her raspberry-stained apron. "I swear I'm not normally this untidy at home. Then again I live with my sister and she'd feel at home in pigsty so maybe I just don't notice until I'm here where everyone else is incredibly clean. She glanced over at Gold. "Seriously, how come you're not covered with coffee?"

Gold just laughed and then the runners were ushering them to be quiet as Belle, Granny, Ella and Ursula came back into the tent.

"Darlings," Ella began dramatically, "the time has come. Today we crown our very first star baker of the season, in the hope that they will continue to amaze us with inventive uses for pineapple. This week's star baker is Jefferson!"

Everyone applauded and Jefferson gave a little bow from his perch. When there was quiet again, Ursula spoke.

"Unfortunately, since Ella decided to get in quick, the less pleasant task falls to me. As you know we can't take everyone with us into next week and so we must say goodbye to one of you."

Gold looked up at the tent ceiling, wondering if it would look too obvious if he crossed his fingers.

"The baker who will not be joining us next week is Killian."

Gold let out a sigh of relief, and next to him, Elsa hissed "thank god for that" before she had to be polite for the cameras. Gold couldn't say that he was particularly sad to see the other man leave, but he knew he had to act neutral. The camera crew began pulling them out one by one for reaction soundbites, starting with Jefferson, who was positively skipping out of the tent in his happiness. Gold eased himself down off his stool and went over to where all his stuff was stored, checking everything was tidied away and ready to go. It was a nice little hiding place; he really didn't want to be drawn into conversation with anyone; he was already exhausted. All the same, now that the judging was over, the two judges were hanging around in the tent, socialising with the bakers. This would be his first and last chance this weekend to talk to Belle without the cameras on them. Cautiously he peered over the top of his workbench, searching her out in the sea of people. She was chatting animatedly to Emma in one corner, and Gold was loath to interrupt what looked to be a very interesting conversation. Perhaps he could sidle in? Then again, what was the likelihood of him actually getting face to face with Belle in a social situation where he didn't have to be calm and look normal for the camera and completely messing it up? Perhaps it would be best to stay hidden away down here. After all, he was coming back next week. There would still be plenty of opportunities to talk to her then.

"So this is where you've been hiding." Astrid had come around and discovered him, and Gold cursed mentally as she dragged him outside under the same picturesque looking tree he'd talked to camera under the previous day. "We've been looking for you all over. I know you don't like talking to camera but there's really no need to hide, that won't get you out of it. How do you feel about that result?" she asked.

"I don't think my honest response is broadcastable," he muttered, before turning to the camera and wracking his brains for something that wouldn't sound too schlocky. "I'm just glad to be coming back next week."

Astrid nodded. "That's good. You can go back now. We're going to have to edit Emma's a bit; she didn't realise we were rolling. It was very entertaining though. Maybe we could have an outtakes programme after the series finishes." They made their way back to the tent, and Astrid broke off to go and fetch her next victim. Gold returned to his hiding place, this time trying to avoid Zelena.  She was chatting to Regina in one corner and thankfully distracted, but then again, Regina looked like she was desperately trying to get away from the conversation so maybe he wasn't as safe as he hoped.

"All over? You can relax now, you've got a week before you have to smile for the camera again."

Gold turned to find Jefferson beside him, and slightly discomfitted by his sudden appearance seemingly out of nowhere, Gold's first instinct was to offer him one of his cakes.

"Don't mind if I do. I can't say I'm exactly surprised by that result," Jefferson said before taking an entire coffee and walnut cake in his mouth in one go, nodding to where Killian was talking to Belle and Granny. Whatever was being said, Belle didn’t appear to be too impressed by it, her mouth set in a thin line and her arms folded, leaning away. Jefferson's cake-muffled voice brought him back to his immediate environs. "This is really good, Gold. Most of the time when I use coffee I just can't get it to taste."

"Thanks. Take a few if you want, I've got to pack up and get going."

"Leaving so soon?" Jefferson raised an eyebrow. "Anyone would think that you wanted to leave the wonderful Miss French's delectable presence."

Gold was glad that he didn't have a mouthful of cake at that point, because he would surely have choked on it. He coughed, and Jefferson just smirked.

"Well, as lovely as she is, I leave the playing field open to you." He tapped the wedding band on his left hand. "Don't think we didn't see you blushing earlier. Don't think that the cameras didn't see you either."

Gold scrubbed a hand over his face. "Oh my God..."

Jefferson laughed. "Honestly though, there's still a while before they start kicking us out. Stay for a bit longer, we've hardly got to know you."

Gold shook his head. "I have to get back to my flock."

"How many?" Jefferson asked.

"One hundred and seventy-three."

"What? Children?"

"No, sheep. When I said flock I did actually mean it in the literal sense."

"Oh dear..." At least now Jefferson was looking as embarrassed as Gold had earlier. It was just a shame that the cameras weren't running anymore. "I think I'll just stop talking from now on."

Gold smiled. "It's fine, honestly." He paused. "It was nice to meet you."

"You too. Best of luck for next week."

"Likewise."

As he began to collect his things, Gold smiled to himself. The weekend hadn't been a total washout. He'd held his own, and he'd come through, and perhaps he'd even made a couple of friends in Jefferson, Elsa and Emma. Considering how terrified he had been when he'd walked into that room full of strangers the previous morning, he thought that was possibly more miraculous than the fact he hadn't made a complete fool of himself and been sent straight home.

X

Chip and Imp bounded up to Gold as he got out of the taxi, and he bent to scratch them behind their ears.

"Hello girls," he crooned softly. "Did you miss me?"

"Nah." He looked up to see Bae in the front doorway, grinning, and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you one of the girls?"

"Point taken. So..."

"So what?"

Bae rolled his eyes, waving his hands around in exasperation. "So how did it go?"

Gold straightened and finally made his way into the house, the dogs trotting along happily at his heels.

"Well, I'm going back next week," he said. "So I suppose you can count that as a victory."

"Excellent. And?"

"And what?"

"Oh come on, Dad, there's got to be more to it than that! What are the other contestants like? Did anyone throw their work in the bin? Who got kicked out? Is Ella Furrier as outrageous in real life as she is on screen? What's Belle like? Did you actually speak to her like a normal human being or did you just stand there like an idiot? I bet you just stood there like an idiot, I know you."

"I need to get the sheep in," Gold muttered.

"Dad!" Bae exclaimed.

But Gold kept his mouth shut as he moved through the house to get changed and see to the sheep. The little smile that had passed between him and Belle as she sampled his coffee frosting would remain their little secret for as long as he could help it.

====

Next time, the bakers tackle biscuits, Archie considers changing career paths, and Belle and Gold have an actual conversation!

Technical Challenge cherry cake based off this Mary Berry recipe. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_cherry_cake_17869]

Gold's mini coffee and walnut cakes are a variation of this Mary Berry recipe. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mini_coffee_and_walnut_12591]

Chapter Text

Walking into the break room for the second weekend of filming was nowhere near as daunting as the first. Now that none of them had suffered the indignity of being booted out during the first week, everyone seemed more relaxed with each other, and Gold found that there was a much greater sense of community among the contestants. That his train had been on time helped, of course, and he was not the last to arrive. Emma and Elsa were already there and they waved him over to their little conference in the corner where they were ensconced with cups of tea and biscuits. Emma picked up a shortbread finger and dunked it in her tea, taking a bite and grimacing.

“Ugh. Do you think that they give us cheap biscuits today in the hope that it’ll inspire us produce better ones in the actual show?”

Gold laughed. “I’m not sure, but I doubt that my biscotti are going to be any better than that. So far all my attempts have produced something as dry as a bone that I fear for my aunt’s false teeth on, or they’ve sort of set to a cement like consistency that I can’t get off the baking sheet.”

“Yeah.” Emma raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound promising. Still.” She put the half-eaten biscuit on her saucer. “Someone had better make shortbread tomorrow and it had better be better than this stuff. The food was really great last week.”

“Maybe they’re concerned about us all putting on weight during filming because we’re all eating so many cakes and biscuits,” Elsa mused. “I mean, I can’t really talk as I work for an ice cream factory and we get free samples of all the new flavours so it’s a bad week if I don’t have about five pints in my freezer. Or maybe they’re giving us bad refreshments now to try and make us all cranky and hope that someone throws their mixture at the fridge.”

“Or at another contestant,” Emma suggested. “I have to say, I’m not going to miss Killian.”

“The room does seem friendlier without him,” Gold agreed.

“Yes… I think he was just one of those hyper-masculine guys who’s so insecure in his manhood that he felt the need to assert the fact that even though he was baking in an apron, he was still a Man.” Gold could hear the capitalisation in Elsa’s voice and had to laugh as he took in the rest of the contestants. They’d been apart for a week, but it was clear that friendship groups were beginning to form. Mal and Regina had paired off, Archie and Lance… It seemed that like called to like, and Gold wondered precisely where he fitted in. Although Emma and Elsa appeared to have adopted him, he couldn’t say that he really had all that much in common with them.

“Good morning all.” Jefferson came over to the group and poured himself a cup of tea from the refreshment table. The man was once again wearing a waistcoat and ascot and Gold had to wonder if that was his normal mode of dress or if this was specifically for the cameras. Given Jefferson’s flamboyance and adventurous attitude that he had seen thus far, he was inclined to believe that it was the former. “Are we ready for another day of fun, frolic, flour, and avoiding unwelcome amorous attentions from the other contestants? I passed Zelena on my way in, Gold. She seemed to be having an argument with the make-up artist about her lipstick. Possibly something along the lines of there being too much of it.”

“Heaven help me,” Gold muttered. Would anyone notice if he spent the weekend hiding under the refreshment table here in the break room?

“Fear not, we’re all here to guard your honour. You’ve got to admire her persistence though. I wonder if she’ll make anything green this time? That matcha Swiss roll last week was really an eye-opener.”

“I ought to introduce her to my son,” Emma mused. “Henry went through a stage of refusing to eat anything that was green. It would have saved me a world of trouble if I’d had green cake that I could give him as a compromise.”

Elsa just raised an eyebrow, and the group fell back to their previous occupation of watching the other contestants as Astrid rushed around trying to organise them all. Zelena had made it into the room, evidently having won whatever argument she’d had with the make-up artist, since her bright red lips were immediately noticeable. The shade really didn’t suit her. Luckily, Astrid accosted her with a mic pack so she was unable to make a beeline over to Gold. He’d admire her persistence if it wasn’t so utterly terrifying. Over in the far corner, Regina and Mal were sharing a joke about something, giggling into their tea.

“You know, I really think that there might be something in that one,” Jefferson said. “We ought to start a betting pool on how long it’ll take us to have a competition romance.”

Gold just shook his head in good-natured despair. “They’ve known each other for two days, Jeff.”

“So? Do you not believe in love at first sight? Or at least lust at first sight? I think it’s very romantic. A perfect story to tell the family. You can’t get a ‘how did you two meet?’ tale more interesting than going head to head in a baking competition. Mind you, though, given Mal’s track record, it might be something of a whirlwind romance. Someone needs to tell them to exchange numbers sooner rather than later.”

“Jeff, you’re incorrigible,” Elsa scolded. “Besides, you never know. Mal’s biscuit-making skills might be legendary and she’ll wipe the floor with the rest of us.”

“As long as she doesn’t drop anything.”

Elsa sighed and rolled her eyes, and the topic of conversation was tactfully changed as Astrid came over to them.

“Good morning Astrid,” Jefferson said brightly as she attached his mic. “How’s Leroy today? I haven’t had the chance to say hello.”

“Oh, he’s all right, just nervous as usual. I was a bit worried last week; I thought someone might report us to Ofcom or something on account of a conflict of interests, but everything’s ok.” She glanced over her shoulder to where Leroy was talking to Lance and Archie, and she waved. He gave a little wave in return, and a light blush crept over his face and all the way over his bald head.

“He makes really good pies,” Astrid added, somewhat dreamily. “I hope he survives till pie week.”

She finished putting the mics on all of them and moved away to the next group, and they watched her go before Elsa could hold back her laughter no longer and burst into silent, shaking giggles. Gold took her teacup before she could upend it over herself and cause more mess before the baking had even begun.

“They’re just so sweet,” she said. “Leroy always looks so grumpy but then he sees Astrid and it’s like an angel’s come down from heaven. I really want him to survive to pie week too just so that I can see them celebrating together.”

“More than one romance!” Jefferson exclaimed. “This is going to be the season of matchmaking, as well as the season that started a trend for putting pineapple in carrot cake and wearing terrible lipstick. It’ll go down in history!”

“Well, yes, but Astrid and Leroy’s romance was already going on when the competition started. Regina and Mal met like star-crossed lovers,” Elsa said.

“I don’t like that word, star-crossed,” Jefferson said sagely. “It reminds me too much of Romeo and Juliet and in a baking competition, anything that reminds one of poison is a very bad idea. They’re both lovely ladies and I don’t want either of them dying from a fatal fondant fancy.”

Gold rolled his eyes. He supposed that contemplating the other contestants’ relationships with each other did at least give him something to do that wasn’t worrying whilst he waited for the day’s challenges to begin. He wasn’t looking forward to the day, if he was being brutally honest. He could bake biscuits. That wasn’t a problem. Biscuits had been one of the first things that his aunts had taught him how to make when he had been growing up on the farm with them. What he couldn’t make were the kinds of biscuits that he was being expected to make. Gold’s baking expertise had never really stretched to the exotic; he was not adventurous like Jefferson. Bread, pies, cakes, shortbread… Those kinds of things didn’t pose a problem. The more fiddly things did, and he’d be annoyed if he missed out on the chance to show what he was really capable of because he failed so early in the competition.

There was no more room to be worried, because the runners were ushering them all out of the break room and down towards the tent to begin the first challenge. It was show time again. Unfortunately, this time, Gold found himself right at the front of the tent, on the first workbench, and even though he knew that the cameras wouldn’t stay on him for long and once the challenge started, everyone’s attention would be focussed elsewhere, he couldn’t help feeling incredibly exposed here.

And of course, being at the front meant that he was that much closer to Belle. She was standing right by him, and as she had entered the tent, he had caught a waft of her floral perfume. She was wearing dark blue today, with a lacy pattern of spots, and to his intense embarrassment, she caught him staring at her. She smiled, mouthing a quick good luck as Ursula began to speak. She and Ella had been filming some last minute introductory footage whilst the bakers had been arriving, so they had not been in the reception room to calm any nerves. Gold was still in two minds as to just how calming an influence Ella actually was though, but he would have appreciated Ursula’s no-nonsense attitude.

“Good morning bakers, and welcome to biscuit week. For your signature challenge today, Belle and Granny would like you to make twenty-four biscotti.”

“They can be flavoured with anything you choose, any shape or style, but they must be identical,” Ella continued. “Granny, Belle, any sage words of advice before they begin?”

“Timing is crucial,” Belle said, but there was no urgency in her voice. “Biscotti are crisp and crunchy, made for being dipped in coffee, but they should be able to be eaten alone. The second bake is crucial to achieve the perfect texture.”

“And that’s not going to make anyone more nervous than they already were,” Ursula said cheerily. “Well, there’s nothing left for us to say, except, on your marks.”

“Get set!”

“Bake!”

Gold got to work, pushing all thoughts of Belle and her perfume and her blue lacy dress out of his mind as he focussed on the task at hand. He was out of his comfort zone now. Not that baking to time pressure on national television on one of the country’s most beloved programmes was in his comfort zone to start with, but now he was feeling the pressure even more. At least being at the front he couldn’t be taken by surprise when the camera crews came around to talk to him. The two judges and the hosts were talking quietly amongst themselves at the front of the tent, no doubt allowing the bakers to get on with their work and get settled into the swing of it all before they started interrupting. Eventually though, the time came for them to begin mingling, and Belle caught his eye, smiling as she indicated that they were about to come over to him.

“So, Raymond,” she began, her gentle voice with its Australian lilt immediately setting him more at ease. “Tell us about the biscotti you’re making.”

“These are orange and hazelnut,” Gold said, trying his best to sound confident and like he knew exactly what he was doing. He had no idea what he was doing since these weren’t his forte, but before he had left the house that morning, Aunt Elvira had impressed upon him the importance of ‘fake it till you make it’, and it was a mantra that he was going to have to stick to. Granny quizzed him about how finely he was chopping his ingredients, and Ella made a pointed joke about nuts, but all in all it went remarkably well, and Gold breathed a sigh of relief once it was all over and the two judges moved away. He watched after them as they crossed the tent to go and speak to Elsa, who had managed to get herself covered in flour despite them only having been baking for about ten minutes. Surely it wasn’t possible for someone to be that messy? He shook his head, settling himself into his task. It was a difficult start to the week and he knew that he was going to have to concentrate. Ignore Belle and what she was doing, and concentrate on the ingredients. If he ended up making a complete dog’s dinner of it because he was too distracted by her then he would not be forgiven by anyone, especially not Elvira and Bae and certainly not himself.

The tension in the tent seemed to be higher today, with less laughter and joking going on between the contestants than there had been during the previous week’s signature challenge. This was a difficult challenge; Gold couldn’t think of anyone who would make biscotti on the regular, even the younger bakers, and no-one that he had become acquainted with had numbered biscuits among their specialities. Gold could bake biscuits, that wasn’t a problem, but he tended to stick to the tried and tested rustic shortbread recipes that had been passed down to him from his aunts. They weren’t exactly competition material, but he thought he had perfected a recipe that would wow the judges in the showstopper finale on Sunday. Even if he did do awfully today, there was always the hope that he could be salvaged on the morrow.

“Bakers, you have fifteen minutes remaining!” Ella yelled, almost giving Gold a heart attack since she was standing right next to him at the time. She leaned on his workbench, giving him a sage nod. “Everything all right, Mr Gold?”

He nodded, bending down to look in through the oven door at his biscuits. They didn’t seem to be doing all that much and with the oven light, it was hard to tell just how brown and crunchy they were. Looking around the tent, everyone else seemed to be having similar worries. Elsa was performing the classic oven watch, sitting on the floor with her cup of tea, and she gave him a wave. Gold returned it, realising that his fingernails were stained bright yellow from the orange rind. So much for trying to be impressive.

Time was still counting down, and Ursula and Ella continuing to remind them of that fact really wasn’t helping all that much. Gold arranged his biscuits, still a little bit too warm and not entirely crisp, on his plate and set it carefully on the end of his workbench, wiping his still-orange hands on his apron and taking a moment to look around at the others’ efforts. No-one appeared to have had any kind of disasters, and it was only then that he realised that he’d had Mal behind him for the entire time. She had been so quiet that he hadn’t noticed her; he’d become so used to her baking being littered with swearwords and exclamations of frustration. It was definitely a good thing if she had managed to get through one challenge without any kind of bad luck marring her bake. Her biscotti did look delectable, studded with rich chunks of amber praline and dipped in glossy dark chocolate. She gave him a smile as she caught him looking.

“I know,” she said, “I’m amazed that they’re all in one piece too. Maybe I ought to go into things expecting to fail more often.”

Ursula called time on the challenge and the clean-up began, the production team rushing in and around the bakers. Astrid even got the hoover out to clear up around Elsa’s station, and the younger woman just gave a self-deprecating shrug. She’d completed the challenge to time, even if there was sugar and flour all over the flooring around her.

Gold hadn’t noticed the previous week, but as the clean-up and the polished photography was taking place, Belle and Granny were wandering around the edge of the tent, taking a look at all the bakes and talking quietly amongst themselves, passing their initial judgements. It gave him a somewhat foreboding feeling; it was bad enough when they wandered the tent during the actual making time, but now that everything was complete and there was nothing that could be done to change the outcome, it was even more nerve-wracking.

At last the judging began in earnest, and Belle and Granny came over to his bench first. Gold wasn’t sure if getting it over with first was a good thing or whether it would make listening to everyone else get far better comments than him into something of a nightmare.

“Nice and uniform,” Granny said, giving an appreciative nod. “The colour is good on them too.” She tapped the end of one gently against the plate before snapping it in two and passing one half to Belle. “Not too dry.”

“What did you say the flavours were again?” Belle asked.

“Orange and hazelnut.”

Belle nodded. “I thought so. I think you’ve used a bit too much orange there, it drowns out in the more subtle taste of the hazelnut. All citrus fruits have the capacity to be very overpowering, you’ve really got to be careful with how you add them. But I agree with Granny that the texture is very good.”

Considering that the texture was the thing that he’d been having trouble with throughout all his practice attempts, Gold knew that he ought to be pleased with this praise, but a small part of him couldn’t help but be disappointed by Belle’s criticism of the flavours. As Elsa had said the week before, it was the taste that mattered when it came down to it, and he had failed Belle on taste. He tried to console himself with the compliments that he had received, but his stained fingernails still mocked him as the judges moved on to the rest of the bakers. The main criticism that most of them faced was either flavour balance or the biscuits being too soft or too hard. Regina received the most praise, and when the bakers were left to their own devices to sample each other’s creations, he could well see why. Her biscuits were made with almonds and dried apple, and the chewiness from the fruit added a wonderful texture in the middle of the crisp biscuit.

Too soon, they were being shepherded back to the house for their lunch break and some more pieces to camera in the grounds to tell their thoughts on how it had gone so far.

“I know you don’t like this bit,” Astrid said as she hurried Gold away from the reception room, handing him an umbrella where spots of light drizzle were beginning to come down around them outside. “But it’s a necessary evil.”

“I never know what to say,” Gold protested. “Everything always sounds so cliched when it comes into my head.”

“Well, to be honest, I imagine most of what everyone says sounds pretty cliched,” Astrid said, completely matter of fact about the whole thing. “I mean, none of you are professionals, and that’s the entire point really. Out of everyone here, it’s really only Ursula and Ella who are the professionals. I mean, Granny’s had enough experience throughout her career as a TV chef, but she’s a chef first and foremost. Same for Belle. She’s had her own cookery shows, but she’s spent far more time behind the camera than in front of it.” The younger woman stopped near a trickling stream in the house grounds and the Steadicam man, his camera wrapped in waterproofs against the inclement weather, began to record. Gold picked at his fingernails, clean now but still a reminder, and tried to think of something vaguely meaningful to say.

“Well, at least they didn’t turn into concrete,” he managed eventually. “And I’ll try not to drown my hazelnuts in future.”

As soon as his piece was over, he thought back over what he had said and groaned inwardly. Aunt Elvira was definitely not going to let him live that down.

X

With lunch over it was time for the technical challenge, and the bakers were ushered back down into the tent.

Gold looked down at the checkered cloth covering his work bench and wondered what fresh torture the judges had cooked up for them today. Like the previous week, he found himself directly in front of Zelena, and was uncomfortably aware of her eyes on him rather than on the presenters at the front of the tent, Belle and Granny having already been banished to their small pagoda to do their piece to camera.

"Good afternoon bakers. For your technical challenge this week, Belle and Granny would like you to make eighteen Florentines. You have an hour and fifteen minutes."

"On your marks."

"Get set."

"Bake!"

Gold pulled the cover off his allotted ingredients and tried not to groan. Anything involving sugar thermometers was far too complex for his skills. Caramel was something that he tended to avoid with a bargepole as much as possible, and he was already trying to come to terms with the fact that one of the challenges in later weeks was based entirely around caramel. He hadn't anticipated having to get to grips with it quite so soon. At least he had a vague idea what a Florentine was supposed to look like, even if he had never made one in his life before. A delicate biscuit made of caramel, nuts and dried fruit that bubbled into a lacy pattern, with chocolate on one side. In his head, he had the image of a perfect Florentine. Now all he had to do was make that image into a reality, which was going to be easier said than done. He looked at the sparse recipe that they had been given and set to work melting the ingredients for the caramel together. He knew that if Aunt Elvira was here, she'd be complaining about the effect that all the sugar and fruit and nuts would have on her teeth. On the other hand, he might be able to glue her jaws together to prevent her making inappropriate comments. 

Seventy-five minutes to make eighteen perfect Florentines was not very long, especially considering Gold’s lack of experience in such matters, and once again he found himself wishing to be able to block out the noise of the rest of the tent. No-one was really talking – they couldn’t confer at any rate – but eleven pans of bubbling caramel could sound very loud in the tense silence that held court over the bakers as they tried to create something spectacular in their limited time. Towards the back of the tent, Gold could hear Ella and Ursula chatting to Mal, who was quite confident having come through the signature challenge with no baking mishaps and with genuine praise from the judges. Perhaps Elsa’s prediction of her legendary biscuit-making skills was actually coming to the fore now. Gold hoped that she did well having had such a poor start to her competition the previous week. If her bad luck could be passed on to Zelena, well, that would put the icing on the proverbial cake.

He swirled the boiling caramel around in the pan, waiting for it to thicken, and he was pulled from his reverie by a squeal from behind him. He looked over his shoulder, naturally wanting to ascertain what had happened but at the same time not wanting to take his eyes off the caramel for more than about thirty seconds in case it all went horribly wrong. Zelena was glaring at her saucepan full of bubbling sugar, cradling her left hand where a smear of sticky brown had evidently burned her.

“It’s getting above itself,” she said, holding out her hand to Gold for him to see the burn, and Gold glanced back at his own pan, inherent chivalry warring with competitive instinct, knowing that if he left his own work to go to Zelena’s aid then his caramel would surely be ruined. In the split second it took him to check the bubbling confection, he wondered if perhaps that was her aim all along, but surely no-one would burn themselves on boiling sugar on purpose to gain such a reaction.

Luckily, his intervention was not required. Astrid, always on the ball, came rushing over with a first aid kit before Gold could make a decision about what the hell to do with his own caramel, and soon the situation was in hand, with Astrid chatting along happily to Zelena as she rinsed off the caramel and applied a bandage.

“First injury of the season,” she said brightly. “I didn’t think that I was going to get the chance to use my first aid skills, to be honest, but I’m really glad that I took that course now. There you are, all fixed up.”

Gold had taken his caramel off the heat by this point and was pouring chopped nuts and fruit into it, creating the sticky, sickly sweet mixture that would form the basis of the biscuits, and he purposefully did not look over his shoulder, not wanting Zelena to distract him again. He tried to put the incident to the back of his mind and pass it off as a simple accident, but at the same time, there was something in her demeanour that he really didn’t trust. He began spooning the mixture out onto the supplied baking sheets. Zelena was lamenting the loss of her caramel and was trying to argue with the runners and presenters that because she’d had to take time out to see to her burn, she ought to get extra time on the end to make up for it. The debate continued for quite some time and became quite heated, with the other occupants of the tent all looking over at her with expressions that ranged from incredulity to being impressed at the woman’s audacity. In the end, Zelena did not receive any extra time and continued to grumble about the unfairness of it all until the judges called out that there were only twenty minutes to go.

Gold said nothing, just giving a little smile to himself that he hoped the cameras would not pick up on, purposefully becoming incredibly engrossed in the chocolate work on his Florentines and not paying any attention to the rest of the tent. As horrible as it was to wish injury and ill fortune on a fellow contestant, it really couldn’t have happened to a better person.

Ursula called time on the challenge, and Gold was able to breathe again. Now, to hope that beginner’s luck would prevail and he would not fall at this hurdle.

X

Belle knew that it was terrible to have favourites during the competition, and she would never admit to having favourites anywhere in the vicinity of a cameraman or a boom mic, but sitting in the pagoda with Granny having done their piece to camera about Granny’s signature Florentines, she thought that it was safe to indulge her thoughts a little. There was something about Gold that just made her want him to be safe throughout the competition. She wasn’t sure whether it was his quiet demeanour or the fact that he was so different from the rest of the contestants that had caught her eye. He was always so candid to the camera whenever it came around, and despite his mild manner, he was really very good at what he did. He seemed genuinely pleased with whatever praise was given to him, but he didn’t lack confidence in his abilities per se.

There was also that little smile in his eyes that just about reached the corner of his mouth when he glanced at her, then caught himself looking and hastily turned his attention back to whatever it was that he was doing. It was endearing, and Belle had to wonder what he was thinking when he looked at her like that. She certainly wouldn’t be adverse if his thoughts were wending in the direction that she thought they were. He was definitely the oldest man in the tent, but there was nothing wrong with older men. Experience worked wonders.

She shook herself crossly. She really shouldn’t be having these kinds of thoughts about one of the contestants. It was both highly unethical and just… She didn’t know anything about him for a start, he might be happily in a relationship. He might not be interested in women.

“What’s got into you?” Granny asked, a wry smile on her face as she watched Belle trying to exorcise the inappropriate thoughts from her head.

“Nothing, nothing. Just trying not to think of pink elephants, you know.”

“I have no idea why you’re trying not to think of pink elephants, but I do understand your predicament.”

“Well, they’re metaphorical pink elephants,” Belle muttered.

“I see.” Granny was silent for a few moments, and when she spoke again, Belle almost choked on her tea. “Have you got a crush on one of our esteemed contestants by any chance?”

Belle spluttered violently and Granny reached across the table to smack her on the back.

“You know, I’m going to take that as a sign of agreement,” she said. “There’s no harm in it. Personally I wouldn’t mind Lance giving me a fireman’s lift.”

“Lance is in the army. It’s Mal that’s the fire investigator.”

“Oh.” Granny considered this for a moment. “Well, to be honest I don’t think I’d mind her giving me a fireman’s lift either. So who have you got your eye on then?”

“Granny…” Belle buried her face in her hands. “Granny can we please not talk about this? It’s bad enough that I fancy one of them, don’t make it worse.”

“My dear, I’ve been judging this show with you for the past six years and I know that you’re a consummate professional who would never let your feelings get in the way of a fair game. To be honest I’m amazed that it’s taken you this long to feel a slight stirring in your loins. There’s generally always one for me. It was August last year. I had high hopes for Killian this time around. He had the dark hair and the scruffy beard and the leather, a bit of a lad. Such a shame he didn’t have the personality.”

“I think he tried to grab the arse of every woman in the tent,” Belle muttered. “We’re well shot of him, or else we’d have about seven lawsuits on our hands. One of them mine.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about him anymore. So tell me. Who’s caught your eye?”

Belle sighed deeply. “Gold.”

“Ah, our resident mystery man. Hmm. I can see where you’re coming from, he’s got that certain something. Not my type though, so you’re safe.”

“Granny!”

“I’m teasing.” There was a twinkle in the other woman’s eye that made Belle wonder that she might not be teasing after all.

“Even if I was in a position to pursue him I know nothing about him, Granny!”

“Well, with any luck you’ll be seeing him every weekend for the next eight weeks so you’ve got plenty of time to get to know him, haven’t you? And think about it, time is of the essence. You’ve got no idea when he might be going home, so it makes sense to get in there quick and start that conversation as soon as possible. At the rate you’re going, you’ll never learn anything about him.”

“Granny! That would be… highly unethical. Or something like that.”

“You only live once, my girl,” Granny said sagely. “There’s nothing wrong with getting to know the contestants and engaging in a little small talk with them to put them at ease. He always looks so jumpy whenever we’re judging or we come round to talk whilst he’s baking. I think that talking to him in private might do wonders for his confidence. You’d be doing everyone a favour in the long run. You get to know more about your mystery man, your mystery man gets to know more about you, and we get a more camera-friendly contestant. We can’t lose!”

Belle sighed, it was clear that she wasn’t going to win this argument.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You’ve worked with me for six seasons and not realised this?” Granny winked. “I might be old, but I’m not dead. Besides, you deserve someone special in your life. You don’t have all that much luck with love.”

Belle sighed. It was true. Her last two longterm relationships had not exactly ended in disaster – she was still on amicable terms with Will, at least, but they had been completely unworkable for various reasons, incompatibility being the main one. But for all the differences that she’d had with Will and with Gaston before him, she had enjoyed being part of a relationship and she had not sworn off men for all time like some of her friends did.

“How’s Ruby?” she asked presently to try and distract Granny from discussing her love life.

“She’s fine. She’s at a wedding this weekend up in Scotland.”

The mention of Scotland brought Belle’s thoughts full circle back to Gold, and she glanced over in the direction of the tent, then at her watch. The would be finishing up round about now, and soon the runners would come and get her and Granny. At least she knew that there was no danger of her showing any favouritism in this round, but she couldn’t help hoping that Gold hadn’t done too badly. He hadn’t fared well last week. Maybe his luck had changed.

Sure enough, Astrid came racing across the grass from the main tent and waved them over frantically. “We’re ready for you now. Oh dear, it’s been a drama fest in there and no mistake. We’ve had the first aid kits out and everything!”

Belle looked over at Granny, worried, and the older woman just raised her eyebrows, not at all concerned. It wasn’t the first time that they’d had injuries in the tent – one of the contestants in their second season had ended up going to the hospital after nearly severing his finger. Nevertheless, it really didn’t bode well for the rest of the competition.

They made their way down to the main tent and entered, looking at the bakers lined up in the middle of the tent. They always looked so forlorn, sitting there in a line like naughty pupils about to be scolded by the headteacher. She knew that the idea was to jumble them up so that it hopefully wouldn’t be obvious whose bakes were whose, but surely they could do that whilst sitting at their usual benches? Nevertheless, it was the format that had worked for them for the past few years, and there was no sense in changing it now.

Despite the attempts at anonymity, there were always a few instances where it was very clear whose bakes were whose and in this case, whose bakes were the worst. Belle immediately spotted the offering that would rank in last place, and on seeing Zelena’s bandaged hand, put two and two together. She wondered what had been going on in the tent whilst they had been banished from it, and decided that it was probably better for her not to know. Looking at the amount of chocolate adorning the front of Elsa’s apron, it was probably clear that the Florentines with a large abundance of the coating were hers. Still, this was a blind judging, not a guessing game. She and Granny went along the line, testing each of the biscuits in turn and pronouncing judgement on them. It was a close-run thing; a lot of them had made minor mistakes, but with the exception of Zelena’s burned caramel – well, Belle assumed that the burned ones were Zelena’s – they were all fairly close in quality. It was one of the tougher judgements that she’d had to make, and the production team were tapping their feet in frustration whilst she and Granny made up their minds.

They were right in thinking that Zelena’s were the burned ones, and from the mutinous look in the woman’s eyes as she claimed her offering, it was clear that she did not agree with their judgement. Or perhaps, she did agree with their judgement but didn’t agree with the fact that she’d had to present burned biscuits. As suspected, Elsa’s were the ones with an excess of chocolate. Mal had done well again, finishing third, behind Lance and Regina. Regina was definitely on a roll today, Belle thought. If she could keep up her winning streak into Sunday then she was a definite contender for Star Baker. Zelena wasn’t on thin ice yet; her biscotti had been very strong, just as her signature last week had been. As so often happened on the bake-off, it would all come down to the second day. Fortunes could change dramatically overnight.

The main cameras stopped rolling for the day and the production team began the process of packing up and getting the film footage sent off to post production, leaving the bakers, presenters and judges to chat amongst themselves whilst the final interviews of the day were filmed. Belle wanted to go over and talk to Gold whilst she had the chance. He had placed fifth in the technical, a great improvement from his performance in the previous week’s challenge, and she didn’t really think that he was in danger of being sent home the next day, but as Granny said, it was time to seize the day.

Unfortunately, the man seemed to have disappeared. Or perhaps he was hiding; he was very good at doing that when he didn’t want the cameras to find him. She glanced across at Zelena, who was talking to Mal and Regina and perhaps not registering that she was something of a third wheel in their conversation. Perhaps Gold wasn’t hiding from the cameras after all. Belle sighed. As a judge and a voice of reason on the show, she really ought to step in, as tedious as listening to the woman could be sometimes. Just as she couldn’t show favouritism, she couldn’t show any negative bias either, and she went over to the trio, seamlessly extricating Zelena from the conversation much to Mal and Regina’s relief. Zelena, glad of a more captive audience, immediately launched into a rant about the unfairness of the entire situation, and Belle listened carefully, nodding in all the right places even if she was only taking half of what was said in. Presently she saw Gold in the corner by the fridge-freezer, getting his mic taken off. Their eyes met across the tent and he gave a little smile, but then Belle’s attention was, by necessity, drawn back towards Zelena, and the quiet little sheep farmer was gone from her sight.

Still. Tomorrow was another day.

X

“Green icing.”

Gold looked up from his cup of coffee to find Jefferson pointing a slice of melon at Zelena, who was helping herself from the morning fruit platter, blissfully unaware of Jefferson’s observations.

“Pardon?”

“Green icing,” Jefferson repeated. “I’m telling you, she’s going to use green icing. She’s definitely got some kind of green thing going on. She always wears green and without fail she’s included green in her bakes so far. Her Swiss roll was green and she had green pistachios in her biscotti. Ergo, green icing.”

Gold pondered the hypothesis, thinking back to their similar conversation the previous day on the subject.

“You know, I really don’t think that baked goods ought to be green,” he said. “It just seems such an unnatural colour for cake.”

“Yes. I mean, matcha tea and pistachios are both naturally green substances, but at the same time…baking with any kind of bright colour looks a bit odd because you’re always going to have the brown top where it’s been baked. Like when I tried to make a rainbow layer cake for my daughter’s birthday. It was a masterpiece of engineering even if I do say so myself, and the kids were completely hyperactive on e-numbers and food colouring additives for about three weeks afterwards, but my word, the amount of time that I spent trying to cut the brown crust off all these layers… I could have created an entirely new cake with them. In fact I did make a rainbow sponge pudding laced with enough Cointreau to knock out all the supervising adults.” He gave a happy sigh. “That was definitely one of the more successful parties I pulled off for Grace.” He looked over at Gold. “What about you? You have a son, right?”

Gold nodded. “Yes. He’s never been into rainbow cakes though. Chocolate usually does him. I’ve never been a particularly exciting baker.”

“Well, exciting isn’t everything. If you can’t do the basics right then you’ve got nothing to work off.”

Gold got the feeling that for all his eccentricity, Jefferson could do the basics very well indeed.

They were prevented from any further discussion of either basic baking techniques or Zelena’s predilection for the colour green when Ella came into the room and flopped onto the sofa beside them, reaching across Gold for the plate of pastries and tipping three croissants into her handbag. She looked at him over the top of her sunglasses and winked, and Gold wasn’t sure whether to give in to the instinct telling him to be extremely scared. He also didn’t know whether to give in to the instinct telling him that Ella was not in fact at all hungover and this was all an act, either to make the contestants feel slightly better about their own woes or for some other unknown deeper reason. She started eating one of the croissants and brushed the crumbs from her fur stole.

“So, I trust that we can expect great things from you today,” she said. “Jefferson, I hope you’re in good shape to defend your star baker crown.”

“I wear it with honour and will defend it to the last,” Jefferson said with a bow. Gold wondered if he’d accidentally stepped into an alternate universe, and he made to get up and leave the two of them to it, but Ella pulled him back down onto the sofa beside her.

“Don’t give her any opportunity,” she muttered out of the corner of her mouth. “Since she’s already shown herself capable of self-injury in an attempt to get your attention, I dread to think what she might do with sharp fruit knives in the vicinity.”

Gold looked at Ella, alarmed, and she simply raised a perfectly painted eyebrow. “Just calling it how I see it, darling. You’re not the only one slightly unnerved by her singular fixation towards you, and we’re all looking out for you. As much as Ursula and I like to encourage the odd romance or rivalry, neither of us want to see the show caught up in stalking allegations.”

“I don’t think that she’d go that far,” Gold said, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he caught Zelena’s eye and her too bright, too wide smile, and he began to rethink the confidence of that statement.

“Well, better safe than sorry.” Ella grabbed the second croissant and started on it. “I have to get stocked up or I’ll be stealing everyone’s biscuits before they’ve had chance to be judged,” she muttered. “I don’t know how Ursula does it. She has her cornflakes in the morning and she’s fine till noon and wouldn’t dream of snaffling a brandy snap. I, on the other hand, only have to smell the sugar and I start salivating and seriously considering braining one of the contestants with a stand mixer to get at what they’re making.”

“Ah, the trials of having a sweet tooth in the middle of a baking competition,” Jefferson said. “You’ll be all right once we move onto bread.”

Ella snorted. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

With Ella’s foreboding presence beside him on the sofa, Zelena did not come over to Gold throughout their time in the break room together. As glad as he was for the intervention, Gold didn’t really know what to make of it, because he couldn’t rely on subtle bodyguards all the time. He was definitely going to have to keep his wits about him if he was going to avoid her for the rest of the competition.

The runners appeared with the mics and the day began to get started in earnest. All too soon, the contestants were making their way down to the Tent of Destiny, as Gold had taken to calling it, and he was pleased to find himself at the back of the group this time, behind Regina. Considering the precision that was going to have to go into the showstopper, he was very grateful for being able to hide away with as few distractions as possible. 

"Good morning bakers," Ella said brightly, betraying nothing of her earlier hangover. "Welcome to the second day of biscuit week and your showstopper challenge. Today, Granny and Belle would like you to make thirty-six biscuits of your choice. To make matters slightly more interesting, these must be presented in a box made from a different type of biscuit."

"And the box must have a lid!" Ursula added. 

"You have four hours for this challenge. On your marks."

"Get set."

"Bake!"

They were off, and Gold focussed his attention on the ingredients in front of him, measuring everything out. The box would have to be made first, to give the biscuits time to cool before assembly, and then the contents of the box could be made. The heavy scents of ginger and treacle were soon filling the air; it was clear that most of the bakers had opted to use gingerbread as the basis for their boxes as it was a sturdy material for building things out of. Gold tried not to worry about losing points for unoriginality and focussed on making the best gingerbread that he could. He’d opted to make a square box with a sloping lid, hopefully evocative of a gingerbread house if he got it right. And if it didn’t collapse on him like some of his earlier attempts had done. He’d managed to wake up the dogs at three in the morning when he had been unable to sleep and practising in his desperation, and he’d dropped the carefully crafted roof and then had to stop the dogs from eating the sugar-filled chunks all over the kitchen floor.

The biscuits to go inside the box were less of a problem, those he could make in his sleep – and Aunt Elvira had more than once claimed that he had indeed made them whilst sleepwalking, something that Gold always took with a pinch of salt. He was keeping his eyes open for the judges and presenters coming around, and he saw Ursula give him a little surreptitious wave as they approached his bench. She did it with all the contestants, letting them know that they were about to be accosted and giving them a few seconds to prepare. Obviously, it wasn’t quite as effective if whoever she was waving to was too caught up in their baking to notice, but at least she tried.

The cameras approached, and after the necessary pleasantries were exchanged, Granny got straight down to business.

"So, Raymond, tell us about your biscuits."

"The box will be made of spiced gingerbread," Gold began. "I'm gluing it all together with icing."

Belle nodded. "A nice sturdy classic. What about inside?"

"I'm making shortbread." He paused. "A bit stereotypical I know, for a Scotsman, but it's a family recipe and it's never let me down yet."

"Are you adding any kind of flavourings to the shortbread?" Granny asked. 

"No. I like it to be able to speak for itself."

"Fair enough." 

Perhaps he wasn't being adventurous enough, but Gold stood firm to his decision. Aunt Elvira's recipe was tried and tested and had never been written down in all its years of being made, and he couldn't start tampering with the ingredients and trying to make it more exotic now. As long as it was crisp and buttery, then it didn't need any further adornment. That was what he kept telling himself at least.

The time kept rolling on, with the presenters and judges hovering around the tent and the cameramen moving between the benches like black-clad ghosts, years of experience of filming the show telling them exactly where to go and where to steer clear of. The shortbread was cooling, the box was holding together and the lid didn’t seem to be on the verge of collapsing any time soon. Their four hours were almost up; a few of the runners had already started washing things up at the back of the tent out of view of the cameras, and Gold took advantage of a natural pause whilst holding two gluing pieces of gingerbread together to glance around the tent and look at everyone else’s confections. Zelena’s was, thankfully, not green; she seemed to have taken the opposite tack to the rest of the tent and had made her box and biscuits savoury. However much he might dislike her as a person, Gold did have to admire her ingenuity. Jefferson had made a round box, although Gold didn’t have the energy to try and work out quite how he’d managed it. Emma was dipping cookies in chocolate, and all that could be seen of Regina was her hands and the top of her head where she was icing her box on an eye level with her bench. It was as if everyone’s creativity had been amped up to eleven on this challenge; it seemed far more high-end than the previous week’s had been.

“This is never going to work.”

Gold looked across at Archie, who was covered in icing to his elbows and was holding several pieces of gingerbread.

“Constructional difficulties?” he asked. The red-headed psychologist nodded forlornly.

“I’m never going to get it built in time, it just won’t stick together. This is the third batch of icing I’ve made and it’s way too runny. The first batch was practically water, then I added more sugar, and now I don’t know what to make of it.” He sighed. “It’s really not been my week. Do you think the judges will accept a deconstruction? A modern art box. The only trouble now is that all the panels look so messy where they’re covered in icing. I knew that I should have gone into architecture instead of psychology.”

“Give me a minute to finish up here and I’ll come help you scrape the icing off,” Elsa said, sandwiching macaroons together. “Although given my track record, you’re probably better off without my intervention.”

“No, I think any help at all would be useful at this stage in the proceedings.”

In the end, they ended up with four of them around Archie’s bench, including Ursula, who was known to take pity on struggling contestants and provide motivational speeches even if she couldn’t do much in the way of helping the culinary line. Gold would have offered a hand as well, but he was running down to the wire with his own decorating and ultimately that was more important. He continued to glance around the tent as he finished piping the lid. There were some truly miraculous feats of biscuit engineering going on.

 The last few lines came out wonky, but there was nothing that could be done to rectify that, and Ella called time on the event. There was nothing more to be done, and it was time for the judges to make their critiques. Well, almost time. The runners continued to clean up around them, exercising the utmost tact and care when clearing surfaces around the somewhat precarious builds, so naturally the entire process took a lot longer than it had before. The judging table was set up at the front, and Gold could only wait anxiously for his turn in the spotlight. Being at the back of the tent, he had already worked out that he was going to be the last up there, and the nervous anticipation was already making him too jittery to concentrate on anyone else’s bakes. Regina, Jefferson and Zelena were all praised highly; Elsa and Rory didn’t come out so well. Archie was the next to brave the walk.

“Well, it’s certainly different,” Belle said optimistically.

“It’s a flatpack box,” Archie said. “From IKEA, you have to build it yourself.”

Granny chuckled. “Well, hopefully it’ll taste good despite its somewhat unusual form.”

They sampled the box and the biscuits that would have been in it, and Gold saw Belle worry her bottom lip between her teeth.

“It was an incredibly good attempt,” she said, trying to mediate what she was about to say, “but all the icing on the gingerbread has made it quite moist and chewy, not crisp like it should be. That might be one of the reasons why it didn’t hold together. And because there’s so much sugar smeared over it, that masks the taste somewhat.”

Gold cringed. Even though it wasn’t his own bake being criticised, it still wasn’t nice to hear. Archie seemed to take the comments in good grace though, and the judging continued until only Gold was left to present. It took him a little while to make his way up to the table, balancing the delicate ensemble with only one hand, and he was certain that he could have heard a pin drop in the tent.

“Well, this is very neatly presented,” Granny began, “and the shape shows some innovation with the roof rather than a flat lid. Let’s see how it tastes.”

Belle took one of the biscuits out of the box and snapped it delicately, a smile breaking over her face. "I can already see that's perfect shortbread texture. It's not too crumbly but not hard either." She took a bite, and her smile grew ever wider. "And it melts in the mouth, just like shortbread should. You can taste the butter. Like you said, it speaks for itself."

Gold smiled. “Can’t go wrong with family recipes.”

“Not with shortbread, you can’t.” She broke off a piece of the gingerbread box and nodded. “The flavour’s good, nice and strong, and it pairs well with the plainer biscuits inside. Little bit chewy though. I think you probably took it out of the oven a bit too early in the hope of making sure it was cool enough to work with.”

Granny agreed with Belle’s sentiments, but added that she couldn’t really taste any of the other spices he’d put into the gingerbread, and Gold sighed. It was typical that yesterday his flavours had been too strong and today they weren’t strong enough. Hopefully by the end of the run he’d have mastered the balance.

With all the bakes now sampled, the judges went away to consider their verdict and the contestants were left to their own devices for a little while. With most of the clean-up having already been done, there wasn’t a lot for them to do except talk amongst themselves. Lance and Mal were consoling Archie, the three of them coming up with propositions for edible flatpack, attempting to revolutionise IKEA’s business model, and Gold watched them for a while, staying at his Emma sat down on Gold's bench, grabbing one of his shortbreads out of his box and offering him one of her own cookies.

"Now this is what I call proper shortbread," she said. "Why couldn't they have served us this yesterday?" She gave an appreciative grunt, closing her eyes as she swallowed. "That's the stuff. God bless your Aunt Elvira."

Gold laughed. "I'll tell her that she's got a fan."

“She’s amazing. I’d like to meet her.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m dreading her coming to the finale.”

“She can’t be that bad, surely?”

“You’ve never met my Aunt Elvira.”

Emma shrugged her acceptance and looked longingly at the shortbread as Gold began to pack it away into airtight containers ready for the journey back to Scotland in the evening. He’d seen the look on Bae’s face often enough to recognise it for what it was and held out the container to her.

“Take one for the road.”

“Thank you!” She began to munch, looking around the tent at their fellows. “Well, I think we’re safe,” she said. “Probably not star baker, but I don’t think we’ll be going home.”

“Hmm.” Gold looked over at Archie; most of the rest of the tent seemed to be thinking along the same lines, that the results this week were something of a foregone conclusion. Still, stranger things had happened. Ruined bakes did not always lose out on presentation if the tastes and textures were good enough to make up for it, but Belle and Granny’s judgement of Archie’s gingerbread hadn’t exactly been the highest of praises.

“And unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be getting rid of Zelena either,” Emma muttered. “I’m seriously considering offering to do something in my capacity as an officer of the law.”

“I don’t think she’s done anything illegal yet.”

“Yeah, well, if she follows you home, call me.”

The tent had been rearranged and the runners were ushering them back to the centre to take their places for the grand announcement. The moment of truth was about to arrive.

X

Belle sighed. Choosing bakers to go home was never a pleasant task, unless they had a contestant like Killian who really did not endear himself to anyone on a personal level. Archie was a sweet man and he was a good baker, but both this week and last week he had failed to make the grade, and there was no real room for sentimentality now. The contestants were being judged on their baking skills, not their personalities, and that sometimes meant that even the nicest of people had to go. It was clear that Archie wasn’t going to be coming back next week, but she hoped that he wouldn’t be discouraged and would continue to bake, even if he never touched gingerbread again.

At the other end of the scale, again the choice was clear. Regina had been the most consistent baker across all three challenges, coming first in both signature and technical with a strong showstopper as well. Belle felt that Mal deserved some kind of credit for having made such a marked improvement from her first disastrous week. Maybe it was just that cake really wasn’t one of her strong points. All the same, Belle was very happy to see her safely through to the next round and she hoped that she would continue to improve in skill and confidence.

“Ready?” Granny asked. Belle nodded. It was probably the least time that they had taken to come to a decision in the history of the show, and as they passed the results on to the presenters, she could see that the folks in the tent were surprised to see them coming back in so soon after they had left it to go and make their minds up. There was an awkward pause whilst the runners continued to get everything set up for the announcement, and Belle cast her eyes over the eleven, soon to be ten, bakers. She didn’t really want to say goodbye to any of them, except perhaps Zelena, but again – it was a baking competition, not a personality contest. She caught a glimpse of the bandage wrapped around Zelena’s hand and frowned. Ella and Ursula were both convinced that the burn had been self-inflicted, but no-one had had chance to review the recorded footage yet, and there was always the likely possibility that none of the cameras had picked up the incident. If it was anything other than an accident, then it marked the beginning of what could possibly become a worrying trend. Belle had never known bakers intentionally self-sabotage, or sabotage anyone else’s bakes. The show had always inspired a sense of community and togetherness – Archie’s mishaps today, with everyone pitching in to try and salvage his creation, were a case in point.

“Well done bakers for surviving another fraught week of flour and sugar getting everywhere and performing marvellous feats of biscuit architecture,” Ursula began. “It gives me great pleasure to announce that our second star baker of the season, with perfect Florentines and a beautifully built box, is Regina.”

There was a round of polite applause and Regina’s face lit up with happiness. It was good to see her smiling like that; Belle had noticed that whenever she was baking she was always the picture of fierce concentration, which showed in the delicacy and preciseness of her finished works. She ought to be proud of herself, she had definitely earned it.

“Unfortunately,” Ella continued, “we have to say goodbye to one of your number. The baker who will not be coming with us next week is Archie.”

“Oh well. I think that was a bit of a foregone conclusion, wasn’t it?” He shrugged, and slipped off his stool to accept the hugs and well wishes of the presenters and his fellow bakers. Belle was really sorry to see him go, and in a way it was comforting that everyone else shared her sentiments. He had gone through a lot, but ultimately he hadn’t been able to pull it back from the brink.

The runners eventually started pulling people away for the final interviews of the day, and the contestants broke off into their usual groups, some of them congratulating Regina, some of them consoling Archie, some of them moving away from the throng of people to do their own thing and get ready to leave the tent and make their journeys back home to wherever they dwelt. Gold was one of those. She couldn’t really blame him wanting to get away as soon as possible, knowing how far he had to go to get home and the work that no doubt awaited him once he got there. He was gathering his things together at his workbench, ready to go back to the break room and collect his coat from the runners.

Well, it was now or never, Belle thought. Granny had advised her to make the most of the coming weekends to get to know Gold, so that was what she was going to do. He might be going home next weekend and then it would be an opportunity wasted. The other contestants seemed to be pairing off with each other; why shouldn’t she show an interest in the loner? It would just be a friendly chat, that was all, to make him feel more at ease. He was nervous in front of the cameras; she had noticed that last week and he hadn’t got any more used to them since. She would just reassure him that he’d done well, congratulate him on his bakes, and that would, hopefully, segue naturally into a conversation about… well… something.

“Hi there.”

Gold looked up from packing his personal items back into their box and smiled.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Feeling very full of biscuits, but other than that I’m doing all right. What about you?”

“Same. And relieved to be coming back next week. My son would have despaired if I’d got kicked out.”

The news that he had a son was a slight setback to Belle’s mental image of him as available, but glancing down she saw that he did not wear a ring. Not that that was really an indicator of anything – he and his son’s mother might not be married and even if they were, he might not wear a ring out of habit from his line of work. Wouldn’t do to have a sheep eat it by accident.

“How old is he?” she asked.

“Fourteen. He’s the one who first got me involved with this, actually, he applied on my behalf and by the time I realised what he’d done it was too late for me to back out. I think he’s pretty excited about having his dad on the TV but at the same time I think he’s worried that I’ll somehow damage his street cred.”

“I don’t think so,” Belle said. “We’re one of the most popular shows on terrestrial TV; even if you do go out next week, you’ll still be a little bit famous and I’m sure your neighbours will want your autograph.”

“My aunt’s already got me to sign one of her tea cosies for her to flog on Ebay once the series has aired,” Gold admitted, and Belle had to laugh at the image.

“You’d best make sure that you win then; it’ll double in value.”

Gold laughed, and it was good to see him relaxed away from the cameras. He offered her a biscuit and she took it even though she’d eaten more than enough biscuits for one day. The shortbread melted on her tongue.

“Your aunt’s recipe?”

“Yes. I’ll tell my aunt that you enjoyed it, she’ll be thrilled.”

“Thrilled enough to tell me the recipe?” Belle hedged.

“Oh no. Top secret and only to be handed down to those who bear the Gold name. You have to go through several learning rituals before you’re accepted into the higher echelons of those who know the mystic secrets of our shortbread.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“It’s also a load of bollocks that I just made up to sound impressive,” Gold said, looking sheepish. “She’d probably give you the recipe if you asked in person.”

“Well no matter what happens you can bring your family to the grand finale. Maybe I can meet your aunt then. She sounds like a character.”

“She definitely is.” Gold paused, and for a while it looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t and the silence started to get awkward between them.

“I should probably get going,” he said quickly, and Belle could tell that he was embarrassed, light colour in his cheeks and his hands fumbling over the things in his box. “I promised I’d be home for evening herding.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. Trains to catch.” Gold nodded and made to move past her out of the tent, pausing.

“It’s been nice talking to you, Belle. I hope we get to do it again.”

Belle smiled. “I’ll make sure that we do.”

X

The train had been delayed on the way home and Gold had only had enough time to rush in, dump his things and get changed before going out to get the sheep in, so it was a while before Bae could grill him for information about how it had all gone.

“I didn’t get kicked out,” he said, accepting the very large mug of tea that Aunt Elvira brought over to him. “And I did slightly better in the technical.”

“Great! You’ll wipe the floor with them next week, we all know what you’re best at. Speaking of, we’re out of bread again.”

Gold raised an incredulous eyebrow at his son. “What do you do, inhale the stuff?”

“I’m a growing teenager!” Bae protested. “I need the energy!”

“If you have any more energy you’ll be bouncing off the walls,” Aunt Elvira commented sagely. “Made any new friends, Rum?”

“Not this week. Still getting to know everyone really, there are quite a few of us. I reckon we’ve already got one on-screen romance though.”

“Oooh, really? That’s exciting. But what’s more exciting is you. Did you speak to Belle? I mean properly, rather than on camera. And did you string words together in a coherent sentence or did you just sort of gabble at her like a star struck, love struck idiot?”

Yes, I had a conversation with Belle that consisted of actual words and fully-formed sentences.”

“Excellent! Progress has been made!” Aunt Elvira and Bae exchanged a high five and Gold watched them from over the top of his mug with tired eyes.

“You do realise I’m doing this to win a baking competition, not to find love.”

“I know, I know. But if you do happen to find love at the same time, then that kills two birds with one stone.”

Gold rolled his eyes and continued to drink his tea. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you two. God help me when I bring you to the finale.”

“We’ll be on our best behaviour,” Bae promised. “But until that time, we’re going to tease you mercilessly, because we can.”

Gold shook his head in despair, but at the same time, something deep inside had reared its head, taking a look around at the outside world and deciding that it liked what it saw. True he’d had a crush on Belle French since the first series of the bake-off, but he’d never really given it all that much thought. It was just one of those things, something unattainable and far off. Safe, since he would never have the ability to act on it. Suddenly though, the ability to act on it had been granted, and he didn’t know what to do with it.

Logic told him that nothing could come of it. His feelings might have intensified since meeting Belle in the flesh, but she was still as unattainable as ever. It would be disingenuous for her to harbour those kinds of feelings towards one of the contestants she held power over.

But after the competition… A feeling of hope, something that Gold was not altogether well acquainted with, was beginning to make itself know. Throughout these next couple of months, nothing would happen, but they could still talk, get to know each other in an entirely innocent way. And after it was all over, well, who knew what might happen?

=====

Coming up next time: The bakers tackle bread, Gold unleashes his secret weapon, and Ella is up to her usual mischief…

Hazelnut and orange biscotti: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hazelnut_and_orange_24808401]

Florentines: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_florentines_49833]

Chapter Text

There was something therapeutic about breadmaking. Gold had been making bread for the family for as long as he could remember, long before Bae had ever been on the horizon. Aunt Elvira had taught him when he'd been a child, a staunch proponent of home-baked bread over anything bought from a shop, and even now, years later, Gold still found it to be the best way of working through his thoughts. Kneading a good strong rye dough helped him to get everything in order. If he wanted to forget, then he would spin, but if he categorically did not want to forget, then he would bake.

Luckily, Bae was still a growing lad and would eat his weight in bread if he could, so there was never a surfeit in the house, even with all the extra that Gold had been making recently to practice for the competition. This was where he would come into his own, and although he was not the kind of person who was ever really confident in his own abilities, Gold didn't think that he would embarrass himself completely. Bread was practically in his blood, along with wool and cheese.

Bae came into the kitchen in his pyjamas to find him kneading and raised an eyebrow. 

"Dad, it's gone one in the morning and you're at the competition tomorrow. Get some sleep. I don't think you're going to be able to improve your technique much more in the next seven hours."

"I know. This isn't for the competition, this is just for me."

Bae sat down at the table. "Nervous?"

Gold scoffed. "Always. But not as nervous as the previous two weeks. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong and on this, the one day I think I've got a chance, I get thwarted."

"You'll be fine. Belle will love your loaf." There was a pause. "I didn't mean that to sound as dirty as it did."

Gold rolled his eyes and put the dough into a tin for its second prove, grabbing his now-cold tea and sitting at the table beside his son. 

In a way, he wasn’t sure how he should be feeling. He had told Bae that he was less nervous than he had been before, which was true. He was on familiar ground and there wasn’t really a lot that could go wrong with bread, all he had to do was trust his instincts and go with it. It was something that he was comfortable with. At the same time, he knew that if he was going to impress Belle at any point during the competition, then it would be this week. Part of him didn’t want to peak too early and for her to be disappointed with him for the rest of the competition – however long that might be for him. Part of him was worried that she wouldn’t be impressed at all, that what he thought was good was not going to be good enough for her. He sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“You should be in bed,” he remarked to Bae, who just gave him a look, one inherited from Aunt Elvira.

“So should you.”

“What are you two doing up?”

Aunt Elvira poked her head around the kitchen doorway, her hair in rollers and an expression of mingled fury and incredulousness on her face. “What kind of time do you call this… Are you baking, Rum? Now?”

“All the best bread is baked at night, Aunt Elvira. Get some of the magic of the moon into it.”

Aunt Elvira just gaped at him. “What on earth are you talking about, boy? Come on, both of you, you’ve got a big day tomorrow, Rum. I will not have you falling asleep at your mixer because you decided to bake bread at silly o’clock in the morning. And you.” She pointed accusingly at Bae. “Don’t you encourage him. You’re a teenager, you need all the sleep you can get.”

Bae sighed and got up from the table but Gold stayed put. Aunt Elvira folded her arms, one eyebrow raised. Gold hadn’t thought that it was physically possible for one’s eyebrows to be quite so expressive; if she wasn’t careful they’d be in her hairline, and finally he caved under the force of her ire. The bread could bake in the morning. She and Bae were right, he did need to be at least vaguely compos mentis, there was no use in sabotaging himself on what could well be his best week in the tent. All the same, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, Gold could not drop off. Thoughts of Belle kept swirling through his head, thinking about the conversation that they’d shared the previous week and hoping that it could be repeated, and maybe that he could acquit himself slightly better than he had done before.

X

“Ah, bread. My one true nemesis. Well, that and pigeons.”

Gold raised an eyebrow as Jefferson entered the break room and grabbed a banana from the fruit platter, brandishing it like a sword in front of him as he came over to Gold and Emma.

“You know, I’m not even going to ask about the pigeons,” Emma said, taking a long sip of her coffee and watching the newly-arrived tailor over the rim of her mug. “In fact, I’m not even going to ask about the bread.”

“I mean, I can just about manage it,” he continued, tossing the banana from hand to hand but showing no signs of actually eating it. “I just don’t understand why it has to be rye. It’s just so… temperamental. What do you think, Gold? You said that you were a bread man.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever had a problem with rye fighting back,” Gold said dryly.

“I’ve had terrible trouble with mine. I was practising two days ago and I had to get Grace to help extricate me from the stuff. It had turned into something akin to superglue, I swear. It was not normal. We managed to unstick it all in the end but I’m sure there’s still some on the ceiling.  It’s eating through the paint.”

“What are you putting in your bread?” Emma asked. “I’m not sampling it, however good it might look. I want no part in you accidentally poisoning the judges.”

“They don’t eat it if it’s not cooked properly,” Jefferson said, waving an arm airily. “They’ll be fine.”

“I’m not concerned about raw dough, I’m more worried about the mixture corroding my insides.” Emma drained her coffee and closed her eyes. “Uff, I’ve been on night shifts all week and now my brain keeps telling me that I ought to be going to bed. I’m going to be as bad as Aurora today.”

“Join the club,” Gold muttered. He couldn’t have got more than a couple of hours in total, tossing and turning in fits and starts throughout the night, and by the time the light was coming up it wasn’t worth trying to get back to sleep before it was time to go and let the sheep out, so he’d got up and finished baking the previous evening’s loaf. It hadn’t come out too bad, all things considered.

“Morning, darlings.” Ella sauntered into the room, sunglasses on, and poured herself a large cup of coffee. “I don’t suppose anyone’s got any gin?”

The presenter was met with a unanimous negative and she sighed heavily.

“Never mind. Can’t have everything, I suppose. Are we all ready to get kneading? I’m hoping to see some extreme bicep action, you know.” Gold couldn’t tell exactly where she was looking through the dark glasses, but he had the sneaking suspicion that she was eyeing up Lance’s arms. Well, truth be told, he was eyeing up Lance’s arms as well. The man’s muscles looked hard as rock and Gold wondered how his own measured up in comparison. Kneading bread only went so far in terms of exercise. He shook himself out of that train of thought, it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Evidently Ella had decided to lose that train of thought as well, and she came over to their little group, looking at Jefferson’s banana, which he was still holding like a weapon rather than eating.

“Were you trying to inspire a really terrible and only slightly appropriate for pre-watershed television joke, Jefferson, or are you actually going to eat that banana?” she asked.

“Well, I was going to eat it but now you’ve put me off somewhat,” Jefferson said, and he relinquished the banana to the presenter, who subsequently began to eat it without any self-consciousness.

“Heaven help us if the judges decide to get us to make banana bread at any point,” Emma muttered.

“It’s been banned,” Ella said, and there was a touch of forlornness in her voice. “They decided that there was too much potential for unbroadcastable innuendo. No banana bread for the foreseeable future. Of course, then they decided to have an entire week devoted to pies and tarts, so I think we’re going to be able to get our own back.” She gave a happy sigh. “Please let someone make banana tart next week. Please….”

Emma, Jefferson and Gold all looked at each other, exchanging an unspoken question as to what they’d be baking next week if they were all still there. From the expressions on the others’ faces, it was clear that bananas were not going to feature.

“All right, all right, sorry I’m late, we had a problem with one of the amplifier things, it kept retuning itself to a radio station.” Astrid raced into the room with a box of mics and rushed over to the nearest person to get them wired up. “I mean, I can sort of understand it picking up the radio, but it was picking up a local station from northern Germany, which was what made it worrying. Still, we’re all here now and we’re still on schedule, so let’s go!”

Gold couldn’t fault Astrid’s optimism, however frantic it might be, and he had to smile when he saw Leroy go over and give her a peck on the cheek before getting his mic attached to him. He wasn’t feeling quite so confident himself, but all he could do was take a step back and rely on his years of breadmaking experience. This was his time to shine, and he couldn’t fail now.

X

“I love bread week.” Granny gave a satisfied sigh, and Belle had to laugh as she blew on the surface of her first cup of tea of the day to cool it. She wasn’t a morning person at the best of times and the long hours on filming weekends really took it out of her. Mind you, she couldn’t spend too much time feeling sorry for herself, after all, all the contestants had to travel as far as she did or further, and then had to bake on top of it all. Aurora was doing incredibly well, all things considered. Still, despite the early start, Belle had to agree with Granny’s sentiment about bread week. Bread was always one of the staples of the show, along with cake, and practically everything that the bakers made could come down to either cake batter or bread dough in the long run. As time went on their challenges became more and more intricate, but if they couldn’t make it through this one fundamental week, then… Bread week was really the week where people started to come into their own, since it required such a different set of skills to baking cake and biscuits. Cakes required a steady hand and an artistic flair, a head for flavour and colour. Bread required strength, precision, good judgement and excellent timing. A few minutes too long in the prove or too few in the oven could be the difference between a great loaf and a completely inedible one, and in the short time frame that the bakers had, there was no room for any error. Granny was more of a bread baker; Belle preferred the more intricate side of baking.

Astrid finished attaching their mic packs and began to chivvy them down towards the tent, ready for the competition to begin, and they paused outside as they always did with Ursula and Ella whilst the tent was set up ready and the contestants found their respective workbenches. Ella was still bemoaning her hangover, and was receiving absolutely no sympathy from Ursula.

“Ella, take those off, you look ridiculous and I’m sure you can’t see a thing in them,” Granny said plainly, indicating Ella’s sunglasses and the grey, overcast weather that surrounded them, a typical British summer.

“I can see perfectly well,” Ella grumbled, taking off the glasses and shoving them in an inside pocket somewhere. “I can see that there is no gin in my hand and that this is a problem.”

“You know, if you mention gin once more, people are going to start thinking that you’re an alcoholic,” Ursula pointed out.

“I’m not going to mention it in front of the cameras.” Ella seemed rather affronted at the notion. “There are impressionable children watching at home.”

Ursula raised an eyebrow. “Since when have you cared about the impressionable children?”

“Since now. Come on, they must be ready in there now.” Ella peered into the tent, hopping about from foot to foot in her impatience to get started, and Belle just laughed at her antics. No matter what was going on in the tent, or indeed outside it, Ella could always be relied on to lighten the mood, however unintentionally she might be doing it.

Finally the runners called them into the tent and the day’s filming began in earnest.

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula began. “Welcome to bread week, where we hope you will rise to the challenges facing you. Honestly, who writes these, they’re terrible.”

“If you’re all able to ignore the awful puns for a moment, then Granny and Belle would like you to make, for your signature challenge, twelve rye rolls. You can make them in any shape or finish that you choose, but they must be made with rye flour and they must be identical. You have three and a half hours on the clock.”

“On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

They were off, and as always Belle and Granny took a few moments at the front of the tent to let the contestants get going without interruptions. It was even more important for them to get off to a good start on bread week, with their creations needing so long to prove and rise. The beauty of the long waiting times meant that they could move around the tent and talk to the bakers in the pauses, without distracting them from what they were doing too much. In some of the quicker challenges that required more finesse and attention to detail all the time, Belle did feel somewhat guilty about talking to the bakers when they so clearly needed to get on with what they were doing. She let herself gaze around the tent taking everything in, looking at the layout and who was where. Having lost two of the men already, the remaining ones looked hopelessly outnumbered, sandwiched right in the middle. Gold had ended up in front of Zelena again, but thankfully the redhead was too absorbed in what she was doing to be paying any attention to her fellow bakers. Everyone was showing an intense concentration, and Belle had to linger a little on Gold. This would be his week, she was sure of it, and she thought that he looked a little more confident than before, the slightest smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She hoped that he would do well, and that she would get the chance to speak to him in private like she had done the previous week. Still, there was no time for daydreaming now. Ursula and Ella were starting to make their way around the workbenches and Granny was pulling her along to go and speak to Regina, who was at the front on the right-hand side, across from Mal, who seemed to have got off to a good start for once. Perhaps her fortunes were going to change as well.

“What’s up with you today?” Granny asked in a low voice, out of reach of the cameras. “You’re in a complete world of your own.”

“Yes, I am. Sorry Granny, I’ll try and be a bit more with it from now on. I shouldn’t be mooning about when there’s judging to be done.”

“Well, there’s no judging to be done just yet, love, so I think you’ll be ok. As long as you’ve woken up in four hours’ time.”

Belle nodded, and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Once she got back into the swing of it and was talking to the bakers and learning about their breads, she came back to herself fairly quickly, but the same impressions remained in her mind. Bread week was always a pivotal week, and Belle was certain that this year, it was going to be a good week.

X

Once he was inside the tent and the clock was counting down, Gold felt a lot more at ease. Ignore the cameras and just get on with the main event. Rye bread he could do. He’d been doing it for years. He hadn’t even had to practice specially, just make a few fancy rolls instead of his usual loaves. He kept glancing up as he weighed and measured, watching out for the judges so as not to be caught out by them again. He was getting wary to the way they moved around the tent, and he hoped that he could anticipate their arrival. Some unkind person up there had decided that it would be a good idea to sandwich him between Zelena and Mal in the middle of the tent. He had no problem with Mal, although her explosive outbursts when something went wrong in her bake might yet give him a heart attack. Zelena, though, was a different matter. To say that she was persistent would be putting it mildly. He could feel her eyes on him, or more specifically his arse, and he kept expecting to turn around and find her right behind him. The workbench between them really didn’t seem like it would be adequate protection. A nice wall would be better. Or a moat. Filled with boiling lava. Or sharks. Or both. The sharks would have to be wearing fireproof suits though. The thought made him burst out laughing and Mal turned around, raising her eyebrows.

“Everything all right there, Gold?”

He nodded, trying to compose himself and pressing the back of one flour covered hand over his mouth.

“Long train of thought,” he managed to get out eventually.

“Right…” Mal didn’t seem entirely convinced of his sanity and Gold sighed. Well, at least Jefferson wouldn’t be alone in having a reputation for eccentricity in the tent. He glanced over at his friend, who was holding up sticky dough covered hands with a despairing expression. Jefferson caught his eye then and mouthed at him. “Help!”

Gold just chuckled and Jefferson narrowed his eyes, setting about trying to clean his hands with his bench scraper but only succeeding in getting the tool stuck to him. Gold was so caught up in watching his predicament that he almost didn’t notice Granny, Belle and Ursula coming over to him. Ella had gone to investigate what was going on with Jefferson, and for a while the four of them at Gold’s bench, plus the cameraman and the boom operator, were all transfixed.

“I’m being betrayed by my own dough!” Jefferson exclaimed mournfully. “I’m terrified that it’s going to set like concrete and I’ll never be able to get out! I’ll be stuck with bread hands forever!”

“Do you think we ought to do something?” Belle asked, unable to tear her gaze away. Granny shook her head.

“No, he’ll be all right. If he’s still in a pickle in ten minutes we’ll consider hosing his hands down or something.”

Ursula gave a snort and they finally turned their attention to Gold.

“So, tell us about your rye rolls.”

“Well, this is a tested rye and spelt recipe that I’ve been using for years,” Gold said, giving the dough a final pull and setting it in the bowl for proving.

“Another of your Aunt Elvira’s?” Belle asked, and Gold nodded.

“You want to be careful, she’ll probably start demanding commission,” Ursula commented.

“Well, if she ever brings out a cookbook then I think I’ve provided her with enough publicity,” Gold said. He hoped they cut that part out before it aired, coming to think of it; he didn’t want Aunt Elvira getting any ideas. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

“Well, she hasn’t let you down yet, and I’m sure that she won’t this time.” Belle was smiling brightly. “How are you going to shape them?”

“A classic plait,” he said. “I didn’t want to be too adventurous. Bread has to speak for itself, you know.”

Granny gave a sage nod, regarding him with an expression wasn’t quite impressed, but was certainly admiring. “You know your bread, Rum.”

“I bake a lot of it.”

“Well, I’m looking forward to the results.”

As if that hadn’t just heaped the pressure on even more… Gold sighed as they went away, checking up on the dough. There was no visible rise to it yet, but it would come with time. For now he could take a break, and he glanced over at Jefferson again. He’d managed to unstick himself from the bench scraper and most of the dough was now on the table rather than his hands, but he’d never seen the immaculately put together man look quite so messy. All the same, he was still smiling through it all, and he had to admire the man. Even when things weren’t going well, he could still put a brave face on it instead of crumbling.

“Please work, please work, please work…” Mal was muttering at her proving drawer, her eyes level with the counter as she watched the closed door with fierce concentration.

“Mal, I really don’t think that’s going to make it rise any quicker or any bigger.” Regina had come over and was leaning on the other woman’s workbench with a cup of tea.

“I know.” Mal sighed, resting her forehead on the counter. “That’s what I hate about bread. There’s just so much waiting involved.”

“I know. Give me apple turnovers any day of the week. Something. Anything that I can do whilst I’m waiting.”

“Well, there are probably a few things I could suggest. Not sure any of them would be entirely appropriate on primetime family TV though.”

Regina bit her lip, trying to hold back a giggle, and Gold pretended to be very interested in cleaning up his workstation. That the two ladies got on very well was a given, and there was certainly a mutual something between them. It wouldn’t be the first time that a relationship had begun in the tent, but the cameras usually discreetly avoided it. He’d never thought of one occurring this soon into the proceedings though. Still, they did say that opposites attracted. Regina was precise in her baking, very neat, never making a mess, and her creations were always beautiful. Mal was more haphazard, her language colourful and her baking even more so. She hadn’t expected to make it to the end of the first week, and now it seemed that she was simply grateful for every reprieve that she got and every new chance she had to prove herself. Gold completely understood the feeling.

“We should have a juggling contest,” Jefferson suggested from the other side of the tent. In front of him, Emma rolled her eyes in despair, staring down at the proving drawer in her workbench, obviously itching to open it and check how the dough was getting on, but not wanting to jinx it by looking too early.

“It’s like Schrödinger’s Cat,” Lance remarked. With nothing to do for a while until the dough had finished proving, the bakers were all congregating again for a while, gravitating towards Mal and Gold’s benches where most of the conversation seemed to be centred. “As long as you don’t look, there’s still the possibility that it might be all going fine, but the moment you know for certain…”

“Curiosity killed the roll, that’s a new one on me,” Emma said. She glanced over her shoulder at her bench again as Jefferson came over to join the little group. “And now, of course, we have the psychological waiting game of who’s going to break from this little huddle and go back to their dough first. Weirdest game of chicken I’ve ever played.”

“Juggling contest. I’m telling you.” Jefferson was still picking flakes of dough from underneath his fingernails; the front of his apron was covered with sticky smears.

“Yes, but why, Jefferson? And what with? I don’t think that your fellow bakers would be too pleased with you using their unbaked rolls as juggling balls.” Ella had come over to join in the fun, leaving Ursula to chat to Zelena, who’d had similar stickage problems to Jefferson and was taking out her frustrations on the dough. Somehow the sight of her pummelling the thing into submission made Gold even more nervous in her presence than he had been before.

“Well, I’m not at the stage of juggling knives yet, but I can do oranges.”

“That’s great, Jefferson, but I don’t see any oranges around here. Only kitchen utensils and bread dough that everyone is guarding with their lives.”

“Oh, I can’t take this anymore, I’m going to check mine.” Emma raced back to her workbench and opened the proving drawer, giving a disappointed sigh when she saw that her dough did not appear to have increased in size at all. “Dang it!”

The waiting was definitely the worst part. At home, Gold never noticed the proving and baking time because there was always something else to do to take his mind off it, and since he proved at room temperature, it always took longer and he could just forget about it for a while. Now, he had absolutely nothing to do to fill the time. It would be better if it was a cake of some kind, where he could work on the decorations or icing or what have you, but no, he was doomed to just wait. He eased himself onto the high stool beside his workbench, stretching out his leg. He really couldn’t be doing with his ankle complaining today, not on this most important of days.

“How are you holding up?”

It was Belle’s voice beside him, and he was ashamed of how much he startled when he heard her. She grinned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. How’s your leg?”

“I’ll live. I’ve managed this far.”

There was a quirk to Belle’s lips, as if she wanted to say something else, but she shook her head, thinking better of it and moving away. “Well, I’ll let you get on. Can’t be doing distracting you from your masterpiece. But do let Astrid or one of the other runners know if you need anything to make you more comfortable.”

“Thank you.” He was touched by her concern for his wellbeing, even though he knew that she’d make the same offer to anyone in the tent with disabilities. Still, it was time to see how the dough was doing and turn his thoughts away from Belle. It wouldn’t do to be distracted by her beauty on the one week he had a chance of doing really well.

The dough had risen well and he began to shape it; and the memories of Aunt Elvira and Aunt Miriam teaching him how to make bread plaits when he was very small and had to stand on an apple box to reach the kitchen table made him smile fondly. It was a tradition that he had passed on down to Bae, using the self-same box to help his son get his hands into the bowl of dough and create his own haphazard shapes. Bae’s happy little facing beaming up at him, hands sticky with dough but so proud of his achievements, flashed across his mind as he continued to shape, carefully partitioning out the dough so that the finished rolls would all be the same size and weight. Aunt Elvira had always maintained that the most potent secret ingredient in any of her recipes, be it simple bread or the sticky treacle ginger cake that she still made for his birthday every year, was love, and Gold hoped that some of the love that he felt for his family would make its way into the bread today and give it that extra something. He’d always taken the words with a pinch of salt, but right now he would take all the help that he would get. He was baking things that he made ordinarily for his family, things that they enjoyed, and that had to account for something.

Time continued to tick by, agonisingly slowly, and Gold had never been so grateful for Ursula yelling that the challenge was over. He looked at the basket of rolls on the end of his bench, and took a moment to look around tent at what everyone else had come up with. It was clear to say that some people had definitely fared better than others, and Gold did feel sorry for Jefferson, who seemed to be covered in dough. A small part of him, long since hidden and tamped down, began to flutter with hope and excitement. He was no judge, but he would definitely say that he was on the upper end of the scale when it came to success.

Still, only Granny and Belle could decide whether or not he’d passed this first test of his bread making credentials. There was agonising silence for a few moments as the judges considered the bake, but then Belle smiled.

“Aunt Elvira’s done it again,” she said. “These are really good; perfectly proved and baked and very flavoursome. They’re very well presented as well, nice and neat.” Gold bit his cheek to stop a laugh escaping since most of the other bakers had been criticised for their work looking untidy - especially Jefferson, who thanks to the stickiness of the dough had been somewhat unable to form his rolls into shapes other than vague blobs. Aurora and Elsa had both ended up with similar issues, probably as a result of using too much water in their mixture. Rye bread used a lot of water and was meant to be soft and dense, but it was possible to get a bit carried away when adding liquid to the dough. Still, Gold wasn’t really concentrating on the other bakers too much, not when Granny and Belle were singing the praises of his rye rolls and he was certain that he had got off to a good start.

Unfortunately, this did mean that come lunch in the break room, he was the centre of attention. Thus far he’d always managed to take some of his baking home with him for the family to sample. Not that they really needed to, since they’d been sampling all the practice bakes that he had been making for the past however many weeks and were probably sick of it, but Elvira had been adamant about tasting ‘the real thing’. This time, though, everyone had wanted in on his rolls and there was nothing but crumbs left to take home. Thankfully everyone else’s opinion seemed to echo the judges’, and Gold felt a little smile begin to creep over his face as he received compliments from Lance, whose signature rye and cardamom knots had also been highly praised by the judges. For the first time, he felt like he did actually deserve to be here, rather than having got in on some kind of fluke and being an imposter to be recognised and turned out at any moment. He had proven himself worthy of his place in the tent, and with any luck, he could keep it for another week to come.

He was actually quite glad when Astrid pulled him out of the room for his piece to camera, giving an update on how the day was progressing so far. Hopefully by the time he got back in there, everyone would have moved on to a different pet topic and he would have five minutes to himself.

“So, how are you feeling after the first challenge?” Astrid asked brightly. “Everything seems to be going very well for you so far.”

Gold nodded. “It’s been a really good morning. I’m amazed at how positive the reaction was, to be honest. I mean, I hoped they’d like it, but I was certain that they were going to find something wrong with the rolls. I suppose all I can do is hope that this success continues this afternoon.”

“Cut, thank you!” Astrid walked him back to the tent as Walter the cameraman set about trying to remove a particularly stubborn fly from the lens of his camera. “So, do you think you can win this week?”

Gold didn’t know. If he was going to stand a chance of winning any week, then it was going to be this one, which didn’t really give him a lot of hope for the rest of the competition. He’d got off to a good start, but the technical challenge could still flip things completely...

X

Soon enough, it was time to return to the tent. Gold was feeling quietly confident about this, because when it came down to it, bread was bread and there wasn’t all that much variation in method of ‘make dough, prove, bake’. Unless of course Granny had decided to throw them a complete curveball and have them make something ridiculous that no-one had ever heard of, but bread was generally a difficult but not completely impossible technical. Last year’s had been ciabatta. Gold had never made a ciabatta himself but at least he knew what it was and what it ought to look like. The judges gave their final pieces of advice and were shooed out of the tent, and Gold returned his attention to the presenters and the forthcoming challenge. He made a lot of bread. Please let it be something that he had made before…

“Good afternoon, bakers.” Ella had put her sunglasses back on and Ursula fought them off her head with a sigh, but the cameras kept rolling in spite of their antics and they continued. “For today’s technical challenge, Granny and Belle would like you to bake four identical baguettes. You have two and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Baguettes. He could do baguettes. By some miracle he had actually made one before, but it was a long time ago and he’d vowed to stick to rolls and bread that could be made in loaf tins afterwards. Still, he wasn’t going in completely blind. The main problem would be getting the bread to hold its classic shape during its second prove, especially since they would be using the traditional cloths provided rather than anything resembling a solid baguette mould. Still, time was ticking away and he could deal with that when it came to it. Timing was going to be crucial here; with only two and a half hours on the clock, it was going to be down to the wire to get the dough sufficiently proved and baked in time, which meant that the basic dough had to be created as quickly as possible. He could hear the other competitors talking to the presenters and the camera crew as they worked their way around the tent, and he focussed on what he was doing, trying to tune them out. He wondered if Zelena would be up to her usual tricks today or if the fact that she was now about as far away from him as the tent would allow had dampened her ardour somewhat. He sneaked a quick glance over in her direction, hoping that she wasn’t doing the same thing and would take his warning reconnaissance in the wrong way. Thankfully, like the other bakers, she was too absorbed in her own work to pay him any mind. Since her escapades last week had not borne fruit, perhaps she’d toned it down a little in the hopes of doing better in the competition.

A cameraman had since snuck up on him surreptitiously, almost giving Gold a heart attack when he turned to see the man there.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” he muttered, but nonetheless started talking through the baking process. The recipe that Granny had given them was somewhat sparse, with no indication of proving and baking times so they were having to do everything by eye. Once again, the waiting game was agonising, especially with so little time to waste. Every minute that the dough proved was a minute less in the oven for its final bake. Over in one corner of the tent, Regina was talking to Ella about whether or not the baguettes needed steam in the oven in order to go as crispy as they were intended, and it was quite clear that all the other contestants were trying desperately not to look like they were listening in.

Ultimately Gold decided that patience was a virtue, leaving his baguettes to the last minute before putting them in the oven and winging up a prayer to whatever was up there, or perhaps just sending some vibes to Aunt Elvira in the hope that it was all going to go all right. All too soon it was time for the challenge to end, and once the clean-up had been done and the contestants were arranged in the centre of the tent as usual, the judges reappeared.

Gold was sitting on his crossed fingers, which earned him a strange look from Mal beside him, but over the course of the two and a half weekends that they had spent together, Gold had come to the conclusion that absolutely nothing shocked Mal at all, and she made no mention of his nerves.

The judges produced a variety of comments about the baguettes; it seemed that no-one had managed to get them perfect but they’d all failed in different ways. Gold’s offering was among the better ones, deemed underbaked and not crispy enough, but well-proved, so he thought that his excessive hanging around waiting for the dough to rise wasn’t entirely unjustified. In the end, he came third, behind Regina and Lance. Jefferson and Elsa were at the bottom; their own baguettes had been almost rock solid, and the two of them came over as the production began winding down for the day.

“You know, I’m beginning to lose confidence,” Jefferson said, although his outward appearance was as cheery as ever. “I knew that bread was going to be my downfall. It’s dough, I swear it doesn’t like me. If I survive this, then heaven help me if I make it to advanced dough week.”

“You and me both,” Elsa muttered. She wasn’t quite as caked in flour as she had been in previous challenges, and Gold wondered if trying to be cleaner had had an adverse effect on her baking skills.

“All the same, our woeful performance aside, you ought to be very proud of yourself,” Jefferson said. “I think that you’re getting closer to winning lovely Miss French’s heart by the second.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “Really, Jefferson?”

“Relax, there aren’t any cameras around, your secret is safe with us.”

“It’s not if you broadcast it around the entire tent, even if not around the entire country,” Gold muttered

“So you do have a little crush on our favourite judge then?” Emma had come over to join them and there was a cheeky smile on her face.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Gold threw his hands up in defeat. “What am I going to do with the lot of you?”

“Just love us.” Jefferson patted Gold on the back. “We’re all on your side, you know. I think that would be the perfect bake-off romance. It should really come with some kind of warning, that you might lose your heart in the process of losing your dignity. I swear I’ve still got rye dough in my ears.”

“I’m not even going to ask how it got in your ears,” Emma said. “You know, I think you’re making this stuff up half the time.”

“Only half?”

The banter had thankfully moved away from the topic of Gold’s crush on Belle, and he glanced over to her, where she had just come back into the tent having done a piece to camera. She caught his eye and smiled at him, mouthing well done. A small part of himself allowed a little time to preen at the attention, but then his usual, painfully embarrassed self took over and he ducked away out of sight.

Lying awake that night in his hotel room, Gold thought about the next move in their little… what was it? It wasn’t really anything. It couldn’t really be called a flirtation in all good faith, there hadn’t been any flirting, at least not on his part. And considering his track record when it came to communicating with women, there probably wouldn’t be any flirting on his part for the foreseeable future. In the past he’d found it far easier to take a back seat and let his partner take the lead in the relationship, but on the other hand, when he thought about his failed marriage to Bae’s mother, maybe that wasn’t the best course of action. For now, he decided that the best thing to do would be to just wait it out and see what happened. There wasn’t really anything else to be done. But if they could keep exchanging those secret little smiles, then he would certainly be happy with that.

X

Sunday dawned bright and early, the showstopper challenge looming ahead of them. The contestants were somewhat subdued in the break room, even Jefferson, who seemed to finally be feeling the toll of his difficult week. With many of them having had problems the previous day, there was even more pressure than usual on the showstopper, and even though Gold had fared well, he knew that he couldn’t afford to be complacent.

The quiet made him uneasy. When everyone was talking, it was much easier to fade into the background, to be on the periphery of a conversation and not really noticed, but with no-one really talking, there was nowhere to hide, no space for polite nods and affirmations. He kept his head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone and trying to evoke the image of a little hedgehog curled up into a ball. He wasn’t trying to be anti-social and aloof, but instigating conversations had never been a strong point of his.

Thankfully they did not have to wait too long for the runners to come in and start attaching mics and shepherding them down to the tent. It was a cold rainy day, typical of the British summer, and the weather seemed to reflect the general mood in the tent. Even Gold’s confidence was waning by the time he got behind his workbench, and he wondered if the thing that he had been counting on to curry favour with the judges was actually a terrible idea and he ought to think up something else at the last minute. That was going to be slightly difficult considering that the ingredients were already out on the workbenches and it was too late to call for any more.

“Good morning bakers,” Ella began. “Well, as good as it can be considering that it’s absolutely bucketing it down outside and the production team are worried that the tent roof will cave in under the weight of the downpour.”

Granny shot her an unimpressed look. “Ella, don’t make trouble before they’ve even begun.”

“All right, all right. There is no danger of the tent falling in on our heads. I still reckon that I’m going to have to go around with buckets catching drips though.”

“Ella, you know full well that the tent has never leaked and we’re wasting the bakers’ valuable time here.” Ursula gave a long-suffering sigh, and Gold had to wonder how the two of them had got together. “Bakers, for your showstopper challenge today, Granny and Belle would like you to make a filled centrepiece loaf. It can be in any style or shape that you like, sweet or savoury, and use any type of filling, but it must be a full, family-sized loaf. You have four hours on the clock. On your marks!”

“Get set!”

“Bake!”

They were off, and Gold immediately left his work station to check that one of his ingredients was still in the fridge. Yes, there it was, the thing that would win him the crown, his secret weapon. Well, in Bae and Elvira’s opinion anyway. A large block of homemade sheep’s cheese was sitting there in pride of place and Gold felt a keen sense of pride in his and Elvira’s craftsmanship, even if the finished bread turned out to be a disaster. Elvira had joked that it would be an excellent advertisement for their little business and would hopefully drum up a lot more custom when it finally aired. Gold doubted that. There was the small matter of the judges, and if they said that his creation was terrible, then they were unlikely to have buyers flocking to sample one of the key ingredients.

There was no time to be lost in staring soulfully at cheese, however. There was bread to be made.

The dough he was using was a fancy variation on the simple rye he had used the previous day, adding walnuts for flavour and crunch. It was one of his more ambitious pieces even if he did say so himself, a loaf made of pinwheels of alternating dark and light dough, each one filled with a hopefully tasty mixture of cheese, nuts, and dried figs, and he managed to mask his nervousness at the gargantuan task ahead of him when the judges came around and he explained his thinking.

“Is this cheese from your sheep?” Belle asked, indicating the creamy white block that he was now crumbling up ready to create the filling.

“Yes, it is. Handmade.”

“Could I try some please? If you’ve got enough for me to have a little taste.”

“Erm, of course.” He handed her a spoon and Belle took a crumb of cheese out of his bowl, giving an appreciative nod.

“Yes, that tastes wonderful. I can’t wait to see how it pairs with the other ingredients in the finished product.”

“No pressure there then,” Ursula said as the judges moved away.

“Nope,” Gold muttered. “Would you like to try some?” he added.

“No, I leave tasting privileges to the judges,” she said. “And to Ella, but then, trying to get free samples of all the baker’s unfinished works is something of a prerogative for her. Honestly, sometimes I think that she’s only here for the free food and has no interest in actually hosting the competition at all.”

“I heard that!” Ella’s voice, from the other end of the tent, was affronted.

“And are you going to dispute its accuracy?” Belle asked her.

“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still be offended!”

The atmosphere in the tent was lightened by this, and with the attention on the presenters rather than the bakers, it seemed that the air of confidence had increased. Elsa was happily making a full English breakfast loaf, Zelena had once again managed to include green in her bake with the addition of pesto to a mixture that Gold didn’t really trust to be edible, and behind him, Mal was humming to herself as she shaped small dough sausages for the petals of the ornate flower that she was creating, carefully filling each one with a chocolate and dried fruit mixture. All in all, things seemed to be going rather well until Gold heard what he was sure was a muffled sob from the other side of the tent. Checking that nothing would imminently go wrong with his loaf, which was safely in the oven and unlike to catch alight or anything similarly dramatic, he looked over at the source of the noise, which had also attracted Mal’s attention.

Aurora was crouched on the floor in front of her oven, her oven-mitted hands pressed over her face and her eyes wide with horror.

“Rory?” Mal hissed. “Rory, what’s up?”

“Oh no,” Rory moaned. “This can’t be happening… Why is this happening? It’s never done this before… Oh God…”

Whatever had happened, it was clearly something far more dramatic than the usual small mishaps that caused Mal to swear in frustration, and they exchanged a look before going over to Aurora’s workstation.

Looking into the oven, it was immediately clear what the problem was. Her bread was leaking. The filling (which looked to be an unusual shade of pink) was pouring steadily out of the dough, which was deflating into a sad and soggy puddle in the middle of the oven.

“It’s meant to be a strawberry cheesecake brioche,” Rory said, choked. “Not… whatever that monstrosity is.”

“Hey, it’s ok, don’t cry, I’m sure that we can pull it back,” Mal said, but Rory was shaking her head.

“There’s no way I can salvage that; how am I going to get the filling back into it? Fuck it all, it’s ruined and I don’t even know what I did wrong. It’s never done that before!”

By this point it was clear that the entire tent’s attention was now focussed on Rory and her cream cheese induced breakdown, including the cameras. Luckily, Ursula and Ella were on hand to head them off at the pass, and Ella leaned casually on the workbench, calmly spouting a torrent of profanity that would be completely unairable, thus shielding Rory from being filmed whilst crying over her doomed bread.

Gold had to admit, he really didn’t know what could be done to save this one; if it stayed in the oven any longer without intervention it would certainly continue to become a soggy mess, but at the same time, if they took it out and tried to do anything with it then it probably wouldn’t bake in time and would be judged as both dangerously inedible and extremely messy, and he advised Rory to keep it baking accordingly.

“The filling will catch and burn on the outside though,” she said mournfully, then gave a long sigh. “Well, I suppose that presenting something ugly but edible is better than presenting something ugly and inedible.”

“Hey, Rory.” Belle’s voice was soft as she slipped past the protective barrier that was Ella and crouched beside Mal. “It’s all right. These things happen. Don’t let it get the better of you. We’d far rather that you presented something than nothing. Don’t give in.”

Rory gave a weak smile. “Thank you, Belle.”

Once it became clear that there was really nothing that could be done for the loaf other than to let it keep cooking, with Rory watching it like a hawk to make sure that nothing caught alight, the other bakers went, a little reluctantly, back to their own stations to ensure that no similar catastrophes occurred in their own bakes. Gold glanced over his shoulder to where Aurora was sitting in front of her oven, a despondent expression on her face. The tent was quiet apart from the mutterings of the runners and the camera crew as they went about their usual work, and it seemed that this incident had shaken everyone a little. This was the first huge problem that someone had faced in the tent and it had really driven home just how quickly and easily something could go wrong and completely turn over their chances of succeeding in the competition.

Checking that his own bread was in no immediate danger, Gold thought about Belle and her brief intervention in the scene. Once again, he was struck by her kindness and thoughtfulness, her concern for the bakers’ wellbeing outweighing everything else. Gold had admired Belle from afar for many years now, but his attraction had always been based in the main off the impression of her that he had received from the TV screen. Now that he was getting to know her and see what the real-life woman was like, he was finding even more reasons to fall in love with her. Gold sighed. He really shouldn’t be thinking about these things, especially not when there was so much at stake - namely the chance of returning to the tent and to Belle’s presence next week.

He decided that it would be a good idea to put some foil on the edges of his loaf to prevent them browning too much and busied his mind with that for a few moments, but all too soon, the waiting game had begun again. No last-minute panics here, not when the only thing to be done to present the bread was to take it out of the oven and put it on a plate.

So simple, and yet so incredibly nerve-wracking. Still, once the time was up, the loaf made the transition without mishap and Gold breathed a sigh of relief, confident in the fact that there was nothing he could have done to make his offering any better, and that whatever Belle and Granny thought of the finished product, he had done his utmost.

The clean-up began in earnest, and a far more nerve-wracking wait for the judging was underway.

X

Belle didn’t think that she had ever seen Ella so excited about a judging. The woman was practically bouncing up and down and she wondered if it was something to do with the extra strength Anadin that she’d been popping all the previous day to counteract her hangover, and Belle could barely keep a straight face as the contestants began to bring their works up to the front. Aurora had put a brave face on her disaster as she carried up the sunken mess, swimming in melted cream cheese, but her smile was watery and forced, and Granny and Belle tactfully made no comments on the appearance. There were some things that spoke for themselves, for better or worse, and there was no use in drawing attention to the fact that her bake had so obviously not gone as planned; it would be rubbing salt into the wound.

The other bakers had all had varying degrees of success. Elsa’s full English loaf was particularly delicious and the level of detail that had gone into Mal’s work was universally admired not just by the judges. Jefferson had managed to pull himself back from the brink with a well-baked plait; keeping it simple had worked for him in a week that could not play to his usual strengths of artistry and attention to detail. But Belle had to say, without any shadow of favouritism creeping in, that Gold’s work outshone them, and she could tell that Granny felt the same way. It was clear that this was his favoured method, this was where his strengths definitely lay and he had swallowed his fears and let his talent show. Belle gave him an encouraging smile, and she could have sworn that he grew an inch taller under her gaze.

It was time for judges and presenters to retire for more deliberations and for the tent to reset, but Belle knew that the competitors would not be kept waiting for long.

“I don’t think that there’s any doubt, really,” Granny said to Belle once they had finished their piece to camera in which they had been, as usual, cryptic as to who would be wearing the crown and who would be sent home. “Gold’s certainly been hiding his light under a bushel for these past couple of weeks. He’s really hit it out of the park, today and yesterday. We’ve found his niche.”

“Yes.” Belle smiled. “We definitely have. Hopefully this will boost his confidence in the coming weeks as well, knowing how well he can do.” She had really enjoyed seeing Gold come out of his shell this weekend, showing the pride and confidence in his bakes in a way that he had not shown before. There was less nervousness in his manner and it made for far easier conversation in front of the cameras. Hopefully it would last.

“And on the other end of the scale…”

Belle gave a sad nod. “I know. As sad as the situation is, I think it’s something of a foregone conclusion.” She glanced over at the tent. “Ready to face the music?”

Granny nodded. “As we’ll ever be. Come on. Let’s gather Ella and Ursula and deliver the news.”

As they entered the tent, Belle could see that Gold had clasped his hands together in his lap tightly, trying to mask just how much they were shaking and unfortunately failing.

“Well bakers, a decision has been made,” Ella said. “This week’s star baker has shown fantastic flair throughout all three challenges and has brought a new-found love of sheep’s cheese to the tent. Our star baker for bread week is Raymond.”

Gold blinked. Although this was what he had hoped for, now that it had happened, he couldn’t quite believe it. Elsa threw her arms around him, almost knocking him off his perch, and the others were looking at him with admiration. He’d done it. He’d really done it. At least there was no doubt in his mind any more that he’d managed to impress Belle.

“Unfortunately, as you know we can’t take everyone with us, and it’s with great sadness that I have to announce that the baker who will not be joining us next week is Aurora.”

The young woman shrugged, accepting the consolation of the presenters and her fellow bakers, and Belle went over to join in the commiserations. Granny was already giving her a pep talk and encouraging her to keep baking in spite of the mishaps she’d suffered during the weekend.

“The trouble with bread is that you only get one chance at it,” Rory said with a sigh. “If it goes wrong you can’t just whip up another batch. With all the proving and waiting and resting that goes on… It’s not like cake. If you mess up a sponge you can get a new one out in ten minutes and no-one need be any the wiser. Oh well. I’ll see you all again for the grand finale. I’m expecting great things from whoever makes it there. And signed copies of the inevitable recipe book from the winner!”

It was sad to see Aurora leave the tent, the youngest and most fresh-faced of the bakers. Perhaps she might have had a better time of it if she hadn’t been perpetually tired throughout the baking days, but that couldn’t change the facts. Belle wished her well and moved on to talk to the other contestants, congratulating and commiserating where appropriate. It was always easier to talk without the cameras on them, and Belle liked to reassure all the competitors that she was human too, that she had the same baking disasters as they did on occasion, and she was more than just the judge on the other side of the table who could make or break their day with her criticism. Eventually her rounds took her to where she really wanted to be: speaking to Gold. She hadn’t deliberately left him till last, but she had tried to make her rounds look nonchalant. Although she had Granny’s blessing, it would really not do for any of the other contestants or crew to accuse her of favouritism towards Gold and result in either one of them having to leave the competition. This week she felt a little less trepidation - Gold’s win was well-deserved and the feeling in the tent was unanimous in this regard.

“Congratulations.”

Gold looked over at her and smiled, a bright, confident smile, which was so wonderful to see after all the little half-smiles that had she had received from him during the past couple of weekends. He had really come into his own this week and he deserved every minute of his success.

“Thank you. I’ve already called my son and Aunt Elvira to tell them. I was too excited to wait till I got home.”

“And so you should be. It was a triumphant performance, and I’m sure that we’re going to continue to see great things from you.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that. I’m well aware of the Star Baker curse.”

Rumours of the curse had sprung up during the last couple of seasons, as there had been a worrying trend of star bakers being eliminated - or at least performing poorly - in the week after their crowning. Belle herself didn’t set all that much store in it; she felt that it was probably down to the format of the show and the way the bakes were scheduled - often a dough week would be followed by a more artistic week, and she’d already espoused at length on how the two required such vastly different skills.

“Well, Jefferson and Regina haven’t suffered from it particularly,” she said, trying to reassure him. “There’s no reason why you should succumb now. Perhaps this year the curse has been broken.”

“You don’t think there’s a curse, do you?”

“Well, no.”

They were prevented from any further conversation by Astrid running over to tell Gold that his taxi had arrived and would he mind sharing a lift to the station with Mal? Anxious as he was to get back to his sheep, Gold took his leave of Belle and was soon gone from the tent. Belle watched him leave. She hoped that he was anxious to get home and celebrate his victory, not that he was anxious to get away from her.

The other contestants were leaving in dribs and drabs, and soon only Belle and Ella were left with the skeleton crew of production runners who were cleaning up from the day’s filming. Ella was sitting on one of the workbenches, devouring leftover baguette bread from yesterday. Where she’d got in from was anyone’s guess, but at least it wasn’t going to waste.

“Another one bites the dust,” she observed. “Now we get onto the trickier stuff. Do you think he can hold his own?”

“Who, Gold?” Belle came over to the bench and perched beside Ella.

“Yes. I always feel like he’s going to run a mile whenever he sees me. I can’t be that terrifying, can I?”

“You’d be surprised, Ella. I think he’s got a somewhat nervous disposition. But he’s getting on all right so far. There’s inner steel in there.”

“He’s a lot stronger than everyone gives him credit for. Including himself. I think that Mr Gold might come out of the woodwork and surprise us all.” She paused, then leaned in towards Belle, pulling down her sunglasses a little way and giving her a knowing look over the top of them. “If I didn’t know better I’d say that you were more than a little enamoured by our sweet little sheep farmer.”

Belle blushed bright red and looked down at her shoes. “Did Granny tell you?”

“No, I’m incredibly observant, even when I am wearing sunglasses, no matter what Ursula might say.”

“Oh no…” Belle pressed her hands over her face. If Ella had picked up on it then who knew who else might have done? “Do you think it’s caught on camera?”

“Nah.” Ella stuffed another hunk of bread in her mouth as Ursula came over.

“Are you sure you don’t want any jam with that?” she asked, and Ella shook her head, ignoring her partner for a moment in favour of continuing to make Belle squirm.

“You’re fine on camera, and they’ll edit out anything that looks weird. I mean I’m pretty sure we’re going to get Mal and Regina necking behind the freezers before the series is over. No, I just get the impression when you’re talking to him one on one when everything has stopped for the day.”

Belle continued to stare at her shoes. So, her attraction to Gold was something of an open secret.

“Mind you, you’ve got competition.” Ursula sat down on Belle’s other side. “Zelena worries me. There’s something about her that I really don’t trust. They normally screen out the ones that they think are going to be problematic during the auditions.”

“She’s a good baker,” Belle said, thinking back to Zelena’s creations over the weekend. “We can’t get rid of her because we think she’s creepy. Even though I think we all think she’s creepy.”

“Maybe Gold could file a harassment suit against her,” Ursula suggested.

“He’s too nice.”

Belle sighed. “Something’s got to give. I can feel it, it keeps simmering.” She slipped off the table and made to leave the tent; they were the only ones left and it was clear that the runners wanted them to leave. “We’ve managed to avoid major scandals on the show so far but I get the terrible sinking feeling that this year we won’t manage it. We’ve always been safe and polite and quintessentially British, and I really don’t want to lose that reputation because we get some petty drama going on.”

The three women left the tent, making their way over the carpark, with Ella and Ursula getting into Ella’s ridiculously melodramatic vintage car.

“You know, Belle,” Ella called out of the driving seat. “If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure that your feelings are not at all unrequited!”

Belle stopped with her hand on the car door, and she smiled. Whilst she had enjoyed talking to Gold and she had got the impression he reciprocated that enjoyment, she hadn’t yet considered the possibility of him feeling the same way towards her as she did towards him, it was still too early. But now Ella had pointed it out, and she thought back over their little chats. Perhaps she hadn’t picked up on it at the time because of his inherent shyness, but now that she thought about it…

Even with the threat of Zelena looming over the production, Belle began her drive home with a wide smile on her face.

=====

Next time: The bakers tackle pies and tarts, Gold hides under his workbench again, and Leroy delivers up a bake-off first.

=====

Baguette recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_55351

(It says you need a linen couche for shaping the baguettes but a few tea towels work just as well.)

Gold’s showpiece loaf is loosely based off this recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roquefort_and_walnut_16074

Chapter Text

“It’s time to dust off the innuendo, everyone!” This was Ella’s announcement as she came into the break room early on Saturday morning. Her bright and breezy demeanour, with sunglasses nowhere in sight, was something of a shock to the gathered bakers, who were getting used to seeing her rather hungover of a morning before filming started and she had to look perfectly put together for the cameras.

“Someone’s chirpy,” Jefferson remarked.

“Of course.” Ella gave him a sweet smile. “I always enjoy any week in which I can wring the English language to within an inch of its meaning and in doing so give all the censors a heart attack. Last year during pies and tarts week we got a grand total of twenty-three complaints about the nature of my speeches. I intend to get to at least thirty this year.”

“You do realise that if you do that they’ll threaten to take you off the air,” Ursula pointed out.

“Oh darling, you enjoy it just as much as I do. You’ve been practicing your one-liners in the mirror all week.” Ella pouted, and Ursula had to concede the point.

“That is true. I suppose it’s all part of the bake-off banter. It wouldn’t be the same if we were respectable every week. Still, are we all ready?”

If pressed Gold would say that he was about sixty-three per cent ready. He was hanging all his hopes on the second day, when they would be making pies, because pies were something that he could generally make without too much bother. Of course, this was a baking competition and the simple meat pies that he made for his family wouldn’t really cut it, but he had more confidence in his abilities there than today. Pastry was one of his stronger areas, but unlike bread it could be hit and miss. Belle had said that she didn’t believe in the star baker curse, which was all very well when she wasn’t one of the bakers whom it might affect. If he got off to a good start then so much the better, but if he performed poorly today, then he would certainly be having words with Belle about her theory as proof that the curse definitely did exist.

All the same… It was a well-known fact of the bake-off that despite the increasingly difficult challenges that lay ahead of them, it was extremely rare for the person who was star baker in bread week not to make it through to the grand final of the competition. If he was going to believe in any of the strange legends that surrounded the bake-off, Gold thought that it would be better for him to believe in that one.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Emma said. “Which is not ready at all. I’ll be all right as long as the technical challenge does not involve puff pastry in any shape or form.”

“What’s wrong with puff pastry?” Lance asked. “It’s easy!”

“Are you mad, man? Puff pastry is the food of the devil! I mean, I enjoy eating a good apple turnover as much as the next person-” here the entire party broke off into laughter as the next person to enter the room was Regina, self-confessed queen of the apple turnover “-but when it comes to puff pastry, mine always comes out of a packet. I have long since given up attempting to make it.”

“No, no, no.” Leroy had come over to investigate their argument. “There’s something very therapeutic and logical about it.” It was rare for Leroy to engage in conversation with the others; he wasn’t anti-social per se but he generally spent most of his time chatting to Astrid and the other production staff whom he knew through her, and to hear the down-to-earth builder talking about baking being therapeutic was certainly an eye-opener. Then again, it wasn’t too strange. Leroy and Lance were both definitely pastry men, that had been established during the first week together, and this would be their week to shine out. Gold had enjoyed finding all the other baker’s strengths, and he wondered how things would continue to pan out as the series progressed and the things they had to make became ever more complicated. He dreaded to think what the technical challenge in the finale would be, if he made it that far.

He shook his head; it was far too early to be thinking about that yet when he hadn’t even started baking today, let alone got through the technical challenge, and there were still another five weeks to go before the finale after this one. Six more people to lose. He didn’t really want to lose anyone, apart from Zelena. They were growing into good friends and a real set of characters, and they’d all be a loss to the tent if they were to leave. He certainly didn’t want to leave himself. Now all he had to do was make sure that he didn’t.

X

In Belle’s opinion, pies and tarts was another crucial week in sorting out people’s strengths and weaknesses, as it was the first week that the bakers would be tackling pastry. Perhaps those who had not had huge successes thus far would come into their own today. She glanced down at her shoes as they waited outside the tent for the production to begin; she’d worn her favourite bright blue peep-toed heels and they were sinking into the soft ground where it had rained overnight. Granny took a look at her footwear and tutted with good-natured disapproval.

“I don’t know how you can even stand up in those things, let alone walk around or do anything useful in them,” she said. “Ruby’s just as bad. I would say that I thought she was a bad influence on you, but when it comes to ridiculously high shoes, I know that you’re the instigator every time.”

“It’s not my fault, Granny, I really need the extra height!” Belle complained. “The last couple of baking shows I did in the intervals between bake-offs, the producers had me stand on a box so that I didn’t look dwarfed by the other presenters!”

“Well, I’m not exactly a giant myself, but I don’t feel the need to strap miniature spears to my heels. Give me my sensible Hotters any day.”

“To each their own, Granny.”

Belle’s relationship with Granny was a long-standing one, going back long before the bake-off. She’d been at school with Ruby Lucas, and in a way, it was Granny who had inspired Belle to start baking in the first place, as she had always loved watching her best friend’s grandmother create all these amazing cakes and pies when she’d been visiting after school. Although the two girls had grown apart, as school-friends do when distance gets in the way, the lessons that Granny had taught her were still a part of Belle’s baking repertoire, and when she had the opportunity to work with the woman who had become both a personal and professional icon, she wouldn’t have passed it up for the world.

It was time for them to enter the tent, and Belle unstuck her feet from the ground and followed Granny, Elsa and Ursula inside. Although they had only lost three bakers, the tent still felt emptier as the work benches were respaced each week to avoid having everyone clumped together and too many empty benches, and the gaps between everyone were getting steadily bigger. By the time they got to week six they’d all be looking rather lonely in their own little corners, and Belle sometimes found the tent quite sad to look at with so few people in it. Still, there were still nine of them here today, and plenty of work to be getting on with.

“Good morning bakers,” Ella said brightly. “Welcome to week four of the bake-off, dedicated to pies and tarts. I have been categorically forbidden from making inappropriate jokes about this, which I think is most unfair.”

“Believe me, the viewers will thank me for it,” Ursula said. “For your signature challenge this week, Belle and Granny would like you to bake a frangipane tart. It must use shortcrust pastry, and it must be open topped, but it can use any filling you choose.” She glanced over at Ella with a warning look. “Don’t say it.”

Ella just grinned. “You’ve got two hours for your topless tarts.”

A ripple of mirth ran around the tent, and Belle, for all she tried to remain as poised as possible during each week, couldn’t help but give in as well. It was all part of the show’s charm; as racy as Ella and Ursula could be, there was never any harm intended, it was just in-keeping with the ideal. There would be more than one reference to soggy bottoms before the weekend was out; it was a staple of pie week and Belle thought that the audience would be disappointed if they didn’t get a couple of the usual jokes in.

Ursula groaned. “You had to go there.”

“Of course I had to. On your marks!”

“Get set!”

“Bake!”

The tent burst into a flurry of activity as flour was sifted and butter cut into it. Shortcrust pastry was one of the easier pastries in Belle’s opinion, with no repeated turning, rolling and chilling involved, but as with any tart, blind-baking the pastry was crucial to ensure a crisp base that would hold its filling - at the same time this was often a stumbling block for bakers who would go on to overbake the finished product. Like with bread, timing was crucial for each stage of the baking process.

After letting the bakers get settled into their pastry-making, Belle and Granny began the rounds. Leroy was up first, making a poached pear tart that he admitted, with a sheepish little smile, was Astrid’s favourite. His dough was already chilling in the fridge and Belle had to admire the speed and skill with which he’d got it made. Astrid had said that she hoped Leroy would make it into pie week so that he could come into his own, and he showed no signs of letting her down now. Mal was using figs as her fruit of choice, Regina had decided on plums: “I don’t want to be accused of only ever using the one fruit, as much as I love apples they don’t really go with a frangipane. You need a softer fruit for that, I think.” Elsa and Lance had both gone for raspberries.

Much to Belle’s surprise, Zelena was not using a green fruit, and she almost commented on the fact as they came over to her bench to find her elbow deep in blueberries. She and Granny had started making bets on how much more green she could incorporate into her cooking without it looking strange. At least they knew that she was going to enjoy one of the upcoming technical challenges. Green would be in abundance.

“Good morning Zelena,” Belle said brightly. In the week following the baking disaster that had got Rory sent home, Belle had not been able to get the idea out of her head that Zelena had somehow had a hand in the catastrophe. She knew that it was ridiculous to assume something so heinous of the woman just because they didn’t like her and she was trying to keep an open mind as they chatted animatedly about her blueberry and lavender frangipane, but the feeling of unease had been getting slowly and slowly stronger in the intervening days. They had no proof - well, not unless they went through all the reams of camera footage from the day and found something suspect - but the ill feeling remained, and Belle was determined to keep a close eye on the redhead this week in case of any more ‘mishaps’ on the part of the other contestants. Hopefully everything would prove to be unfounded and they could continue on their culinary journey with no further disasters of the scale that Aurora had unfortunately experienced.

“You need to be careful with lavender,” Granny was saying. “You have to be incredibly precise with the amounts you use otherwise it can completely overpower the other flavours.”

Zelena listened happily, her expression open and benign, but Belle still did not trust her. They moved across the tent to speak to Gold. The production team seemed to have finally got the message and were keeping the two of them as far apart as possible now, and Belle had to say that she was glad. The man had enough to worry about without Zelena mentally undressing him all the time.

“Good morning Raymond,” Granny said. “Tell us all about your frangipane tart.”

“It’s apricot and almond,” Gold said.

“A classic,” Granny agreed. “Well, because it’s a classic, we’re expecting great things.”

“Way to make him feel confident, Granny,” Ursula remarked. “Don’t worry,” she added to Gold. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m really not sure about that,” Gold muttered. “The apricots are getting above themselves.”

He was in the middle of trying to peel the small fruits, and he seemed to be having some trouble. Although Belle didn’t believe in the idea of the Star Baker curse, she wondered if the contestants had created a self-fulfilling prophecy by going into a week expecting to do badly and therefore finding more problems for themselves.

“We’ll let you get on,” Granny said kindly, sensing his mounting frustration, and they moved on to speak to Jefferson, who was using pears and hazelnuts. One of the things that Belle had always enjoyed the most about the competition was seeing the sheer amount of different things that the contestants could come up with to flavour their creations with. It was incredibly rare to have two people making very similar things, and the depth and breadth of creativity that they showed never failed to make her smile. That was, however, one thing that she was slightly worried about with Gold. So far his bakes had all been pretty solid, but thus far he hadn’t strayed too far into adventurous territory, sticking with flavour combinations that were tried and tested and keeping things simple. There was nothing wrong with the basics, it was something that Granny had often espoused when bakers tried incredibly inventive ideas that had gone rather wrong in the execution, but all the same, as time went on and the bakes became more difficult, he might be left behind as the others came up with wilder ideas.

Once they had spoken to all of the bakers about what they were doing, Belle and Granny returned to their usual pastime of wandering the tent. A couple of contestants in past series had jokingly accused them of trying to be menacing, but even though Granny was thought of as a tough judge and sometimes difficult to please, but not even the most nervous of dispositions could ever really find her menacing.

Determined to keep an eye on Zelena, Belle made herself a cup of tea and settled on the bench at the back of the tent, next to the microwave. The redhead was behaving herself, completely absorbed in her own work and not paying attention to the other bakers, and she was beginning to think that perhaps she had been too hasty to judge her. All the same, that little niggle refused to die away, even as Ella called time on the challenge and they moved back to the front of the tent to let the production crew clean up around them before the judging began. She got the feeling that Zelena was planning something, and she wished she knew what it was.

Frangipane was difficult to get right with its mixture of textures, especially when using berry fruits on the top which had a tendency to exude a lot of juice and make the whole thing rather soggy. Regina, Leroy and Jefferson were definitely the frontrunners. Zelena’s had, as Granny had expected, suffered from an overdose of lavender that masked all the other flavours. Gold had also not fared too well; he’d had the bad fortune that the fresh apricots he’d used weren’t very flavoursome and whilst his frangipane sponge was very good, he had fallen into the trap of overbaking the pastry case, making it dry and crumbly. Belle gave him a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t a bad bake, not one that had put him in a precarious position for the next round - Mal and Elsa had also done badly with overbaking, and there was still the technical challenge in which everything could turn around.

All the same, she did feel sorry for him, with this disappointment coming on top of his last week’s triumph.

X

“I was betrayed by my apricots,” Gold muttered to Jefferson as the two of them sat in the lunch room, discussing the morning’s bake.

“That’s the trouble with fruit,” Jefferson mused, holding up a small satsuma and looking at it critically from every angle. “You can never tell whether it’s going to be good or bad until you get inside it. The flavour is impossible to determine from the outside.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “I imagine that’s true of a lot of things.”

“No, not at all.” Jefferson was fully earnest as he turned towards Gold, still holding the satsuma as if he was presenting it for Gold’s inspection. “Now, when you pick up an old bread roll, you can immediately tell from the outside that it’s hard and dry and past its best. Same for cheese, you can see where it’s gone dry and brown. Or grown a furry coat. But take this satsuma. You know how satsumas go all horrible and shrivelled up inside when they’re old?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you have no way of knowing if your satsuma is shrivelled up inside until you peel it. Until you peel it, it could be either fresh and juicy or wizened. Schrödinger’s satsuma.”

“I’m beginning to think that you and Lance have a thing about Schrödinger,” Ella said, coming over to them with a large mug of coffee. “Last week it was dough, this week it’s wizened satsumas. You should be glad that the cameras aren’t rolling in here otherwise I would be making some very terrible jokes about your word choice.”

“I didn’t think you needed an audience to make terrible jokes, Ella,” Jefferson said brightly. “You do it all the time.”

“Ah, but it’s always better when I know I have the chance of offending a little old lady in Chipping Norton with my witticisms. Chin up, Mr Gold,” she added on seeing Gold looking despondent after his performance in the first challenge. “There’s still plenty of time for things to look up.”

Gold, unfortunately, did not share her optimism, and he definitely believed in the Star Baker curse at that point in time. A lot of people were feeling the pressure this week, it seemed. It was like the difficulty had been ratcheted up a notch. Still, there was no use in getting himself down before he’d even started on the final two challenges, and he tried to see the bright side. He had certainly not fared the worst in the challenge, even though he was nowhere near the best. He wasn’t going to get sent home right now. He just had to go into the rest of the weekend with a determination to do better. Having done so well the previous week, it would be extremely ignominious to have to go home and tell Aunt Elvira that his previous glory was all undone.

They trooped back down into the tent for the technical challenge, Granny dispensing a few cryptic words of advice before she and Belle were banished from the tent. Ursula outlined the challenge.

“This afternoon, bakers, the judges would like you to make six mini pear pies. These are individual pies made with rough puff pastry and whole poached pears. You have two hours on the clock for this challenge. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold sighed as he turned over the recipe card and pulled the cloth off his allotted ingredients, reading through the instructions before getting to work. If there was one thing that he had learned during the past few weekends, it was that two hours was an incredibly short amount of time. He could see a cameraman coming towards him as he began to make his pastry so that it could have the maximum time to chill between turns, and he recognised him as Walter, who was a friendly soul and never too intrusive; Gold didn’t mind talking to him.

“I’ve never poached a pear before,” he muttered. “I hate pears. No-one in my family enjoys eating pears.”

Walter gave a snort of laughter, readjusting the steadicam on his shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so vehement about something.”

“Well, pears are the fruit of the devil.” Why had it had to be pears, of all the things? At least he wouldn’t be expected to sample his own creation. Across the tent, he heard Emma cursing the fact that they were using puff pastry, albeit the quicker to make version than painstaking full-puff, which involved layering butter and dough. At least in rough puff the butter was already in the dough.

“Who grates butter!” Mal moaned from the back; the recipe had provided them with chunks of frozen butter for grating into the pastry mixture, a process that required great arm strength. It was clear that this challenge was not going to go down as one of the favoured ones, and only the pastry aficionados like Lance and Leroy would get through it without too many problems. Gold just got on with it, feeling the time ticking away as he rolled and turned the pastry and put the pears on the heat, glaring at the offending fruit with such ferocity that Jefferson burst out laughing.

The final hurdle in the challenge came when the contestants had to glaze the pears and wrap the strips of pastry around them before putting them in the oven. Several people complained of their pastry falling off the pears due to the temperature, and Gold was quite sure that no-one in the tent was going to get this challenge perfect. He wedged the pastry strips on as best he could, trying to make sure that there were no glaring gaps between them, and shoved them in the oven, letting out a long breath as he rested his forehead on the edge of his workbench. When he moved away there was a sweaty smear there and he surreptitiously flicked at it with his tea towel. He hadn’t realised just how hot and bothered the challenge had made him. The mood in the tent was far less jovial than it had been in the morning, the entire atmosphere quieter and full of tension. Even Ursula and Ella were speaking to the other bakers in hushed tones, calm and reassuring. Everyone was feeling the pressure this afternoon.

Still, soon enough the pies were coming out of the ovens and Ursula was calling time on the challenge. The pies were placed on the judging table at the front and the clean-up began again. It was interesting to see the vastly different levels of success that they’d all had, and Gold wondered just who had got it right in the end.

When Belle and Granny came back into the tent at long last, it was clear that they were trying not to laugh at the disparity.

“Well, we’ve certainly got some, erm, variety here, haven’t we?” Granny said. “Shall we start?”

In the end Leroy came first, and considering the discussions on puff pastry that they’d been having the day before, Gold couldn’t say that he was particularly surprised. Gold himself was sixth; not great but not completely terrible either. Mal was at the bottom; the majority of her pastry had slid off the pies in the oven and they’d ended up as poached pears sitting in little puddles of puff pastry. Belle and Ursula were consoling her in one corner of the tent as Gold got ready to leave for the evening, hoping that Sunday’s showstopper would bring a better enough performance to guarantee his safety for the next week.

“Feeling confident about tomorrow?”

Gold jerked out of his reverie on hearing Zelena’s voice beside him, and he found her leaning on the workbench next to him, a smile on her face that would be called pleasant if it weren’t so hungry. He looked around desperately for an exit but he was somewhat hemmed in, and any attempt to escape would be incredibly obvious. That was the trouble with the tent, there were no doors, well, except for the doors on the fridges. He weighed up the potential drawbacks of diving headfirst into a fridge to get away from his conversation partner and decided that it was really too much of a risk. The only way to get rid of Zelena would probably be to give her what she wanted, otherwise she’d just persist. Unfortunately, right now it looked like what Zelena wanted was to take one of his kidneys.

“As confident as can be expected,” he said in answer to her question, inching away from her along the bench. She followed him.

“You know, if I didn’t know better I’d say that you were avoiding me,” she said, her tone obviously trying to be playful but succeeding only in sounding menacing. “We’ve never really got to know each other properly.” Gold just stared at her like a deer in the headlights, and she seemed to smirk at his discomfort. “There’s something about you, you know, that makes me wonder. You certainly showed us all last week. What other hidden talents have you got squirrelled away?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gold said coolly, taking another measured step away from her. Zelena just laughed.

“There’s really no need to run away,” she said. “I don’t bite.”

“I’m really not so sure about that,” Gold murmured. “Are you like this with everyone?”

“Of course not. Just the people I find interesting and want to get to know.”

“I can assure you I am incredibly boring and you don’t want to get to know me.” He’d almost managed to get the workbench between himself and Zelena but she grabbed his hand.

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

Gold looked down at her hand and tugged his wrist away from her vice like grip.

“Let go of me, please.”

“I just want to talk to you.”

“Please let go.”

“Hey, Gold, are you coming? We’re going to be late.”

It was Emma whose intervention saved him; she was standing at the entrance to the tent with Jefferson, Elsa and Lance, and even though Gold had no idea what he was supposed to be late for, he grabbed the out with both hands and feet and wrenched himself out of Zelena’s hold, making his way down towards the group with as much speed as his cane could give him.

“You ok?” Emma asked under her breath. “She looked like she was about to eat you alive.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who got that impression,” Gold replied faintly. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“You’re welcome. We were going to go and get Chinese, there’s a great place down the road from the hotel; Elsa discovered it. You’re welcome to join us.”

Gold nodded, still shaken from the encounter with Zelena. “Please.”

The group left the tent together and Gold glanced back over his shoulder at Zelena. If looks could kill, well, the four of them would be dead several times over from the amount of venom in her stare.

“There is something about that woman that I really don’t trust,” Elsa said once they were in the cab heading for the restaurant. “She just seems so calculated and scheming all the time. I mean, if one of us had a problem with our bake then we’d all chip in to help each other out, wouldn’t we? It’s part of the beauty of bake-off that even though it’s a competition, it’s so friendly, not cutthroat at all. But I really don’t think you’d get any kind of assistance from her. The opposite, in fact.”

“Yes,” Emma agreed, for all the world lost in thoughts of Zelena and the worrying aura that she consistently presented. “From what I overheard from the judges chatting earlier, Belle’s not entirely convinced that she wasn’t responsible for Aurora’s catastrophe last week.”

“When did you overhear the judges chatting?” Elsa exclaimed. “Have you got any more juicy tidbits? Were they discussing who’s going to leave this week?”

“Woah, woah, calm down!”

“We can’t calm down!” Jefferson was just as excited at the prospect of clandestine gossip from the judges as Elsa was. “You have to tell us these things! You can’t just say that you overheard the judges chatting and then not elaborate!”

“I did elaborate, I said that Belle was suspicious of Zelena!”

“Yes! And?”

“And there is no and! That was it!”

“How did you come into this knowledge in the first place? Where were you?”

“I was on my way to the bathroom, if you must know. They put Granny and Belle in that little cubby hole room along the corridor from the break room. Maybe so that they’re not in the break room putting us off our lunch when we’re trying to relax before going into nerve-wracking technicals. Anyway, the door wasn’t closed properly and that was what I heard.”

“Well, that’s definitely news to squirrel away,” Jefferson said. He seemed rather gleeful at the prospect and Emma and Lance gave him a sceptical look.

“You’re getting way too into this,” the other man said.

“But it’s exciting! You never get to see all the gossip and behind the scenes back-stabbing on the actual programme! We’re right in the thick of it now!”

Jefferson and Elsa were still trying to get non-existent information out of Emma by the time they arrived at the restaurant, and Lance and Gold let the three of them get on with it. It was a pleasant evening and the food was, as promised, excellent. It was strange; Gold had never really thought about socialising with the other bakers outside of the tent, even though those who were from places too far away to go home daily were all in the same hotel a couple of miles from the filming location. They had their breaks together in the house obviously, but those tended to be taken up with discussing the events of the day so far, the conversation topics never straying too far from baking. Well, except when Jefferson was concerned as the man could turn his attention to absolutely anything at a moment’s notice. But out here, away from the pressures of knowing that the cameras would be back on them soon enough, it was easier to think of his fellow contestants as friends rather than a bunch of strangers he was just getting to know in fits and starts as they competed against each other. They could have been any group of people out for a meal together. True, they didn’t look like the most typical group of people given the disparity in their ages and looks, but they all got on well, which was the main thing. He stirred around the noodles on his plate, listening to Lance and Elsa argue over which of the major animation studios was the best. He’d learned more about these people in a couple of short hours than he had in three previous weekends in the tent, and he found it sad that they would eventually all be going their separate ways as they gradually left the tent and went back to their day jobs.

Gold knew that he was not the best at friendship; given his isolated location and the demanding nature of his life, it was hard to keep in contact with people and besides, he had always been content with just Bae, Aunt Elvira and Mr Dove for company. They were all he needed, really. But all the same, he still found himself wondering at the possibility of keeping in touch with his new-found friends after the series had finished. He could hope, at least. He was amazed that they had adopted him into their friendship in the first place, odd one out as he was, but they were open and accepting, never once making comment on his limp or his nervous demeanour, and they had certainly helped him out as far as Zelena was concerned. He remembered the look that she had been wearing when he’d been rescued this evening and it sent a shiver down his spine. He felt like he needed to watch his back, but at the same time, he got the feeling that the people sitting around the table would be watching it for him as well. It was reassuring.

It was late by the time they returned to the hotel and Gold remembered that he hadn’t checked in with Bae. It was a Saturday, he and Aunt Elvira would still be up watching Match of the Day, so he sent a quick text.

Going ok so far. I think.

Bae’s reply was almost immediate.

You’re late. Everything ok?

It’s fine. I went out to dinner with some of the others.

*faints* OMG Dad you have a SOCIAL LIFE now! I’m telling Aunt E.

Gold rolled his eyes and didn’t reply, collapsing back onto his bed and wondering what the following day would bring. With any luck it would be a little better fortune than today’s bakes had had.

X

“Good morning bakers, and welcome to the second day of our pies and tarts week which will, unfortunately, be focussed on pies.” Ella gave an overly dramatic sigh at the prospect of being unable to make quite as many jokes as she had done the previous morning.

“Considering the number of complaints we’ve probably clocked up already, this is likely a good thing,” Ursula pointed out. “Today is showstopper day, and as usual, Belle and Granny are looking forward to seeing you pull out all the stops as you create a three-tiered pie. Now, the pies must share some kind of common theme that links them all together, although exactly how you go about this is up to you. You can use any pastry you like, and any filling, sweet or savoury, but the pies must be able to support themselves and must have at least three tiers.”

“You have four and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold had to wonder when in his life he would ever need to make a three-tiered pie. He’d never even made a three-tiered cake before, and he really doubted that anyone would want a tiered pie instead of a cake at their wedding, which was the only time he could think of people wanting multiple heights of baked goods. Nevertheless, this was what the judges wanted, so it was what he was going to give them, and he set about creating the first batch of hot water crust pastry that would form the basis of his pies. Looking around the tent, it seemed that everyone else had had a similar idea - hot water crust pastry required no blind baking and was very sturdy, unlikely to lose its shape or collapse under the weight of the other pies on top of it. This was going to prove to be one of the busier challenges, Gold could already tell that from the amount of ingredients that were piled up on everyone’s benches. With three different pies and different fillings to make, there would be no space to sit and think about everything that could go wrong, like there had been during bread week. Gold supposed that this was a blessing in a way as it would take his mind off stewing pessimistically, but at the same time he was already panicking about getting everything done in time. He’d practiced as much as he could, but ultimately he worked long hours and making bread (easy and life-long practised) or cake (extremely quick in comparison), was far more tempting a task after the day’s herding was over. Still, Aunt Elvira and Bae had given the seal of approval to the pies that he had made, and he was hoping that he could win the judges over too. Having been star baker the previous week, it was clear that they were expecting something spectacular from him today when they came over. The little star badge pinned to his apron suddenly felt rather heavy.

“Hello Mr Gold,” Ella said brightly. “What are you making today? It all looks very… meaty.”

“Ella, please.” Belle shook her head in despair. “What are we going to do with you?”

“Love me.” Ella beamed beatifically.

Belle just rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Gold. “Tell us about your three pies.”

“I’m making Christmas-themed pork pies,” he replied. “I know it’s not exactly the right season for it, but I’m hoping that by the time it actually gets to Christmas I’ll have them perfect.”

“Please don’t tell me that you’re going to put sprouts in them,” Ella said. “I’ll have to disown you if that happens.”

“There are no sprouts,” Gold assured her. “The bottom one will be filled with layers of pork with a sage and sausagemeat stuffing. The middle one is layered with bacon and a herb stuffing, and the top one has cranberry sauce and onions.”

“They sound delicious,” Granny said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.”

They left him to cross over to Jefferson, who was going above and beyond the call of duty and was attempting to create a four-tirered pie inspired by the four seasons. Belle praised his ambition but was rather concerned about how he was going to get it all done in the time, which was something Gold was wondering about his own creation. Emma was at the bench in front of him this time and she turned to exchange an incredulous look with him when she too heard the extent of Jefferson’s prospective bake.

“I thought three was pushing it!” she exclaimed. “I don’t think there are enough sausages in the world to create that many pies.”

“Sausage pies?”

“Yeah, Henry loves them. They’re kind of like toad in the hole, but in a pie instead of Yorkshire puddings.”

“Right…”

“They taste amazing!”

“I’m not saying that they don’t, I’ve just never come across the concept before.”

“Well, now you have. Although I must say, yours are making me really want a full Christmas dinner when I get home tonight. Graham’s going to think I’ve gone mad.”

Gold just shook his head in good natured despair and returned to the more pressing task of lining the pie tins with his finished pastry, trying to ensure that it was an even thickness all the way round, not so thick that it wouldn’t cook but not so thin that the filling might leak out through it. The cameras kept coming around at various points and he tried to keep up the easy chatter that the other contestants did so well, telling the crew what they were doing at any given point, but even after three weeks in the tent, he didn’t think that the awkwardness would ever really fade away, and they left him alone for the most part. Whilst there were still nine of them in the running, they had plenty of other, slightly more eloquent candidates to choose from, so Gold just got his head down and focussed on his pies and the heady aroma of herbs and onions that was enveloping his workbench. He heard Jefferson exclaiming that he really didn’t have enough room for all his pies on his workbench and lamenting that he might have to start filling them up on the floor, which Belle pointed out was incredibly unhygienic and should he do that, she would not be sampling the finished product for fear of food poisoning. It was only once the pies were in the oven that he had any time to sit and think, and to that end, he settled himself on the floor beside his oven to watch their progress for a while, stretching out his bad leg in front of him. Truth be told, he was hiding. After Zelena cornering him the previous evening, he wanted to avoid any kind of contact with her at all, and if she couldn’t even see him, then so much the better.

“Ah, the classic oven watch.”

Gold startled to find Ursula crouching down beside him and nodded half-heartedly.

“I see. It’s not so much a desire to see what’s in the oven as to not see what else is in the tent.”

“More who else is in the tent.”

“Well, with any luck her pies will turn out terribly and she’ll get the boot,” Ursula said brightly. It was telling, Gold thought, that they all knew who they were talking about without any names being mentioned. Unfortunately, Gold didn’t think that was likely. The trouble with Zelena was that she was pretty good at what she did, and since this was a baking competition, it would have been very obvious that different motives were at work if she were to be sent home when there were other, worse bakers in the tent. Mal and Elsa hadn’t had a great weekend and today was going to be crucial for them to remain in the running.

The timer beeped and Gold reached up onto the bench to silence it and grab the cook’s thermometer that would hopefully tell him if his pies had reached the maximum temperature to show that their filling was fully cooked on the inside. He couldn’t fit all three in the oven at once so he was going to have to cook the final, smallest one after the others had finished baking; he only hoped that he would have enough time. Ursula patted his shoulder and got back to her feet, letting him get on with it as she went over to investigate how Jefferson was getting on with his own monstrous concoction. Gold trusted in Jefferson’s superior skills, but at the same time the chaos going on at the other man’s workbench was rather disconcerting. His pies had reached temperature, thank god, and he shut the oven to given them another five minutes in order to get a really good golden-brown finish.

He’d just put the final pie in the oven and was letting the larger ones cool when he heard an exclamation from the back of the tent and everyone’s attention snap in that direction, with the cameras and crew all heading over towards Mal’s workbench. He grabbed his cane and levered himself to his feet to see what all the fuss was about, and was alarmed to see flames on Mal’s workbench. She was flapping at the blaze with an oven mitt, which really wasn’t helping, until Lance had the bright idea of using a spatula to scoot the burning tea towel into the sink and put out the fire with water. Once the panic had calmed down and they’d established that there was no need to get the fire brigade out, it became clear what had happened. Mal had been attempting to make a three-course meal pie, including a lemon meringue pie on the top, and she’d had a slight accident with the blowtorch whilst trying to cook the meringue. She gave a sigh.

“I have been accused of being a dragon in the past,” Gold heard her mutter as she went about salvaging her pie, “but I’ve never actually got to the stage of breathing fire before. This is incredibly embarrassing. I’m an arson investigator for God’s sake!”

Time continued to tick by and as pies began to assemble on the workbenches, Gold received his first real view of the competition. Jefferson’s creation was indeed enormous; Ella commented that she could probably live in it if she hadn’t eaten it first. Mal’s was looking somewhat haphazard and slightly charred on the top thanks to her misadventures with the blowtorch. Lance’s looked amazing; the crusts of the pies were beautifully decorated with delicate pastry shapes and the entire thing was a rich golden brown that made Gold want to bite into it with gusto straight away. He looked at his own offering, which he didn’t think was too bad, even if he did say so himself. The pastry of his topmost pie was a little darker in colour than the rest of the pies as it had taken longer to cook than he’d expected, and there was a little leakage on the top where the cranberry juice had spilled out of the seam between the sides and the lid of the crust, but over all, he was happy with what he’d produced.

Ursula called time on the challenge and the clean-up and artistic photography began, that agonising wait before the judges began calling them up when all they could do was sit there and look around at what everyone else had created.

Finally the judging began. Gold was the first to be called up, and he immediately came upon a problem. His bake was too large and heavy for him to carry one-handed, and too precarious for him to risk not using his cane.

“Hey, let me.” Elsa dashed round from the bench behind him and picked up the creation easily, bearing it up to the table at the front, and Gold followed on gratefully.

“Well, it certainly looks tempting,” Granny said. “A little bit uneven, but still a nice colour on each of the pies.”

They cut into the pies, tasting each one and proclaiming the verdicts. A little dry, but well-filled and tasty. Gold was happy with that; he’d done enough to be safe, he thought, and he could definitely live with that. Ursula carried his bake back to his bench and he sat back to watch the rest of the judging; there was nothing else he could do to affect the outcome now. Mal and Elsa had both struggled in the challenge again; all of Elsa’s pies had managed to leak and catch on the sides, and having been absent for two weeks, Mal’s accident-prone streak had returned with a vengeance. It would probably come down to the two of them, and Gold would be sad to see either of them leave. Both were strong personalities within the tent, and Elsa had become a good friend over the last few weekends.

Gold had to admit that Leroy’s tower of pies was incredibly impressive. The crisp pastry crusts showed no signs of leakage anywhere, and they were all baked to golden perfection. Each pie was topped with shiny glazed fruit - apricots, apples and cranberries on the top. A trio of pork pies complimented perfectly by the layers of sharp fruit, or so Granny and Belle said when they had sampled a small piece from each of the tiers. Despite the obvious success of his creation, Leroy was looking unaccountably nervous, and Gold turned his head on one side as he tried to work out what was going on in the man’s mind. He had never seen Leroy in the least bit nervous before; he was always reliably in the middle of the field producing things that were not exactly spectacular but were solidly baked and tasted great even if they did not look like masterpieces. This was the first time that Gold had really seen Leroy pull all the stops out, but even so, he and Astrid had already said that pies were his speciality. Perhaps he was feeling the same kind of nervousness that Gold had felt last week, during his own strength. But his judging was ostensibly over and he’d done very well, certainly the best of all the bakes that had been judged so far.

“There’s one finishing touch I need to put on,” he mumbled, and with a speed and grace that belied his stocky build, he darted forward and placed a little square of card atop the glazed cranberries, crowning the towering concoction with a small velvet box before he turned to Astrid, bowing low. “Astrid, will you marry me?”

Without exception, everyone in the tent’s attention turned to Astrid, standing out of sight of the cameras at one side. All the steadicam operators swung around to find her beaming despite the tears that were pouring down her face.

“Of course I will, you hopeless romantic!”

From what little he knew of Leroy before this week, Gold would have thought that ‘hopeless romantic’ would be the last words used to describe him, but today’s events had proved him spectacularly wrong. Astrid rushed across the tent and threw her arms around her fiancé, covering him with sloppy kisses, and the tent erupted into applause and cheers, until a polite cough from Ursula reminded them that they were in the middle of the showstopper judging and they probably ought to get a move on.

“Be careful, you two,” she said. “Remember that this is a family show! We don’t want to be getting complaints from Ofcom. We’re probably already on the watchlist for the amount of tart jokes Ella made yesterday.”

“It wouldn’t be Bake-Off without double entendres and proposal pies.” Ella gave a happy sigh. “Congratulations, you two.”

Astrid pecked a final kiss to Leroy’s bald head and together they carried his triumphant pie back down to his workbench, and Emma brought up her sausage pies.

“I really don’t know how I can top that now,” she said. “I mean, Granny’s a national institution but I don’t think that asking her to marry me will work in my favour.”

“You never know.” Granny winked. “I wasn’t always a granny, you know. I’ve seen all sorts of things in my time.”

Gold did not doubt that. Granny’s solo cooking show, which had been running for longer than the bake-off, was filmed in her own kitchen at home, a vast room which had an antique crossbow mounted on one wall, a weapon that the entire country had unanimously decided that she definitely knew how to use, and almost unanimously decided that she had killed someone with.

The judging came to a close, and the contestants were left to their own devices as the tent was cleaned up and reset for the final announcement of who would not be going through to the next round. Gold didn’t think that he needed to worry - his performance had not been as good as last week but he didn’t think that he had disgraced himself either. It was going to come down to a choice between Leroy, Lance and Regina, who had all performed well throughout the weekend.

Naturally, the only topic of choice in the tent was Astrid and Leroy’s very new engagement, with everyone flocking around them to admire the ring and ask about the circumstances of the proposal.

“That was very brave,” Jefferson was saying to Leroy. “What would have happened if she’d said no?”

Leroy shrugged. “Then she would have said no.”

“He knew I was going to say yes.” Astrid laughed, and rested her head against Leroy’s shoulder with a happy sigh. The rest of the production team had accepted that they weren’t going to have her help during the reset and had given in with good grace, carefully manoeuvring themselves around the crowd that had gathered at Leroy’s bench. “I’ve been asking him when he was going to propose properly for months and he’s always said that he was waiting for the right moment. I never dreamed that it would be now.”

“Yeah, I’d have been a bit stuck if I hadn’t survived this long,” Leroy muttered.

“I had every faith in you,” Astrid said. “You’re a fantastic baker.”

It was this compliment that made Leroy blush, his smile going from ear to ear and lightening a face that was usually dour. It was clear that for all his grumpy demeanour, the two were clearly completely smitten with each other, and Gold had high hopes for their future marriage.

It was clear, however, that not everyone in the tent was as happy with this turn of events as the rest of them were. Zelena was not part of the group and could be found in deep conversation with one of the cameramen in one corner of the tent. From the pout on her face and the way her arms were folded, it was clear that she was complaining about something, and as much as Gold did not want to be anywhere near her, he was morbidly fascinated to find out what she might be saying. Emma caught his eye, nodding in Zelena’s direction, and together they crept a little bit closer under the guise of eating Emma’s leftover sausages.

“I just think it’s so unfair,” Zelena was moaning. “I mean, he clearly only did it for attention. If he comes away with the star baker crown now because of this, then I will complain to the producers about favouritism and publicity stunts.”

“Kind of rich considering what she’s been trying to pull,” Emma muttered, thinking back to their encounter with her after the technical the previous evening. “Leroy waited until Granny and Belle had finished judging his bake before he added the proposal, it’s hardly going to affect how it looked or tasted when they were looking at it, is it?” She shook her head. “I really do worry about her. One of these days I think that she’s going to go too far and something catastrophic is going to happen. To think, she was so sedate last week that I had high hopes for her enthusiasm for chaos being dampened, but she’s back to her old tricks this week. With vigour.”

“Well, it’s almost over now,” Gold said, trying to bring Emma’s brooding back to a lighter place. “Tomorrow is another day and all that.”

“Yes, next week is another week, with all sorts of potential for things to go wrong. Sometimes I wish that we could get rid of people by popular vote.”

“That would be fraught with danger,” Gold said.

“I know. But Granny and Belle can’t boot her off without due cause and her baking is good all the time. She’s always safe and coming back next week to slowly spread all kinds of poison.”

“Well, if the production crew knows what’s good for them then they won’t take any notice of her.” For all Gold sounded calm and wise, he was feeling the exact opposite, and he was just as worried about what Zelena might start getting up to as Emma was. More so, since he seemed to be the object of her twisted affections. Why had she set her sights on him, of all people? There wasn’t anything particular special about him, and if she was a black widow type then she would be sorely disappointed if she was planning to seduce him and murder him to inherit his estate; certainly he owned a lot of land and livestock but farming was hard work and by no means the most lucrative of professions. Perhaps she’d singled him out as the weakest in the pack, that was more likely. All the same, he really didn’t know what she was hoping to achieve other than giving off some pretty stark weirdo vibes. They were all going to have to keep a strict eye on her for the foreseeable future. Perhaps if their fears compounded further, they could rope in Ursula and Ella for assistance. They’d proved themselves more than willing to help out the bakers in the past, and this had the makings of being something far more sinister than a simple baking problem.

There was no more time for deliberation; the tent had been reset and they were being shepherded down to sit in the centre ready for the judges’ return. Both Granny and Belle were smiling broadly as they entered with Ella and Ursula.

“Well, bakers, I think we can safely say that this has been one of the more exciting weeks in the bake-off,” Ursula began. “What with proposal pies and the tent almost being set on fire.”

“Yes, we’re considering installing a sprinkler system,” Ella added.

“According to you, all we have to do is have a rainstorm,” Ursula pointed out. “Still, in spite of the triumphs and the mishaps, there has been some blindingly good baking going on today. Belle and Granny almost came to blows when they had to decide who was star baker.”

“We should have let them fight it out and charged an entry fee for spectators. It would bring a whole new dimension to the bake-off.”

Ursula just rolled her eyes, not bothering to make any kind of response to Ella’s suggestion.

“However, they finally made their minds up based on the performance in all three challenges across the weekend. This week’s Star Baker is Lance.”

The competitors applauded heartily; it was definitely a well-deserved win. Lance had been a strong contender throughout the show so far and it was great to see his dedication rewarded.

“As you know, we can’t take everyone with us,” Ella continued. “I always hate this part. The baker who will not be joining us next week is Mal.”

“We’d like to make it clear that this is in no way a result of the blowtorch incident, and we’re very sorry to see you leave,” Belle said.

Gold was sorry to see Mal leave as well; he would miss her frankness and somewhat cavalier approach to baking. As they all gathered together to congratulate Lance and commiserate with Mal, Gold went over to Leroy and Astrid.

“I’m sorry you didn’t win; I know this was going to be your week.”

“Are you kidding?” Leroy was still grinning in spite of missing out on the Star Baker title. “I’m going to marry Astrid! I’ve won the jackpot!”

Gold had to laugh at the unfailing optimism. Yes, those two were going to be absolutely fine. He made his way back over to the main crowd, who had started to disperse. Zelena had already left, citing wanting to get onto the motorway before the traffic got too bad, and no-one mentioned the fact that the traffic on a Sunday evening at seven o’clock in that part of the country was likely to be non-existent and let her go without another word. Mal and Regina had also vanished, leaving a small group chatting animatedly. It really was telling just how much more vibrant the tent became ‘after hours’ so to speak, in Zelena’s absence. The runners rushed about taking mics off and pulling out the judges and Lance for pieces to camera, and finally, Gold had the opportunity to talk to Belle alone. She was standing at one of the windows to the tent, staring out with a fond smile on her face.

“Something interesting going on out there?” he asked.

Belle waved him over, pointing out Mal and Regina outside, holding hands. “It seems that Leroy and Astrid’s isn’t the only relationship that’s moved onto the next level today. I’m glad that there’s some consolation for her, even if she is going home.”

“We’ll certainly miss her animation,” Gold said. “And everyone loves a good real-life romance story.” He moved away politely as Mal leaned in to kiss Regina’s cheek.

Belle turned to him, still smiling, and for the first time, Gold realised that they were on the same page. There was something in the curve of her lip, something in her bright blue eyes as she held his gaze unwaveringly.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I certainly do.”

Gold shuffled awkwardly, completely at a loss for how to proceed. If this was Belle announcing her interest in him, which he was sure it was, then he was completely screwed. What did he do now? He couldn’t exactly call Aunt Elvira for advice, and besides, her advice would probably come straight out of Ella’s book and be something along the lines of ‘ravish her on the nearest workbench’, adding in various foodstuffs depending on how adventurous she was feeling at the time.

“I do, too,” he finally managed to say, his tongue tripping over the words and making him look even more of an idiot that he already did. “I should, erm…” Oh God, what should he do? His natural instinct was to run in the opposite direction, but he didn’t want her to think that he wasn’t interested in her or that she had scared him off. He was interested. He was also terrified, not of Belle but of the entire idea of romance in the first place.

Thankfully, Belle seemed to have understood, and she touched his arm gently.

“You’re a good man, Raymond Gold, and I like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you too.”

“Good.” Belle’s smile was merry, a little smirk. “I’m glad to hear that we’re both reading from the same songsheet.”

Gold nodded. “I think we are.”

They were left in silence again, neither of them really knowing what to say next, but it was not uncomfortable, and Gold had managed to stop his internal panic. Belle patted his arm and moved away to talk to the others.

“Till next week then, Mr Gold?”

“Till next week, Belle.”

He looked down at his shoes for a long while, wondering if that had really just happened, the dull ache in his ankle telling him that yes, he really was awake and yes, that had really happened. Till next week. Belle liked him and was entertaining some kind of romantic thoughts towards him. It was more than he could have dreamed of, and he didn’t want anything to mar this perfect moment. Eventually though, he had to leave the tent to go and catch his train, but her words and her little smile stayed with him throughout the long journey back to Scotland. It was already dark by the time he arrived home; Dove had taken care of the sheep in his absence and was being treated to hot cocoa and scones in the kitchen, with Aunt Elvira happily yakking on nineteen to the dozen. Gold knew that he really ought to go in and rescue his farmhand, but at the same time, he knew that as soon as he entered the house he would be met with a barrage of questions, and right now he wanted just a few more moments to savour the events of the day.

The front door opened and the sheepdogs rushed out to greet him eagerly, Bae following not too far behind.

“So how’d it go?” his son asked.

“The tent nearly caught fire and there was an on-screen proposal of marriage,” Gold said blithely, as if such things happened every day. Bae’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“You lied to me about the existence of Santa Claus.”

“That doesn’t count. Santa Claus is a universal lie and finding out about it is a rite of passage for every child. At least we managed to keep up the illusion for longer with you because you don’t have any siblings to break the news early. But I am not lying about the fire or the proposal.”

“Who set who on fire? Who proposed? Who accepted? Did they accept?”

“All in good time, Bae. You’ll find out when the series airs.”

“That’s months away! Hang on.” Bae’s eyes narrowed again and he gave his father a sage look. “Are you telling me all this because you don’t want to admit that you got kicked out?”

“Your lack of faith in me is wounding. No, I did not get kicked out. I was solidly middling for the entire weekend and am safely through to dessert week, god help us all.”

“Well done.” Bae paused. “Are you coming inside or not?”

“Yes, I’m coming in.” He decided that it would be best to keep his interactions with Belle to himself for now; he didn’t think that he could handle the Spanish inquisition from Elvira at this point in the night.

But it gave him confidence. He was going back next week, and Belle was looking forward to speaking to him again. That had to account for something, and Gold found himself thinking forward with anticipation, rather than trepidation, and he slipped off into heady dreams of Belle, bread, and crème brulée.

====

Next time: The bakers tackle desserts, blowtorches are banned and then reinstated, and Gold sees an entirely new side to Belle…

====

Mini pear pie recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mini_pear_pies_77186

Gold’s apricot frangipane: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/apricot_frangipane_tart_19845

Chapter Text

Belle gave an almighty yawn, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove the winding route through the countryside to the filming location. The sun was shining brightly and it was set to be an absolutely beautiful weekend in all respects, not just the weather. She was going to see Gold again, and this was always something that put a smile on her face. And after their conversation last week, she knew that it was something that put a smile on his face, too. She couldn’t help grinning to herself. It was like a little hurdle had been got over, and with remarkably little stress on either of their parts. They liked each other, and there was the possibility of perhaps liking each other a little bit more as each week went on, and that was something that Belle could live with. The slow burn of their fledgling relationship was something that she could look forward to and savour, rather than jumping in with both feet first and possibly getting burned, which had happened to her too many times before. She was impulsive and she was used to going out there and working for what she wanted; it was something that she’d been doing ever since deciding to become a professional baker as her career. Belle was no different in her personal life, but she knew instinctively that this was not an approach that she could use here, not with Gold so shy and nervous and always giving off the deer in the headlights vibe.

And Belle found herself rather glad that things were going slower by necessity this time. It gave her time to really enjoy the relationship, and the week-long absences between their meetings necessarily gave her time to think and reflect, and reaffirm each week that she was definitely attracted to this man and definitely wanted things to go further.

As she drove up the winding driveway, she was distracted from her thoughts by the sight of the golden sun illuminating the country house where the show’s filming was based; it was a stunning sight and Belle slowed the car to a crawl so that she could fully appreciate it. Since they spent so much time in the tent rather than the house, it was easy to forget sometimes just how lovely their surroundings were. As she pulled up in front of the magnificent building, she saw that there were a couple of cars already there. It wasn’t unusual for others to arrive before her; most of the production crew would have been there since the early hours of the morning making sure that everything was set up, and since Leroy and Astrid always came together, his van was always a regular feature in the carpark whenever Belle arrived.

It was more unusual to see cars that she knew belonged to the contestants, but today they were definitely here before her - Emma’s yellow bug and a green vehicle that could really only have belonged to one person. Belle raised an eyebrow as she parked up and made her way into the house. There was certainly no love lost between those two women and she hoped that they would not have to break up any unpleasantness before breakfast. She peered around the door into the break room but Emma was in there alone, mainlining coffee.

“Hello. You’re here early.”

“Yeah. Night shifts again. My penance for taking so many weekends off in a row. My body can’t decide whether it’s coming or going so since I was awake anyway, I thought I might as well get here. Hopefully I can have a nap under a workbench whilst I’m waiting for my bakes in the oven.”

“Right.” Belle came in and helped herself to coffee. The production team usually aimed to segregate the judges away from the contestants so as not to put them off, but it was a practice that Belle had never really fully held with. If the bakers saw the judges sleep-deprived and off-duty like they were of a morning, then surely it would provide more confidence because they knew that at heart, they were ordinary people like the rest of them.

“I saw Zelena’s car in the drive when I came in,” Belle said, trying to sound conversational and not conspiratorial. “I was wondering where she’d got to.”

“Aren’t we all?” Emma muttered. “I’m just glad that they’ve got production crew out at the tent already or I’d be worried that she’d hardwired half the ovens to electrocute their users.”

Belle gave a snort of laughter at the statement but it was a weak one, only half in jest. Whilst she didn’t think that Zelena would come to homicide, she was definitely not above suspicion when it came to making sure that her fellow competitors hit certain road blocks.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that there’s something circumspect about her,” she said.

“Definitely not. She’s not only malicious, but she’s downright creepy as well. I feel sorry for Gold, I don’t know why she’s fixated on him.”

Belle couldn’t tell either, and she didn’t really want to get into any discussion of it in case her own feelings towards the man came to the fore, and as she sat quietly with her coffee, she wondered just what it was that had first made her take notice of him. His smile, his quiet pride in his creations, his nervy manner that made her just want to take his hands in hers and tell him that everything was going to be ok. She wondered if Zelena saw the same things as she did, because she certainly didn’t approach him in the same way. Zelena looked at him more like prey to be devoured, rather than someone to get to know and hopefully pursue some kind of romantic entanglement with.

“Well, we can always hope that she does something really terrible today,” Emma said brightly, and Belle looked at her in alarm. “I mean in the bakes. Hopefully she’ll completely screw up her crème brulée and you can send her home on the strength of that with a clear conscience.”

Belle burst out laughing. “In all my years of doing the bake-off I’ve never had a contestant that the others wanted to see fail quite as much as Zelena,” she said. “You’ve had the odd jealous candidate who gets annoyed when the same person gets star baker twice in a row, or someone whom the others treat with mock exasperation because they can always salvage things that go wrong, but it’s all light-hearted and in the spirit of the show. This time, there’s nothing softening it.”

“I know,” Emma’s voice held a great deal of lament. “I know, and it’s horrible that it’s creating this toxic kind of atmosphere in the tent because there’s that one person whom we all can’t stand, but it’s comforting to know that the judges and presenters think the same way and we have a somewhat united front against her, instead of there being all these different factions.”

“I think we just have to trust that the best person will win and there won’t be any drama,” Belle said. “But we’re all keeping an eye on her, that’s for certain. Especially this weekend.”

“This weekend, when so much can go wrong,” Emma said.

Belle had to agree with her there. Dessert week was always a tricky one, using a lot of different techniques that the bakers did not necessarily use in their everyday baking. It was the final week testing different basic skills before they moved on to testing more advanced techniques of things that had come before - more complex cakes than the first week, more difficult enriched doughs than bread week, different types of pastry. Dessert week seemed to stand alone in the middle of it all, not really related to anything, at the cusp between difficult and easy, and as such, the judges tended to set challenges that could not be fitted into any other category. It was one of Belle’s favourite weeks to judge, simply because it was so different all the time.

“Oh. Hello.” Zelena came into the room and took a double take on seeing Belle there. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Well, you know, I thought it would be a good idea to come down from my ivory tower and reassure everyone that I am in fact human and can’t function without a cup of tea in the morning, just like everyone else,” Belle said airily. “What about you? You’re here early.”

“Yes, well, you know. Traffic.”

Emma and Belle exchanged a surreptitious look as Zelena came over to get herself some coffee. Traffic was Zelena’s go-to excuse for everything, and both of them were wondering what she’d been doing in the interval between her arrival and her entry into the break room. Perhaps they were being uncharitable, but until Belle saw something that put her mind at ease, she was going to continue being suspicious, and unwilling to leave the two women alone together in case of a catastrophe, she continued talking to Emma happily about topics completely unrelated to baking, still watching Zelena out of the corner of her eye. It was not that she feared any particular violence on behalf of the two ladies if unsupervised, but until Zelena stopped being quite so creepy, Belle was going to keep an eye on her.

Gradually the other contestants began arriving in dribs and drabs, and Belle decided that it was probably time to leave. Granny and the runners would be looking all over for her and she could already see the look of exasperation on Granny’s face when she realised that Belle had been socialising with the contestants when she shouldn’t have been.

She left the room just as Gold was coming in, and they shared a smile in the doorway.

“Good luck today,” Belle said.

“Thank you. I… You’re looking lovely today.”

Belle looked down at her bright blue dress and beamed. “Thank you.”

There was another moment of silence, interrupted by a polite cough from behind Gold. It was Jefferson, and in a fluster Belle realised that they were still blocking the doorway. She slipped past out of the room, keeping her head down as she went to find Granny, feeling the blush rising in her cheeks at almost having been caught.

She wasn’t sure what she had been caught doing, though. They’d just been looking at each other and exchanging pleasantries, neither of them were doing anything against the rules. She sighed. She was so concerned about keeping her feelings towards Gold secret that she was feeling guilty even when there was nothing to feel guilty about. Him having a crush on her was acceptable in a way, but if the other contestants knew that the feeling was reciprocated, then there would be hell to pay. Well, there would from one corner in particular. Zelena would be the one to throw a spanner in the works, there was no doubt of that, and Belle sighed. She was just going to have to be careful, whilst at the same time trying not to give Gold mixed signals about her interest. It was a hard line to tiptoe along, but something in Belle’s gut told her that it would be worth it.

X

“You, Mr Gold, have got it bad,” Jefferson said as they went over to the refreshment table together to get tea and coffee.

“Yes, well…” Gold said, stirring sugar into his tea for something to do, even though he’d never taken sugar in tea.

“Oh, you know my views of the matter already.” Jefferson winked, and Gold remembered the conversation that they’d had during the very first week of the competition. “I say go for it.”

“Jefferson.”

“Because I think that it’s clear she’s starting to feel the same way. I’ve never seen so much eye-sex going on in one doorway. It was almost obscene.”

“Jefferson!” Gold hissed. “Could you perhaps not broadcast this to the entire room?”

“I’m not,” Jefferson said. He glanced around the room but there was nothing to suggest that anyone had heard his comments; the others certainly weren’t paying the two men any attention.

“It can’t work, Jefferson. Going for it isn’t really going to help me in this situation.”

“Don’t be silly. If you both feel the same way about each other then there’s no harm in seeing where it goes.”

“And the fact we’re in the middle of a televised baking show on opposite sides of the judging table isn’t even a slight hiccup in the proceedings?” Gold asked dryly.

“Of course not. Things are only a hiccup if you make them. Besides, you’re not going to be in the competition forever.”

Gold snorted. “Thanks.”

“I don’t mean like that.” Jefferson rolled his eyes. “Even if you get through to the finale - which I think you have as good a chance as I have of reaching - then you’re still in the competition for a finite amount of time, and you have an awful lot of time after that in which to pursue certain delights.”

Jefferson gave Gold a knowing look, and Gold just buried his head in his hands, still not quite able to believe that this was happening to him. As pleased as he was that his feelings towards Belle were reciprocated, the fact that other people in the tent seemed to be picking up on the fact was more than mortifying. It was almost worse than Aunt Elvira knowing.

Scratch that, nothing could be worse than Aunt Elvira knowing.

Thankfully he was saved from replying to Jefferson’s suggestive comment by the arrival of Astrid in the room with the mics. She was practically bouncing around the room, the diamond in her engagement ring catching the light as she fixed everyone’s mics on, and any gloomy feelings that might have gathered in the run up to the first challenge were dispelled by her sheer boundless enthusiasm. She almost ran into Ursula and Ella on the way out of the room, and her giggles could be heard all the way down the corridor as she went to sort out Granny and Belle. Leroy was smiling fondly after her, and Elsa gave a happy sigh as she came over for her second cup of tea and to say hello to Jefferson and Gold.

“I think it’s so sweet,” she said. “It’s certainly going to be the talk of the series. It would be nice if we could have this as the high point and not worry about anything more dramatic taking precedence.”

“Do not tempt fate,” Jefferson scolded. “None of us are masters on the dessert front. At least, I don’t think that any of us are, unless you have a hidden talent for baked alaska that you’ve been hiding from us.”

“I wouldn’t say that it was a hidden talent but you do recall that I work for an ice-cream manufacturer?” Elsa teased. “I know all about weird and wonderful flavours of ice-cream, and which ones work best with meringue to produce the perfect fluffy dessert.”

“Oh no!” Jefferson moaned. “We’ve found Elsa’s niche and she’s going to wipe the floor with us!”

“Just because I know all about ice-cream it doesn’t necessarily follow that I’m any good at making it,” Elsa pointed out. “And before we get to baked alaska, we have to get through today first.”

“Yes, very true.” The runners were shepherding them all out of the break room and down towards the tent, and Gold knew that it was time to stop thinking about Belle and focus on the task at hand instead. He wondered what the atmosphere would be like in there today, not from the point of view of the people, but the weather. It was shaping up to be an extremely hot and sunny weekend and he got the feeling that the tent, being made primarily from plastic, would turn into a sauna without much difficulty. Torrential rain one week, ridiculously bright sunshine the next - only in the UK, Gold thought. Then again, it was called the Great British Bake-Off, so perhaps there was something in it that made the weather so unpredictable. He took his place at the back of the tent, thankful for the vantage point that let him keep an eye on all the other contestants at the same time as being able to hide away from the cameras slightly better. He put his apron on and looked down at the ingredients on his workbench, praying that everything would go smoothly. This was not a week that he had been looking forward to; desserts were not on his usual repertoire. Well, desserts in the sense that they were making them were not - he could rustle up an apple pie just as well as the next person, but the fancier stuff was beyond him. Bae had been quite brutally honest about the quality of his practice bakes over the last week, but did admit that he was getting better, even if he wasn’t great just yet. Maybe now that he was here in the tent and didn’t have to focus on anything except the task at hand, rather than trying to run the rest of his life around making crème brulées, things would be a lot less haphazard than they had been in his own kitchen.

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula began brightly. “And what a good morning it is. Welcome to the fifth week of the bake-off, which is devoted to delicious desserts.”

“At least, we hope that they’re going to be delicious,” Ella said. “It could well be the week devoted to inedible desserts.”

“Ella, you’re putting them off, stop being silly.”

“Well, someone has to play devil’s advocate. Now, for your signature challenge this week, Belle and Granny would like you to make twelve individual crème brulées. They can be any flavour your like, but they must have a nicely set custard, and you are not allowed to use a blowtorch to caramelise the top. They must be done under the grill in the traditional manner.”

If it hadn’t been for the fact they’d received the brief of things to bake each week a couple of months ago, Gold would be convinced that they’d banned the blowtorches as a result of Mal’s mishaps last week.

“You have two and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The tent was once more a flurry of activity, and all thoughts of blowtorches flew out of Gold’s head as he focussed on the task at hand, turning the oven on and measuring out the ingredients for his custard. Since the oven was a combination; the bakers would all have to wait until their custards were completely cooked before they could begin the process of caramelising the tops, since the oven and grill could not function at the same time. It meant that timing was once more going to be extremely delicate, and it would be best to get the brulées in the oven as soon as possible to allow the maximum cooking and grilling time.

“I do think that they’ve made this needlessly complicated,” Elsa muttered from the bench in front of him. “I mean, even professional chefs in restaurants use blowtorches on crème brulées.”

“Yes, but we’re not trying to make ten other ridiculously complicated desserts for a restaurant full of one-hundred odd diners,” Regina pointed out from across the tent.

“Hmm.” Elsa did not sound at all mollified by Regina’s words and continued to mutter to herself as she made her custard; she was still ranting under her breath when the judges and presenters came around to speak to her, catching her by surprise. Gold had to give a soft laugh at that; at least he was not the only one who was caught off guard by the cameras at any given moment, and he was prepared for Belle, Granny and Ursula coming over to him next.

“So, Raymond, tell us about your crème brulées. What flavours are you using?” Granny asked.

“These will be cappuccino crème brulées,” Gold said, keeping half an eye on his cream where he was bringing it up to temperature ready to make the custard. “Because they’re naturally so sweet and creamy and caramelly, I wanted them to have a strong flavour that would counteract that.”

It was also to do with the fact that all the times he’d used fruit or other such flavourings in the brulées, they had been entirely the wrong consistency and had refused to set, so making something that would hopefully not alter the texture of the cream at all was the only way forward. He could see that Elsa was using blueberries in her desserts and he wondered if she’d had any more luck in practice than he’d had.

“That’s a good idea,” Granny said. “I’m looking forward to sampling it. What kind of sugar are you using for your topping?”

“Golden caster. That’s another reason why I went for the bitter coffee as a flavour, since the top will be very caramelly.”

“That’s unusual, most people use ordinary white sugar,” Belle observed. Gold shrugged.

“Well, maybe I’m spreading my wings a bit.”

“I’m sure it will be spectacular,” Granny said encouragingly. “We’ll let you get on. Just remember that the timings and temperatures are very important. We don’t want coffee-flavoured scrambled eggs.”

“No, that would be terrible,” Gold agreed.

“I think Ella would beg to differ there, on the morning after a night out,” Ursula observed. “She’d go for coffee-flavoured anything as long as she thought it was going to bring her a caffeine kick.”

They moved over to go and speak to Jefferson, and Gold continued with his work, glad to have got the seal of approval from the judges at this stage. You could always tell when they had doubts about a recipe from the off; he’d watched the bake-off for long enough to be able to pick up on the little quirks and the looks exchanged between the two of them when they were certain that a particular flavour combination really wasn’t going to work in practice. But Granny was right, it was all about timing. The custard had to be set and not runny, but at the same time it couldn’t be too set or it would be solid, and they needed to allow for the extra heat that it would receive from the grill during the second cooking session. Determining the right level of solidity was crucial.

So was neatness, Gold thought to himself as he overheard Elsa swearing because she’d poured custard mixture over her workbench whilst trying to fill up her ramekins, whilst he was trying to get his into the oven without any of the creamy liquid slopping over the side of the ramekins. They would be cooked in a bain marie and he had already vetoed trying to get them into the oven in a dish with water in it, opting to add the water once they were already on the oven shelf and nice and stable. It was a painstaking process, but at least nothing was going to end up on the floor. When he got back to his feet again, the oven door firmly closed and the brulées baking nicely, he found Elsa laughing at him.

“What?”

“You’ve kind of suffered from the heat of the oven a bit,” she said. “You’re a wonderful pink colour, almost as good as Leroy’s raspberry custard.”

Gold looked at himself in the shiny chrome fittings on his mixer, taking in his bright red face, and he sighed. So much for trying not to make a fool of himself on national television this week.

“Can I get you a cold flannel, Mr Gold?” Ella asked. “You want to be careful, people will be wondering what’s got you so hot and bothered.”

Gold sighed, resisting the urge to knock his head against the workbench.

“I’m just teasing.” Ella came over with one of the cameramen and leaned against his workbench, bending to look at the brulées in the oven.

“They’re looking good,” she said. “I mean, I am no great connoisseur of desserts whilst they are actually baking, only once they’ve come out and are being eaten, but they look like they would be tasty. They’re not boiling over or anything, which is good. How long are they going in for?”

“I don’t know,” Gold said honestly. “I think you’ve just got to do it by eye and see if they look ready, then test how wobbly they are.”

“And do you know what the correct level of wobble is?”

“No, I do not. I think it should have a bit of a wiggle to it, but not run anywhere.”

“Right. Well, I trust you know your wiggles from your wobbles and that you can tell when your brulées have reached optimum wiggle, so I shall leave you to it. If you do need any wiggling done in comparison with the custards, then I can certainly recommend Ursula. Her moves on the dancefloor would put the best of desserts to shame.”

“Right.” Not quite sure what to make of this remark, Gold decided that it would be better to leave it alone, and he returned his attention to making the caramel sugar that would go on top of his brulées and be grilled. It seemed that not all the bakers were making caramel sugar; some would be using ordinary sugar, but Gold felt that he might have a slight unfair advantage. When he had been looking up brulée recipes online in preparation for this week’s challenge, he had come across several that advocated caramelising the sugar beforehand to create a darker, richer, smoother surface on the final product. Hopefully the others had looked up the same recipes. Elsa, Regina and Leroy were all using the same method, and Emma was looking at them all with a worried expression, whispering with Jefferson and casting glances at her own sugar, evidently wondering if she had enough time to caramelise it. In the end, she just shrugged, giving it up as a bad job, and accepting whatever fate might meet her as a result. Gold stirred the caramel, and he wondered if perhaps Emma and Jefferson had had the right idea and his attempts to be more adventurous would end in catastrophe. He’d already had a near miss with caramel in biscuit week and now he was just setting himself up to fail again. There was nothing wrong with going basic.

Before he could start to panic, Ursula announced the time left on the challenge and Gold had to stop feeling sorry for himself and start concentrating on what was happening in the tent, and more importantly what was happening in his oven lest the brulées overbake. Everything was going to be fine. Nothing was going to go horrifically wrong, although the snide voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that it might well go slightly wrong. All he had to do was keep following the steps in the recipe. Cool the caramel. Crush it in the food processor. Check the custards. Grill, but not for too long, for God’s sake don’t burn it. He kept the mantra going for as long as he could, completing all the different stages as he went along, and by the time that Ella called time on the challenge, he had just about talked himself down from a complete panic and was feeling, whilst not in the slightest bit confident, at least not like he was about to faint.

The clean-up began, and Emma came over to peer at his and Elsa’s brulées and compare them to hers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous about sugar before,” she muttered. “This is ridiculous. I’ve vaulted fences running down drug dealers before now and I swear that this tent is more nerve-wracking than almost breaking your ankle on a bad landing in someone’s rockery.”

All too soon, the judging began, and Gold could only sit and listen to the comments being passed on everyone else’s work as they made their way around the tent. It seemed to take an age for them to get round to him.

“Well, the first thing I can tell is that they’ve been under the grill for a bit too long,” Granny said, carefully tapping the caramel topping on a few of the ramekins with her spoon and pointing out some patches that were quite clearly burned. “Still, the finish on them is very good for the most part and I can see that you have caramelised your sugar before you put it on, very good.”

“Let’s see how they are on the inside,” Belle said, cracking the sugar coating with her spoon and smiling when the brittle surface shattered. “That’s what we like to see. Not too crumbly on the top.”

The two judges dug their spoons in and sampled the finished product.

“It’s good,” Granny said.

“I sense a but,” Gold muttered.

“But it could do with a bit more coffee in it. I can taste it coming through but it’s very subtle; you shouldn’t be afraid of giving your flavours a bit more punch.”

“I disagree,” Belle said. “I think you’ve got the right balance there. Any more and it would be overpowering. The coffee is meant to cut through the sweetness of the dessert, but at the end of the day, it is still a dessert that is supposed to be sweet and creamy, which is what you’ve got. The texture’s good too. The cream underneath is set well, it’s just the stuff at the top which has had the heat from the grill on it that’s gone too solid. Overall I think that’s very solidly done, it was just your timing on the grill that’s let you down.”

Gold smiled. He hadn’t done perfectly, but he hadn’t done terribly either, and since the two judges were two different people with two different tastes, it wasn’t going to be possible to please them both all of the time. He felt that he’d got off to a good start, and as they all walked back up towards the tent for lunch, he wondered who had fared the best and worst. It was never nice to think about people potentially leaving the tent, especially the ones who had become friends, but it was nevertheless something that often played on his mind. The judging had been very close this round and he didn’t really think that anyone had come out on top. Those who’d caramelised their sugar had a tiny advantage over those who hadn’t, but there were still no standouts. In a way it made Gold glad, because it meant that no-one had had any kind of huge disaster in the morning. Of course, there were still two more challenges to go and anything could happen, but for now, he was happy.

The day continued to get warmer and sunnier as the time for the technical challenge rolled around and they were sent back to the tent after lunch. Jefferson tried and failed to stifle a huge yawn.

“You know, they really shouldn’t schedule the technical for after lunch on a sunny day,” he said. “I just want to go and take a nap under a tree somewhere.”

“You and me both,” said Ella. “It’s all right for the judges, they can go and take a nap somewhere, while we’re all in here slaving over a hot stove.”

Jefferson raised an eyebrow at this statement.

“Well, someone has to provide moral support whilst you’re all slaving over hot stoves and that takes an awful lot of mental power that can’t be provided when half asleep,” Ella said. Gold supposed that she had a point, in a way. No matter what happened in the tent, whatever triumphs and catastrophes occurred, Ella and Ursula were always there with a ready word of reassurance and a helping hand to get things back on track, or even just a shoulder to cry on if there was no hope of things getting back on track any time soon; and he marvelled at the kindness that they showed week after week in the face of the contestants’ histrionics. He hoped that he would not fall victim to any histrionics himself, but then again, depending on what this technical was, he might have a nervous breakdown within the next five minutes.

Ella shooed the judges out of the tent and turned back to the bakers.

“This afternoon, Belle and Granny would like you to make a tiramisu. We all know that one - layers of sponge, cream and coffee.”

“And alcohol,” Ursula pointed out.

“I was hoping not to mention that in the prospect of stealing some. At any rate, a nice creamy, boozy tiramisu is what we’re looking for. Now, this tiramisu should be nicely decorated, and it should be able to hold its shape and stand alone without the aid of a dish or tin.”

Gold cringed inwardly. With the rising temperature in the tent, he could see a lot of very melted desserts coming out.

“You have two and a half hours to complete the challenge. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold took a deep breath. He could do this. If he kept telling himself that often enough, then hopefully the mantra would come true.

X

“Now that Ella and Jefferson have mentioned it, I could just use a little nap now.” Belle stretched out all her limbs and resettled herself in her chair in the small pavilion where she and Granny had been banished whilst the technical challenge took place.

“You can’t nap now,” Granny said. “I’m the septuagenarian here, I should be the one needing to sleep every five minutes.”

“I know, but it’s so nice and warm and sunny, and I’m full of crème brulée from earlier, and it would be nice just to relax and not worry about going and judging everything later.”

Granny rolled her eyes, but there was a good-natured smile on her face and Belle knew that any annoyance on her part was feigned.

“It’s been a strange morning,” the older woman continued. “Normally there are at least some pointers as to who’s going to win and who’ll need to pull something out of the bag to stay safe tomorrow but it’s been incredibly close. I don’t think I’d want to call it now.”

“Well, that’s why we have three challenges,” Belle said. She closed her eyes, wondering if she could get forty winks in before Astrid came along to tell them that they were ready for the judging. “The technical is the one that really starts to separate them out, I think. It’s rare for someone who wins the technical to go home that same week.”

“But it doesn’t necessarily work the same way round,” Granny observed. “Whoever’s last doesn’t necessarily go home.”

“No, you’re right now that I think about it.”

“That’s what I love about the technical. There’s always so much variation. When the bakers are making their own recipes, you can always tell their individual styles and naturally they always work to their strengths. When you take that away, you get to see who has those other skills. Not just the innate ability, but the ability to think on their feet and use their brains to work out the missing parts. You need common sense in technical challenges I think, more than anything else.”

“Well, they seem like a sensible bunch,” Belle said. “Apart from Jefferson - I am not entirely sure he’s on the same planet as us most of the time.”

“He does make very good bakes though.”

“Yes, he does. I think he sometimes bites off more than he can chew, but I never fail to be amazed by his ability to pull it off in the end. Like last week and the leaning tower of pies.”

“It did look a little precarious. Tasted amazing though.”

The two women fell into silence again as they considered the bakers’ triumphs - and less successful bakes - so far.

“We’ll need to take the heat into account,” Granny said presently. “They’re going to melt, there won’t be any stopping that.”

Belle nodded. “Yes. Typical really. The one weekend we need it to be raining and it’s absolutely beautiful. Such cruel irony. You’d think we planned it.”

“Well, hopefully no-one will panic.” She gave a little smirk as she turned to Belle. “Speaking of panicking, though, how are things going with Gold?”

Belle felt her face flush pink. ”I don’t know what you mean,” she mumbled. Unconvincingly. “And what does that have to do with panicking anyway?”

“Belle, I may be old but I am in no way blind. I saw you two chatting after the show last weekend and if I may be so bold as to say it, there was definitely something in the air between you. And since Gold did not panic and run away from the conversation as soon as possible, I’m taking this to be a great leap in your relationship.”

“There is no relationship, Granny,” Belle said. “We’ve had a few conversations, that’s all.”

“Ah yes, but I think those few conversations have been enough to establish the fact that you like each other rather a lot.”

“Granny, you’re making it sound like middle school all over again.”

“Well, sometimes it does feel like that.”

It was Belle’s turn to roll her eyes. “Granny, you know that we can’t do anything whilst the show is still running. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Maybe not. But you can at least sow the seeds, which I think you’re doing admirably. Now, as long as we can stop Gold from looking like he wants to hide in an oven half the time, I think that you two will end up being very happy together.”

“You’re already designing our wedding cake in your head, aren’t you?”

Granny reached across and patted Belle’s arm.

“I’m an optimist,” she said. “And a hopeless romantic when I can afford to be.”

“Yes, well, that’s not right now.” Belle indicated Astrid coming towards them from the main tent. “It looks like we’re up.”

“Afternoon, Astrid,” Granny said brightly. “I trust that you haven’t had to get the first aid kit out today?”

“No, no, everyone’s behaved themselves.”

“Damn. I was hoping that someone would have gone at Zelena with a hand mixer,” Belle muttered. Astrid looked rather shocked, but didn’t make any comment, and Granny chuckled.

“I really don’t think that’s the best way of removing her from the competition,” she said. “It would only increase her fame and, in all likelihood, her insufferability.”

“I can live in hope.”

They entered the tent to view the eight tiramisu cakes standing on the judging table awaiting their gradings. As Belle had expected, they had all started to melt in various degrees, but some were definitely better presented than others. One was dripping coffee essence onto the tablecloth.

“Now, remember that we’re looking for clearly defined, even layers of cream and cake, with the cake well-soaked in coffee mixture, but not sodden,” Belle said as they cut into the first cake. The outside looked good, but inside the layers were uneven and lacked precision. The next baker had fared much better.

Belle glanced up at the bakers, sitting lined up in the centre of the tent. They all knew whose was whose bake, and quite often, if you timed it right you could see the reaction of the person whose cake they were sampling at the time. She knew that she shouldn’t, but none of the contestants were trained actors and masking their happiness or fear was often difficult. Regina was smiling as the praised the cake and Belle thought it might be hers. It had long been established that she was a neat, precise baker, and that was one trait that could be carried through into the technicals.

The leaking cake, although it tasted great, had to be ranked last, and it turned out to have been Emma’s. She shrugged, accepting the news with good grace although she really wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed to get it quite so runny when she was using the same quantities of liquid as everyone else. Perhaps she’d mistaken teaspoons and tablespoons somewhere along the line, or maybe it was just one of those mysteries of baking that sometimes occurred. Jefferson had also not fared well, which surprised Belle. He’d had an extremely strong start to the competition and usually fared well in technicals. The uneven cake they’d sampled first was Gold’s; Granny ranked him fourth. Regina’s was indeed the one Belle had called, and she came second, ahead of Elsa and behind Zelena, who’d surprised them all with something nigh on perfect. Perhaps she was changing her tactic and was determined to win outright.

As much as she really didn’t want anything to do with the woman, Belle was duty-bound to go over and congratulate her on her success. She seemed to be benign enough today, but Belle couldn’t help noticing that Gold escaped from the tent as soon as he was able, and inwardly she cursed the other woman for making him so uncomfortable in her presence that he felt the need to get away from her as soon as possible. She hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him outside of the competition at all today, and considering the progress they’d made the previous week, she really did want to talk to him, just as she knew he wanted to talk to her.

“It’s all right.” Ella came over and patted her shoulder as the other contestants left the tent. “Tomorrow is another day and I’m sure you’ll be able to grab a few minutes’ private conversation after the showstopper. If you need to, Ursula and I will volunteer ourselves for ‘distracting Zelena’ duty.”

“Thanks, although I’m not sure that’s a sacrifice I’m prepared for anyone to make on my behalf yet.”

“Nonsense. There are affairs of the heart at stake here, and I’m sure that Ursula and I are more than capable of handling her for ten minutes or so whilst you get your man to safety. With any luck we’ll overwhelm her so much that she’ll lay off altogether.”

Belle wasn’t quite as convinced that such a tactic would work, but if anyone would be able to keep Zelena at bay, it would be the two presenters.

Nevertheless, she was determined to keep a very close eye on the woman throughout the next day’s challenge. Her suspicions were mounting, and she felt that things would come to a head very soon.

X

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula said brightly, “and welcome to your showstopper day. Now, on this wonderfully sunny day, what could possibly be better than ice cream?”

“We were thinking a delicious, if somewhat retro, combination of ice-cream, meringue and sponge cake all held together to make the incredibly sugary delight known generally as baked alaska,” Ella continued. “Now, you’ll all be pleased to know that the embargo on blowtorches has been lifted should you wish to use them, but that is entirely left to your own discretion. Your dessert can be any flavour or shape that you choose but must contain sponge, ice cream and meringue. You have four and a half hours to complete these fantastic confections. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold took a deep breath as he started measuring out the ingredients for the ice cream. That had to be made first so that it could have the maximum freezing time before it needed to be worked with; the colder the better in all respects. It was a sweltering day outside and the production crew had brought in several electric fans which were dotted around the edges of the tent to hopefully keep the inside temperature at a bearable level. Gold was tempted to go and stick his face in front of one and he hadn’t even got started yet. Everyone else looked to be similarly hot and bothered already, but he was too focussed on his own work to spend too long looking at what everyone else was making. The judges and presenters were still hanging around at the front of the tent like they usually did at the beginning of the challenge, and Gold wondered if they were giving them more time to get going on the challenge because they knew that the contestants would be under a lot more pressure this week, battling against the weather as well as their unpredictable bakes. Eventually though, they began to come around, and Gold kept giving little glances at them, determined not to be caught unawares. Belle smiled at him as they came over, and he could not help but smile back.

“Good morning, Raymond,” she said. “Tell us about your baked alaska. What flavours are you using?”

“This is a recipe inspired by my Aunt Elvira,” he said. “I’ve made it before at home for her and she gave it her seal of approval, so I hope I’m going to do well with it.”

“Well, her family recipes have never let you down before, so I think we’re on to a good thing. What is it?”

“This is a lemon meringue pie baked alaska.” It was one of the more ambitious things that he had tried, but given Aunt Elvira’s love of lemon meringue pie, it had immediately been the one to spring to mind. “It’s a pastry case with a layer of lemon curd, then a vanilla sponge drizzled with limoncello, and a lemon ripple ice cream, topped with Italian meringue.”

“It sounds very impressive,” Granny said. “We’re looking forward to sampling it. Lemon is always a good partner to meringue, like with your coffee in the crème brulées it compliments the sweetness very well and stops it being too rich and cloying.”

“Yes, that’s the aim. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to pull it off.”

“We have every faith in you,” Ursula said. “But hide the limoncello, Ella will be after it soon enough.”

“One of these days I’m going to do you for slander,” Ella said from the bench behind Gold where she was talking to Emma, and possibly trying to sample her unfrozen white chocolate ice cream mixture.

“Ah, you love me really.” Ursula blew a kiss to her partner and the judges moved on to their next victim, leaving Gold to get on with his work. He had a lot to do, aware that he’d ended up making a lot of work for himself and that he could well have made life a lot simpler, but they were almost halfway through the competition now and if he was going to stand a chance of reaching the final then it was time to spread his wings a little. He really didn’t want to be accused of being boring, but at the same time, the image of Icarus flying too close to the sun was horribly present in his mind.

“We need to divvy up the freezers,” Emma said from behind him, watching her ice cream churn in the maker at the same time as mixing up a chocolate cake base for her bake, looking around the room at all the freezer space available. “Put post-it notes on the doors showing whose is whose to avoid any confusion. As long as no-one’s making anything ridiculously huge then we should be able to fit two per freezer.”

They both looked over to Jefferson; after his performance last week Gold wondered if the man was adhering to a ‘bigger is better’ policy when it came to showstoppers, despite Belle having told him (much to Ella and Ursula’s mirth), that size wasn’t everything.

Thankfully, his creation showed no signs of being taller than Belle.

“Pistachio ice cream?” Emma said, her eyes moving from Jefferson to the bench in front of him where Zelena was baking. Gold snorted. She really did seem obsessed with the colour green and in any other circumstances he would be rather worried. As it was, he was simply worried about what kind of thing she might have up her sleeve should she succeed in cornering him again. He was seriously considering carrying mace around with him to fight her off with. Given her excellent performance the previous day, it was too much to hope for that she might get sent home this afternoon.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Gold put his ice-cream in the freezer with Emma’s and she grabbed Astrid with the post-it note idea. The judges were making the rounds of the tent again on their own, patrolling the perimeter as it were, looking at the bakers’ benches critically and making them even more nervous than they already were. Gold just ignored them; he already had far too much to worry about without adding Belle and Granny’s opinions into the mix. There was pastry and sponge and Italian meringue to make, ice-cream to freeze, and so much that could go wrong that he didn’t want to think about it. All he could do was pray for the best.

X

Looking back, Belle would always remember the moment she realised that Zelena had slipped through her fingers and caused chaos. She was fairly sure that the entire country would remember it, editing of the final camera work dependent. Certainly everyone in the tent would remember it. It was the first time that she had heard Gold raise his voice for anything. She’d heard him stressed and she’d heard him panicking, but she’d never heard him shout and swear until a ferocious Scottish roar rang through the tent and all eyes - contestants, judges, presenters and crew alike - were immediately drawn to the back left-hand corner.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?”

Gold was pointing an accusing finger at Zelena, his entire frame shaking with rage. Emma was standing at the grab-ready beside him. Zelena just looked smug. Time seemed to stand still in that moment, and as Belle left Walter where she had been speaking to camera, and made her way across the tent to investigate, she felt like she was walking through treacle and everything was taking far, far too long.

“What’s going on?”

It was Granny’s voice, calm and with that vein of icy steel running through it that would broker no nonsense.

“She’s sabotaged Gold!” Emma accused, and Belle immediately saw the problem. Gold’s half-completed bake, which should have been chilling nicely in the freezer, was out on the side, rapidly turning into a puddle of sponge swimming in melted ice cream.

Zelena just shrugged. “I needed to make space for mine.”

“You’ve got your own freezer!” Emma exploded, gesturing across the tent to the other freezers set up, all covered in post-its as per her suggestion. “We literally put your name on it! There is absolutely no reason for you to use ours!”

“All right, all right, let’s break this up,” Granny said. “Ursula, Ella, we’ll add fifteen minutes to the end of the challenge to make up for this commotion, you go and help Gold salvage what he can and get it back in the freezer as soon as you can. Emma, we’ll take it from here. Astrid, get Zelena’s ice cream into her own damn freezer. And as for you...”

Zelena’s expression had hardened, as if her emotions had crystallised into something sharp and dangerous, but Granny was completely unperturbed, her anger just as deadly when it needed to be.

Belle’s own anger was nowhere near solidified. It was boiling in her veins with the ferocity of a volcano, threatening to burst out at any moment. She’d never got angry on the bake-off before, but then again, she’d never had any reason to get angry. Nothing like this had ever happened before. There had been mishaps, there had been downright catastrophes, but this blatant sabotage was new, and it was making Belle absolutely furious. Granny caught her eye, no doubt seeing the vibrant rage about to explode, and gave a measured nod.

“Let’s take this outside,” she said. “We’ve disturbed the other contestants enough already. Come on.”

Zelena didn’t move and Granny arched an eyebrow.

“Am I going to have to call security and forcibly remove you from this tent?” she asked.

Her tone was non-negotiable, and the three of them left the tent, and standing in the bright sunshine outside, safely out of the way of the cameras, Belle let rip, the indignation that she felt on behalf not only of Gold who had suffered as a result, but also on behalf of the bake-off itself which had never seen something so underhanded before, and all the other contestants who expected a fair, clean competition, spilling out of her in a torrent of anger.

“What the hell did you hope to achieve by doing that! God only knows you’ve been tormenting that man ever since you first arrived here, for no earthly reason! Even if you absolutely had to use that one particular freezer, there is NO reason why you had to take Gold’s out, without telling him, and leave it in the sun! You didn’t even put it in the fridge which would at least have been better than leaving it out altogether! That was a deliberately callous act which you knew would affect his chances in the competition. And you know what? I don’t think it’s the first time you’ve tried something like that. Aurora’s catastrophe in bread week, Emma’s mysteriously sodden tiramisu yesterday. It’s all looking very bleak for you.”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Zelena spat.

“No, but you admitted to today’s fiasco, and right now that’s enough for us. You deliberately sabotaged another baker, God only knows why although I can hazard an educated guess, and you’re completely unapologetic!”

“Zelena, we’re disqualifying you,” Granny said.

“You can’t do that! You don’t make the rules!”

“No, but we’re the judges and we enforce them. Come with me up to the production office and we’ll speak to the producers about what’s been happening. I’m sure they’ll be able to give a final say. Belle, I trust that I can leave things in your capable hands?”

Belle nodded, giving Zelena a sweet smile. “Of course.”

“You can’t do this,” Zelena was still protesting as she trailed along after Granny as they made their way up towards the house where the make-shift production office was set up. “For God’s sake, this is a competition, we’re supposed to compete, not be best friends! Taking down the competition is all part of a competition.”

“Zelena,” Granny was saying as they went out of earshot, “have you ever watched the bake-off before?”

Belle took a couple of deep breaths before going back into the tent. It was eerily quiet, and she knew from the looks on the remaining baker’s faces that they had all heard her outburst. She went over to Gold’s workbench, the man himself was hidden from view by Ursula and Ella, who were providing a barrier to the cameras.

“It’s going to be a deconstructed baked alaska,” Ella said brightly, “but he hasn’t thrown it out of the window.”

Gold’s hands were still shaking, fists clenching and unclenching on his lap.

“This is a disaster,” he said faintly.

“No, it’s not,” Belle said. “I know it’s not because I know how the show works, believe me. Come on, there’s extra time. Come outside for some air. I promise you it will all be all right.”

Gold nodded half-heartedly and followed Belle outside. None of the other bakers questioned it and the camera crew knew better than to follow them.

“Deep breaths,” she said. “Zelena’s gone, she’s not coming back to the tent if Granny can help it. You’ll be all right. Like I said to Aurora the other week, it’s best to give us something, anything that we can judge. It won’t matter what it looks like.”

At length, Gold nodded and looked up with an air of slightly renewed confidence, not that he’d ever had all that much confidence to start with, and after a few more moments in the fresh air, the two of them made their way back inside.

“Thank you,” Gold whispered as he made his way back to the workbench, just as Ursula announced that they had fifteen minutes remaining.

Belle just smiled and returned to her post at the front of the tent. This was certainly not going to be Gold’s best week in the tent, but it would not result in his downfall.

The tent was subdued throughout all the clean-up and resetting ready for the judging; it was the first time that the bakes were packed way before being judged as if they didn’t keep the finished products in fridges for any time they weren’t required to be out, they’d all suffer the same fate as Gold’s. Granny came back in just in time for the judging to begin; Zelena was nowhere to be seen and it was clear that her departure was both swift and permanent.

In spite of the heat and the dramatic events that had transpired, the contestants had managed to pull off some very impressive creations. Regina’s sticky toffee baked alaska was so supremely decadent that Belle could almost feel her teeth rotting as she sampled it, but it still left her wanting more. Jefferson had decided to take their previous advice to heart and had been slightly more sedate this week, but his coconut and lime ice cream was another winner.

Gold had managed to pull it back from the brink, serving them the sponge and Italian meringue in a strange kind of lemon meringue pie, with what ice cream he had been able to salvage served up in a bowl on the side. It all tasted good even if the presentation was somewhat eclectic. It was going to be hard to choose a winner.

“Bakers, it’s time for the results,” Ursula began, after all the to-ing and fro-ing had finished. “First of all the judges wanted to express their admiration for you all soldiering on in spite of the shenanigans that went on today. Secondly, since Zelena has departed the tent, there is no need to eliminate anyone this round - you’ll be coming back next week.”

Belle could see the sigh of relief that Gold gave on learning this news. He had been on tenterhooks for the entirety of the judging, almost to the extent of dropping his bake, which would really just have compounded his woes.

“This means that we only have good news for you, and I get to be the one to deliver it.” Ella bounced on the balls of her feet. “This week’s star baker is Elsa!”

It was a well-deserved win. Elsa had performed strongly throughout the weekend and her summer berry baked alaska had been wonderful to both behold and taste. After the necessary camera pieces had been filmed and the crew was packing up, and after congratulating Elsa, Belle finally managed to make her way over to Gold, who was getting ready to leave. Belle left the tent with him, walking up towards where his taxi was waiting.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Incredibly relieved,” Gold said. “I was certain that I was a goner. Thank you so much, for everything that you did today. I don’t know what I would have done without you there.”

Belle shrugged. “You’re welcome. I just did what I know I would want someone to do for me if something like that had happened to me. You’re a good man, and you don’t deserve to suffer for what Zelena did to you.”

“Thank you. I know you went outside to get away from the cameras but I did hear what you were saying to her out there.”

Belle wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I was just so angry I didn’t have a filter. I know I shouldn’t fight your battles for you.”

“No, no, I’m incredibly grateful. I don’t think I could ever have stood up to her like that. She’s terrifying. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome, Raymond.”

“Rum,” Gold said softly.

“Pardon?”

“Call me Rum, please.”

Belle smiled. “Very well, Rum.”

She thought back to what Granny had said, about him always having a deer in the headlights look around her. There was no evidence of that now. His smile was shy and he was still clearly rattled from the events of the afternoon, but there was something else in his face, pushing the nervousness to one side. Belle thought that it was hope, the same kind of hope as she was feeling.

“Well, I’ll see you next week,” she said eventually. Maybe next week one of them would work up the courage to say something slightly more pertinent about this unspoken thing that was hanging in the air between them. They had established last week that they were on the same page, that they were both interested in each other, and even though neither of them had actually said anything of the sort, they both knew that they were in a kind of limbo, waiting for something else to happen and at the same time, perhaps confident, deep inside, that something could and would happen when the time was right.

Gold nodded. “Till next week. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

He got into the taxi and Belle waved him off before meandering her way back down to the tent. A couple of contestants were still there chatting among themselves; Granny, Ella and Ursula were sitting around one of the benches at the back of the tent. Ella appeared to be making milkshakes with the leftover ice cream.

“Why do you think she did it?” Granny was asking. “I mean, apart from completely misreading what the competition is about.”

Ursula and Ella looked at each other and then at Belle, and she sighed, helping herself to a spoonful of melted strawberry ice cream from Lance’s eton mess baked alaska.

“Revenge,” she said. “I mean, I’ve no doubt that the thought of sabotaging someone else’s ice cream was going through her head from the start, just like I’ve no doubt that she was responsible for the other bakers’ major disasters that they’ve had. I think she wanted to win by any means necessary. But as to why she picked Gold specifically this afternoon, then that’s revenge.”

“What did he ever do to her?” Granny asked.

“He had the audacity to rebuff her romantic advances,” Ella muttered darkly. “The woman’s been trying to eat him alive ever since they arrived here. If you thought he looked like a cornered rabbit when he was speaking to Belle, that’s nothing to how he looked when Zelena cornered him. She’s downright predatory.”

“Still, she’s gone now,” Ursula said, accepting the chocolate ice-cream milkshake that Ella handed her. “We don’t have to worry about her again, and with any luck, the rest of the competition will go very smoothly with no huge catastrophes.”

“We can hope.” Belle had to giggle as the image of Zelena trying to sneak back into the tent to cause chaos and being held back by the security team came into her head and refused to leave. The others politely ignored her whilst she tried to pull herself together.

Whatever had happened this week, and whatever would happen in the coming weeks, the atmosphere in the tent had definitely lightened without the spectre of Zelena hanging over them, even though the events of the afternoon would no doubt leave a bad taste in more than one mouth once they were aired. As Belle had feared, this was definitely going to be the most dramatic season of the bake-off that they’d ever had, but now there was hope that it would all come together to a very satisfactory conclusion.

And if that conclusion happened to include her and Gold making the transition from talking to kissing, then so much the better.

====

Next time: The bakers tackle pastry in various forms, Elsa experiments with eclairs, and Belle takes a chance.

====

Cappuccino crème brulée recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cappucino_crme_brles_08725

Tiramisu recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tiramisu_cake_13686

Chapter Text

There was a weight off Gold’s shoulders as his taxi drove up the winding driveway towards the house, ready for filming to begin. Just the simple fact of knowing that there would be no Zelena to worry about this week gave him a boost. Not necessarily of confidence - a part of him was still convinced that he had only reached this stage by a series of uncanny flukes - but just in general. The atmosphere in the tent was going to be so much more pleasant without her influence there. No-one would have to fear their hard work being sabotaged out of a sense of jealousy or revenge. The remaining seven bakers all got on well and would support each other, he was sure of that.

Jefferson waved to him as he entered the break room and got himself some coffee.

“Here we are,” he said. “The halfway point. It’s all getting real now.”

“I know.” Considering he only escaped by the skin of his teeth last week, Gold was having trouble getting to grips with the notion.

“Cheer up. You’re still here! Even if you go out this week, you’ll have made it over halfway and that’s definitely an achievement. You haven’t left on any of the more basic weeks and you’re into the advanced stuff now. You definitely haven’t disgraced yourself by any means.”

“Jefferson, you’re really not filling me with confidence right now,” Gold remarked, and Jefferson mimed zipping his lips, only for him to start speaking again less than ten seconds later.

“So. Pastry. Pasties and eclairs and whatever nefarious concoction they decide to make us bake this afternoon. How are you feeling about it?”

Gold made a face. “Not great. You?”

“Same. I was very much hoping that thanks to unforeseen circumstances we could swap this week and next week because I’ve had some absolutely fantastic ideas for what to do next week. I haven’t had any spectacular ideas for this week at all.”

“Well, spectacular’s all very well if you can pull it off,” Elsa piped in as she entered and came over to stoke up on coffee for the day ahead. “Most of the time when I go for spectacular it ends up just looking like a mess. Well, maybe that’s uncharitable. It usually looks ok and I end up looking like a mess.”

Gold, who, knowing what was in store for them next week, was not looking forward to it any more than he had looked forward to this week, remained silent on the subject, and reserved judgement until they were being called down into the tent to begin the morning’s baking. Now that there were only seven of them, the tent seemed much larger and emptier, and he wondered what it would feel like in the final week when there would only be three of them. If he got that far, of course. There was still a lot to get through between now and then. Pastry being one of those things.

“Good morning bakers, and welcome to pastry week!” Ursula began. “For your signature challenge this week, Granny and Belle would like you to bake twelve savoury pastry parcels. Pasties, samosas, that kind of thing. Ella’s already salivating at the thought. Any shape, any pastry, any flavour, you can let your imaginations run wild! You have an hour and forty-five minutes, so on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

They were off again, and Gold got his head down and began work on his pastry. He would be using flaky pastry, a traditional staple for pasties and other savoury pastry dishes, and he wondered how Emma was going to get on given her antipathy towards laminated pastries. Perhaps she had decided to forgo it altogether and was doing something incredibly inventive with shortcrust. He glanced over at the bench on the opposite side of the tent to where he was stationed, but he couldn’t tell from that distance precisely what she was making, and there was too much at stake for him to lose concentration on his own work now. As Jefferson had said earlier, they were into the advanced stuff now and the judges would be looking for perfection. The pasties would have to be uniform in shape, size and colour, and there could not be any filling leaks. He wondered how everyone was getting on and how they would be baking their final products, if they were baking at all. He noticed that a couple of the workbenches had deep fat fryers on them, and he thought about all the different possibilities in which that could go very wrong or very right. He was not the greatest fan of deep fat fryers, but then he lived in a very old and rather flammable house and tended not to like anything that might cause a catastrophic grease fire. He was sticking firmly to the oven for his parcels. Which was a point, he needed to remember to pre-heat it otherwise the pasties would be going nowhere, even if the pastry was perfect.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ursula and the two judges coming over to him and he straightened up from the oven, determined that they would not catch him by surprise this time.

“Good morning, Raymond,” Belle said brightly. She was wearing a blue dress today, dark with a lace overlay. It was one of Gold’s favourites, she wore it at least once every season, and he wondered if he would get the chance to tell her that it was his favourite at some point today. Or maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. She might think it was a bit weird and stalkerish. Best to keep his thoughts to himself until they were slightly better acquainted.

“So, tell us about your pasties,” Granny said. She sounded very eager to hear about them and Gold had the distinct impression that if it hadn’t looked unprofessional, she would have been rubbing her hands together with glee at the prospect of grilling him on them. Never had pasties been so nerve-wracking.

“These will be cheese, onion and potato pasties,” Gold said. “I’m shaping them like a traditional pasty with a crimp at the edge to hopefully seal in all the filling and the flavours.”

“It’s a classic flavour combination,” Belle said, “but will it pack enough punch, do you think? Potato doesn’t hold a lot of flavour of its own accord, it’s great as a bulking agent to really fill the pasties out, but you don’t want them tasting too bland.”

“It shouldn’t. I’m caramelising the onions so they should bring extra sweetness to it, and I’m using really strong cheese. The potato should mellow it all down and make it nice and smooth, instead of having the cheese take the roof of your mouth off.”

“Well, I look forward to tasting them,” Belle said. “How have your practice attempts gone?”

“Erm…” Gold really didn’t want to get into the mechanics of his practice attempts because there had only been one. He really hadn’t had time to make too many of the pasties because he’d been concentrating all his spare energies on making sure that tomorrow’s showstopper would go off without a hitch. The batch he had made had not been a disaster, but they had not been anywhere near as polished as he had hoped they would be.

“All right, say no more,” Granny said, giving him a knowing wink and making to move on to the next bench. “We won’t tempt fate by talking about that. Best of luck for this morning, at any rate.”

“Thanks,” Gold mumbled as they moved away. If he had been nervous before, then he really wasn’t feeling any better now, even if he had seen Belle. Her seeming lack of confidence in his filling was not doing anything to bolster his own. Still, there was nothing that could be done now, everything was already weighed and measured out and the pastry was chilling, there could be no last-minute alterations, only the hope that everything would turn out all right in the end. Behind him, he heard Elsa telling the judges all about her bake. She was attempting a new twist on a sausage roll. Gold considered it; he’d never really considered sausage rolls to be a savoury pastry parcel before but they did fit all the criteria. Hopefully she would do well. Elsa had the capacity to be very imaginative in her flavours, even if they did end up rather muddled and messy.

From somewhere at the front of the tent, he heard a theatrical gasp that could only have come from Ella, and a stage whisper of ‘don’t let Gold know!’, which of course immediately caught his attention.

“Don’t let me know what?” he called over to the presenter, who was talking to Regina. Regina for her part looked a little bit guilty as she turned to give him a self-deprecating shrug, but Ella was grinning.

“Regina’s making lamb pasties,” she explained. “We thought that it might be best if you didn’t know in case it turned out to be one of your flock.”

Gold just rolled his eyes and returned to his filling, checking on the potatoes. He was parboiling them for a few minutes before they went into the mixture, otherwise the judges would be confronted with hard, uncooked cubes of potato in the middle of the pasties, and that could not be good for his overall mark. The sharp cheddar cheese he was using was so mature that it crumbled in his grip and would not grate properly, so small lumps would have to suffice. Gold found himself wishing that he’d devoted a little bit more of his practice time to the signature challenge, because an hour and a half really was not very long and folding and crimping the pasties was taking a lot longer than he remembered it taking at home. That said, at home he was probably trying to do three other things at the same time and therefore wasn’t keeping track of how long anything was taking except maybe Bae’s homework, which was a practice exam that had to be done to time. He could tell you exactly how long a mock GCSE physics paper took, but not how long it took to make twelve pasties. If the pasties could be incorporated into the physics exam, then he’d have the best of both worlds but as it was, these pastry parcels were not going to have as long in the oven as he would like. His only saving grace in that respect was the knowledge that none of the filling ingredients would kill the judges if eaten uncooked, unlike the others using pork or poultry.

With the pasties finally in the oven, he decided to turn the heat right up in an effort to get them cooked through quicker. Emma and Elsa were doing the same, and all three of them ended up holding on to the last minute. If it was possible to sit and stare frantically, then that was what the three of them were doing, whilst everyone else was already getting their bakes out of ovens (or deep fat fryers) and plating them up.

The moment of truth could be delayed no longer, with only two minutes to go, and out the pasties came. They were nowhere near as brown as he wanted them, but at least they didn’t look too raw, and Gold could see that a couple of them had leaked where his inexpert crimping skills had got the better of him. Thanks to the higher temperature in the oven, the cheese had burned on the outside of the pastry. He sighed. Nothing to be done about it now.

He was annoyed with himself but there was nothing he could have done, so he tried to put it to the back of his mind as the clean-up began. Elsa was looking at her sausage rolls with a similarly critical eye; they were also showing major leakage issues.

“You wouldn’t think that sausages could leak!” she exclaimed as she picked up one of the parcels and gazed at the dark stains mournfully. “This is ridiculous. And unfortunately, expected. I’ve never been able to get them perfect. And I have no idea how they’re going to taste to someone who’s not me because my sister won’t eat sausages.” She sighed heavily. “She’s been my go to taste tester for everything so far and now she’s let me down.”

“Never mind,” Emma said, coming over to them. “You can be heartened by the fact it’s not just you who’s had a less than successful morning. I mean, I’m using rough puff pastry for a start which is a guaranteed step backwards. And my pasties kind of puffed up in the oven like little balloons; I’ve no idea where all the air came from, it’s ridiculous.”

The three of them continued to bemoan the quality of their signature bakes until it was time for the judges to make their rounds and they all had to return, rather reluctantly, to their own benches.

“Well,” Granny began as she came over to Gold’s bench. “Unfortunately it’s clear to see from the colour on them that they’re underdone. The pastry is very pale, which makes the spots of leakage all the more obvious.”

“Yeah… I didn’t have time to scrape off the evidence.”

“Still, we’ll take a look inside and see what the flavour’s like,” Belle said. It was well-known that she was the ‘nice’ judge and generally more encouraging than Granny, but this week her positivity was not doing anything for Gold. He liked her, certainly, but her mere presence alone wasn’t enough to make up for the sheer terror that was coursing through his veins at the prospect of her and Granny not enjoying his offering and him falling one step closer to going home at the end of the weekend and not returning to the tent.

“You could probably have got a bit more filling in there,” Belle said, pointing out the pocket of air between the pastry and the filling. “You should be able to fill them right up to the brim. But the flavour is good, the cheese and the caramelised onion are really coming through, they mask the potato but you still get the added texture from it, which is good. But although the pastry is showing good lamination, it is underdone, and that’s a problem.”

Gold nodded his acceptance of this, and the judges moved on. Ella and Ursula, evidently completely unperturbed by underdone pastry, swiped a couple of pasties on their way past.

Back in the break room for lunch, Gold was consoled by the fact that none of their little group seemed to have fared all that well in the challenge.

“You know, I think they’re doing it on purpose,” Jefferson mused. “They’ve upped their game now that we’re into the advanced stages. It’s time to sort the wheat from the chaff so they’re going into overdrive and nitpicking the smallest things. But we won’t let them break our spirit!” He brandished his banana aloft like a rapier, much to the alarm of Leroy, who had come to investigate the fruit platter at precisely the wrong moment and almost got an eyeful of it for his troubles.

“You’d think that the harder the competition gets, the easier they’ll go on us,” Elsa said. “I mean, we’re into the weird and wonderful now. All these things that we’re baking aren’t things that we make on a regular basis.” She addressed Gold. “I mean, bread is a no-brainer - you bake bread regularly, it’s second nature to you. And cakes and biscuits, most people would choose to make those if they wanted to bake for pleasure. But pasties and eclairs and other strange pastries? They’re not worth the hassle of making yourself, it’s easier to get them pre-prepared.”

“Puff pastry out of a packet,” Emma agreed. “Even the best bakers must sometimes resort to puff pastry out of a packet.”

“I wonder what’s coming this afternoon,” Jefferson mused, finally beginning to eat the banana - much to Leroy’s relief. “Last year had those strange cheese and raisin things from Cyprus. I mean, cheese I can understand and raisins I can understand, but I can’t think of two things less likely to go together than those two. And even less likely to go together in a pasty. When I heard that you were doing cheese, Gold, I thought that you were making those for a second and I got worried.”

“No, I can safely say I have never made anything involving that precise and rather strange combination of ingredients.”

“But I’m betting it’ll be something strange,” Elsa muttered darkly.

“Well, there’s not long to wait to find out.” Jefferson nodded towards the door, where Astrid was entering to announce that lunch was over, and they were about to face their fates once more.

The runners shepherded them back down to the tent to begin the technical challenge, and once Granny and Belle had been banished off to do their pieces to camera, Ella rubbed her hands together with a glee that made Gold rather worried. Unlike Granny, she didn’t have a gravitas to maintain and could do such a thing without any fear of ruining her reputation. Indeed, for Ella such an action was pretty much par for the course.

“Good afternoon bakers, and welcome to your pastry technical challenge. Today’s recipe comes from Granny, and if you want to murder her by the end of it then fear not, we will be more than willing to assist.”

Ursula just raised an eyebrow at her partner. “Speak for yourself, I have no desire to be arrested due to pastry related homicide.” She turned back to the bakers. “Today, Granny and Belle would like you to make twelve queen amuns.”

“Kouign-Amann,” Ella corrected, over-exaggerating the French accent.

“Yes, them. Don’t worry, we’ve never heard of them either. They’re a Breton pastry made with lots of crispy layers of pastry and sugar, and you have three and a half hours to make twelve of them. So, cross your fingers, say your prayers, and on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

For a few moments, the tent was just a mask of dumbstruck silence. Looking around, it was clear to Gold that none of them had ever heard of the thing that they were supposed to be baking and had no idea what the finished product was supposed to look like. The recipe instructions were annoyingly vague, as technical challenge recipes tended to be, and all Gold could make out was that these things were apparently a cross between a muffin and a croissant and a bread roll. He was flying completely blind and he didn’t think that he had ever felt so completely overwhelmed in the tent as he did now, floundering helplessly against this strange unknown pastry. It seemed simple on the face of it, with very few ingredients, but even the simplest of things could seem like a daunting task when there wasn’t even a mental image to aspire to. The only thing that was bringing him comfort was the fact that everyone was in the same boat, so when it came to the judging they would all be on a level playing field.

Behind him, Emma was once more bemoaning having to make laminated pastry.

“I mean, I survived the mini pear pies two weeks ago,” she was muttering to the cameraman, “but this is an entirely different kettle of fish. Two lots of laminated pastry in one day is really too many. This is a cruel and unusual challenge. Roll on tomorrow and the eclairs. At least I don’t have to fold and turn them.”

“I would have thought that a folded eclair could be very interesting,” Ella remarked. “You’d be able to fit the entire thing in your mouth in one go.”

“Yes, trust you to think of that,” Ursula teased. “Wouldn’t a folded eclair just resemble a large profiterole?”

“Well, possibly.”

“All right, you ponder that for a while, but let’s have no more talk of folded eclairs or you’ll put the bakers off what they’re actually supposed to be doing and I think they need to concentrate today more than ever.”

Gold didn’t need telling twice that he was going to have to concentrate throughout the bake. He had managed to make the pastry and get it chilling, that wasn’t going to be so much of a problem as it seemed to be very similar to croissant dough. Not that he’d made all that many croissants in his time, but at least he knew vaguely how they ought to be made. The problem would be adding the sugar. Sugar had to be added during the folding and turning process so that it was worked into the layers, but the recipe was suspiciously silent as to when it ought to be added. From the comments that the others were making to the camera and to Ella and Ursula as they came around, none of them knew either, so even if he had been able to confer with his fellows, they probably wouldn’t be able to come up with anything of substance anyway. In the end, he decided that it would be best to add a little sugar between all the layers, to ensure an even spread throughout the bake. Well, he hoped. With adding the sugar gradually between the pastry’s turns and folds, it gave it far more time to dissolve and melt into the pastry, and he couldn’t tell from the recipe whether this was the desired effect or not. He just soldiered on, continuing to turn the pastry and build up what he hoped would become crisp, flaky layers. There wasn’t exactly anything he could do to change it now, he was past the point of no return, and it was only once the dough had been folded up into little parcels in the muffin tins and the pastries were safely in the oven that he had chance to compare notes with anyone else.

“I stuck it all in the last layer,” Emma said. “I reckoned that would give it a nice crunchy top and a layer of sugar running through the middle. What about you?”

“I’ve got it all the way through.”

Emma just nodded, contemplating her oven and looking for the perfect moment to take the things out. “I always think it’s interesting when the technical challenges are really obscure things that no-one’s heard of, because everyone interprets the instructions in their own way and although we’re all working to the same recipe you end up with a lot of variation.”

“Yes,” Gold agreed, “but considering that the judges are looking for something specific, that’s not necessarily a good thing.”

“True. I think it would be interesting to give us all the same recipe and see just how different we could make it. Individuality should be praised.”

“I honestly dread to think what would happen if we were given free rein.” Gold checked his pastries in the oven. The ones at the front were rising much more slowly than the ones at the back so it was probably time to turn them round lest they end up ridiculously out of proportion with each other. He glanced around the tent to try and see what everyone else’s looked like, but it was no use, they were all safely in the ovens and out of sight.

Elsa came over, leaning on Emma’s workbench.

“I always dread them giving us stuff we haven’t heard of,” she said. “I mean, I know it’s to test our skills and intuition but I still break out in a complete panic every time.”

“You’re not the only one,” Gold assured her. “I don’t think anyone likes being taken by surprise.”

“I don’t know, I think Jefferson and Regina quite enjoy it,” Elsa said. “You know what Jefferson’s like, I don’t think anything ever phases him and he’s all for being adventurous. And Regina’s quite competitive. Not in the way that Zelena was, but she takes a lot of pride in doing her best and rising to challenges like this.”

That was true. Gold glanced over to Regina in the far corner of the tent but she had vanished from view, no doubt crouching in front of her oven watching the pastries like a hawk. He wondered if she and Mal had kept in touch since Mal left two weeks ago, and how their relationship was progressing.

“Well, I’d better get back. Knowing my luck they’ll have burned whilst I’ve been away. I can see them doing that just to spite me because they know I needed something to pull back from this morning.”

Elsa left them then and Gold checked his own oven. Half of them still looked much smaller than the others even though he was sure he’d used similar amounts of dough in each cup. Oh well. There were still a few minutes left on the bake and he intended to use every scrap of time that he had. On the other hand, some of them were looking very brown, so maybe it was best to get those out now and just hang on with the ones that still needed time to grow. He sighed, this was not turning out to be his weekend.

He waited until Ella called one minute on the challenge before rescuing the final pastries, and although they were still smaller than the others, they were no longer dwarfed by them. As time was called and the clean-up began, Gold could only send up a wing and a prayer.

Eventually, it was time for the judging. Sitting in the middle of the tent with his fellow bakers, Gold once more felt like he was lining up ready for the firing squad. Granny and Belle took their time testing the bakes, and when they got to Elsa’s, Gold’s heart sank as they passed judgement.

“This one has obviously had sugar added all the way through it,” Belle said. “That means that it’s melted into the pastry with the butter and the whole thing is incredibly sweet. Ideally you want to add the sugar last so that it doesn’t have chance to dissolve like that, and you end up with a definitive layer of sweetness.”

Gold gave an inward sigh, knowing that he had done exactly the same thing, and not only that, Elsa’s looked a lot better on the outside than his did. He was not at all surprised when they ranked him last, Elsa just above him. Regina won the challenge with Emma in a close second and Leroy behind her.

Jefferson came over and gave his shoulder a pat that was meant to be reassuring, but that didn’t exactly have the desired effect on Gold, who was sinking slowly into despondency. Considering that he had begun the week in such high spirits, knowing that Zelena would no longer be there to torment him, things had certainly taken a turn for the worse.

He consoled himself with the thought that the technical was only one of three challenges, and whilst his pasties in the morning had not been the most amazing, they had been better than some of the other offerings. Unfortunately one of those was Elsa, and he really didn’t want to throw his friend under the bus in the name of increasing his own chances in the competition.

Granny, Belle and the presenters left to speak to camera, and Gold was left staring at the pastries that had betrayed him.

“Oh well,” Elsa said. She was equally miserable having had both a bad start to the morning and a less than perfect afternoon. “Tomorrow is another day, and all that.”

“Indeed it is, Scarlet O’Hara.”

“Well, as long as the tent doesn’t burn down, we should be ok. Eclairs will save us.”

“That would certainly be an interesting ending to Gone With The Wind,” Emma observed. “‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,’ says Rhett Butler as he leaves the room chomping on a choux pastry.”

“Scone With The Wind,” Jefferson suggested.

“I’m not eating your scones if they give you that kind of wind,” Elsa said. “But introducing baking into classic film titles would make them so much more interesting. What else could we have?”

Gold left them to it as they pondered the merits of The Genoise Falcon and Night of the Living Bread, getting ready to leave. It all hinged on tomorrow.

X

“So, who do you think has the best chance of winning tomorrow?” Ella asked.

Belle always hated this piece to camera after the technical challenge, it sounded so scripted. Not that most of their pieces to camera didn’t sound scripted, but this was always the worst. By the end of the first day it was clear who was doing well and who wasn’t, but they’d often had some remarkable bounce backs on the second day which made all their previous hypothesising moot. Also, it was never nice to talk about the people who might be going home a full day before that actually happened. It was as if they were sealing their fates.

“Well, Regina and Jefferson have both done strongly today, Emma too,” Granny said. “I think they’re all contenders for star baker tomorrow, as long as nothing catastrophic happens.”

“And on the other end of the scale?”

“It’s Elsa and Raymond,” Belle had to admit. “Elsa had a bad morning and she didn’t do great in the technical, and Raymond obviously came last.”

“It’s a shame, really, they’ve both shown great promise throughout the competition.”

“Yes. I just want to keep them all. Could we maybe sneak them back in a fridge or something?” Ursula pleaded.

“Don’t give Gold ideas!” Ella said. “He usually looks quite happy to jump into a fridge of his own accord, we don’t need you to encourage him!”

“Erm, Ella?” Walter waved from behind the camera to indicate that he was still there. “Do you maybe want to do that again?”

Once they had got through the piece without any reference to Gold’s nervousness, the four of them were finally released and Belle made a beeline for the tent. She had to face the reality that Gold might be going home tomorrow and she needed to make the most of the time that she had left with him. Of course, if he did make it through to the next week then so much the better, but there was that undeniable possibility.

Do the brave thing, Belle thought to herself as she crossed the tent to Gold. It wasn’t like she would be doing anything hideously against the rules. The judges always chatted to the contestants at the end of the day after the challenges were complete. There was nothing strange about that. Having cups of tea in the tent was perhaps going a little bit beyond what was expected, but Gold had not had the best of days and he needed a friendly face and a cup of tea. At least, that was the mantra that Belle kept repeating should she need to blurt it out to anyone who questioned her motives. Not that she thought anyone would question her. The contestants were leaving the tent in dribs and drabs, and she knew that Ella and Ursula would turn a blind eye.

“Hi,” she said. “You look like you could use a cup of tea.”

Gold gave her a weak smile and nodded. “Yes, I think I could.”

“Come on then.” She led him over to the back of the tent where the electric kettle was kept, along with a stock of mugs and teabags for making refreshments during bakes when they could not go back up to the break room. Settling themselves on stools as they waited for the kettle to boil, Belle looked over at her companion and tried to gauge his thoughts.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Annoyed with myself,” Gold said honestly. “I don’t even know why, because there’s nothing I could have done differently to get a different outcome. I had no idea what I was doing so going in blind again I’d just do exactly the same. But that aside, I’m still annoyed because I didn’t do well. I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, I’d be kicking myself too if I was in the same position. Even though you know deep down that you can’t change anything and you can only curse hindsight, it makes you think why you decided to do it one way when the others decided to do it a different way.”

“Yeah.”

They drank their tea in silence for a little while as the tent continued to quieten around them, but there was nothing uncomfortable in the lack of conversation. It was perhaps a little awkward as Belle had no idea what to say next, but at the same time, perhaps nothing needed to be said and it was enough just for them to be in each other’s company for a while.

“How’s your son?” she asked eventually.

Gold smiled. She knew that he would. Talking about his family was one thing that could guarantee a smile from him. It was obvious that he was incredibly proud of his son and loved talking about him.

“He’s doing well. He can’t wait for the show to actually air so that the gag order comes off and he can brag to all his friends about it. Well, he seems to fluctuate between being excited that his dad’s going to be on the TV and being petrified that I’m going to show him up somehow.”

“All the same, I think he must be very proud of you. He was the one who wanted you to do this in the first place so he must be pleased with how far you’ve come. You’re over the halfway point now.”

“I think he is. He tries not to show it but I can see his face light up when I get home and tell him that I’ll be going back next week.” He sighed. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that this week, though.”

“You can pull back, Rum,” Belle assured him. “Both you and Elsa have the chance to pull back if you do well in the showstopper tomorrow. Someone else could have a really bad day.”

“I know. And the worst part is that whoever goes tomorrow, I know that they’re a good person and a friend and I don’t want to say goodbye to them.”

“I get that feeling. Just because we’re judges doesn’t mean that we aren’t rooting for you all and don’t develop a rapport with the contestants.”

Gold looked down at his tea, and Belle could make out the tinge of pink on his cheeks. “I think that this might go a little bit beyond rapport,” he murmured.

“Maybe.” Belle could feel a little smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth, and she hoped that maybe she could cheer him up. “What would you call it instead then?”

“I don’t know.” Gold looked up at her through narrowed eyes, as if he was trying to judge her intentions. Belle really didn’t want to come on too strong in case she sent him under the nearest workbench, but he showed no signs of skittishness like he had done during previous encounters, and he seemed to be receptive to her little flirtation.

“Could we perhaps call it a proto-date?” she asked.

“A proto-date?” Gold raised an eyebrow. “That sounds rather dangerous. Like some kind of strange bacterial yogurt.”

“That’s probiotic,” Belle pointed out.

“Oh well, that’s all right then. But what’s a proto-date?”

“Well, it’s not quite a date, but it’s a little bit more than just a chat between friends.”

“Is that what you think this is?” The question was genuine, and she saw his eyes glance nervously around the tent, but they were alone in there.

“I think it could be.” It wasn’t a date by any manner or means, but Gold was right in that this was not something she would do with just anyone. There was something special about this time together, even though there wasn’t really anything going on yet. She finished her tea.

“We won’t talk about the competition anymore,” she said definitively. “Don’t want to be accused to selling trade secrets, after all. What got you into baking in the first place?”

Gold shrugged. “My aunts taught me, I just carried on from them. My Aunt Miriam used to do most of the baking and after she died, it just seemed natural that I would carry on from her. I enjoy it, it’s such a different and relaxing pastime having been out in the fields with the sheep all day. It just makes the house feel so much more homely. It’s an old house, lonely and draughty, and there are only three of us rattling around in it, but baking always guarantees that everyone congregates into the kitchen to see what’s going on and sample everything as soon as possible.

“I’ll bet. Nothing like the smell of home baking to get the taste buds going.”

Belle wondered at his words. Three of them in the house - Rum, Bae, and Aunt Elvira. Back at the beginning of the competition she had considered the possibility of a significant other in his life, but as time had gone on and his interest in her had made itself more apparent, it had been put to the back of her mind, especially as said possible significant other had never been mentioned when they had been talking, both on and off camera. Now though, it appeared that there definitely wasn’t one in the picture. It had seemed premature to ask him about it before, but now she was feeling bold.

“What about Bae’s mother?” she asked.

“We’re not together.” Gold’s smile tightened a little, but there did not seem to be sadness in his expression. “We divorced when Bae was four. He sees her occasionally but ultimately I think they’re better off without each other.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Gold shrugged. “Sometimes these things aren’t meant to be. Living out in the sticks as I do, there aren’t all that many opportunities for dating, so when I met someone, I think I dived in too quickly as I felt like it was the only chance I had. It had worked for Aunt Elvira and Aunt Miriam, after all, that was love at first sight so I assumed the same thing had happened to me. It hadn’t, I realise that now.” He shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t be saying all this, you don’t want to hear it.”

“No, I do. It’s nice to learn more about you. I always like it when we get to the final few weeks of the show and I get to go and visit people at home in between filming. I guess I’m just naturally nosy. And I always love learning about how people started baking and found that they enjoyed it enough to enter the competition. Even if they didn’t actually enter themselves.”

Gold smiled. “Well, in the end I’m glad that Bae took that chance for me. It’s been a great experience so far. Certain less pleasant aspects of it aside.” He paused. “So what about you? I don’t know anything about you yet. How did you start baking?”

“Well, Granny was the one who taught me to bake, actually. I learned in her kitchen alongside her granddaughter.”

She went on to outline how she’d got into baking and her favourite things to make, and soon Gold was smiling properly, the thoughts of his bad performance today all but gone from his mind. It was at that point that the security guys came over and shooed them out of the tent as they needed to make sure that the site was secure before they all went home.

“I’ll give you a lift to the hotel if you like,” Belle said. “Save you waiting for a taxi. It’s not out of my way.” That was a lie, it was in completely the opposite direction to the one she needed to go home, but it was only a short distance and she wanted to prolong this cosy moment as long as possible.

“That would be nice, thank you.”

They didn’t really talk again for the quick ride into the town, just passing comments here and there, but it was a companionable quiet. As they pulled up outside the hotel, Gold did not get out immediately and Belle looked over at him. He was still smiling, which was good, and she hoped that he wouldn’t return to brooding over his bad performance as soon as he was inside.

“Thank you,” he said presently. “For the lift, and for the conversation this evening.”

“That’s all right. I like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you too.” He paused. “I like you.”

Belle had to suppress a giggle because it felt like she was back in primary school for a while, the notion of liking someone and liking someone coming to the fore once more.

“I like you too.”

She took a chance, reaching across from the steering wheel and taking Gold’s hand where it was resting on his leg, giving a gentle squeeze. The move paid off, for he caught her fingers and returned the pressure.

“Good night, Rum, and good luck for tomorrow.”

“Good night, Belle.”

He got out of the car and Belle waited until he was inside the building and out of sight before she pulled away from the curb, still smiling.

X

The next morning when Gold walked into the break room, Jefferson and Ella both raised their eyebrows at him, and he immediately felt his face and ears turn red with the realisation that they had seen that something was very obviously different about him. It was such a small thing, and not something that had really turned into anything yet, but it was enough to make him feel like he was walking on air.

“If I didn’t know better,” Ella began, her voice entirely matter-of-fact, “then I would say that you’d had some thoroughly acrobatic and satisfying sex last night, Mr Gold.”

Even if he hadn’t been taking a mouthful of tea at the time, Gold would probably have choked in response to the frank statement, and Emma rushed over to smack him on the back as he continued to splutter.

“Please, Ella, don’t kill the contestants before they’ve even got into the tent for the showstopper,” Ursula said. “I don’t want to miss out on any eclairs because one of the bakers has been hospitalised. We’ve only just got rid of one calamity-causer last week, we don’t need you to take her mantle now.”

“I was just teasing,” Ella said, although the twinkle in her eye made Gold think that she was not entirely in jest and she knew that something had happened in the romantic line the previous evening. Even though it was nothing near sex, Gold still felt the same acute embarrassment that a full on walk of shame would have brought him. Emma fixed him a fresh cup of tea where his first had spilled, and gave him a friendly smile.

“Just ignore Ella, you know what she’s like. I think I would have heard from my room if anything acrobatic had been going on.”

“Yes.” Gold held up his cane. “Acrobatic is one thing that is most definitely off the menu.”

“But what is on the menu is choux pastry,” Emma said. “I’m not sure about this one. I do like profiteroles but they’re so hard to get right. They always end up either too hard or too chewy or the filling oozes out where it shouldn’t. What about you?”

“I’ve had some pretty hair-raising eclair scares these past couple of weeks whilst I’ve been practising,” Gold admitted. “My farmhand is convinced that I’m trying to fatten him up for the slaughter with the amount of cream-filled edibles that I’ve been sending him home with. His family seem to like them though so whilst presentation might be a problem, they should taste all right.”

“Well, here’s hoping.” The production runners were entering the tent to shepherd them all down into the tent ready for the challenge to start. It was a grey day, the threat of rain constantly on the horizon, but Gold still felt bright for the most part. No doubt once the time started counting down his mood would change and the all-too familiar stress and panic would set in.

“Good morning bakers, and welcome to the second day of your pastry weekend and the showstopper day,” Ursula began.

“Today, Belle and Granny would like you to make eclairs,” Ella continued. “These eclairs must be made of choux pastry and they must be eclair shaped, no profiteroles masquerading as eclairs please, or anything that resembles something that is not an eclair. We’re sure that your choux pastry elephants would look amazing, but we’re sticking to traditional shapes today.”

“There should be twenty-four eclairs, twelve each of two different flavours, any flavours you like. You have four hours to complete the challenge. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

There was no time to waste on day-dreaming about the events that had transpired yesterday. They were off, and Gold concentrated on making his choux pastry as quickly as possible so that the eclairs had plenty of time to cook, dry out and cool before the fillings were added. The tent was quieter today; this was a difficult challenge that would require precision and control, and none of them were willing to let distractions get in the way. Gold had not had the best of starts to the weekend and he knew that he had to do well today in order to be safely through to the next round. Not even Jefferson was displaying his usual panache, just getting his head down and getting on with it like the rest of them.

Although he had been getting a lot better at not letting the judges surprise him, he did still jump when they came over whilst he was piping out his twenty-four long eclairs, trying to make sure that he left enough room for them to puff up in the oven. His earlier practice attempts at home, where he had a much smaller oven, had proved to be an interesting exercise in logistics as he had crammed too many eclairs onto one tray and they had all stuck together in one huge block of pastry.

“Good morning, Mr Gold,” Ella said brightly. Gold did have to smile at the fact that she continually called him Mr Gold, even on camera. The other bakers all called him Gold, and on camera, he was Raymond, but to Ella he would always be the mysterious Mr Gold.

“Good morning.”

“So, tell us all about your eclairs,” Granny said. “What flavours can we expect from you?”

“The first twelve will be Neapolitan eclairs,” Gold said. “They’ll be filled with a vanilla crème patissière and strawberry jelly, and topped with chocolate icing and dried strawberry pieces.”

“They sound delicious.” Granny certainly seemed enamoured by the idea, and since Granny was usually the harder to please of the two judges, Gold felt justified in preening a little.

“What about the others?” Belle asked.

“The others will be maple and pecan, filled with maple crème pat and topped with maple icing and pecan brittle.”

“A classic flavour combination, but not one that I’ve ever encountered in an eclair before.” Belle said. “Well, we wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you can get it all done in time.”

“You and me both,” Gold muttered as they moved away to speak to Regina behind him, and he put his eclairs in the oven, for better or worse.

Regina’s eclairs were a highly ambitious endeavour in their own right; her pastries were inspired by cocktails and Gold could tell that Ella would have been quite happy to stay by Regina’s workbench for the remainder of the challenge. Mojito and pina colada eclairs did not quite appeal to Gold, but he couldn’t fault her imagination. Like Gold, Jefferson had gone down the ice-cream flavour route, and was making raspberry ripple and straciatella eclairs. Leroy was intending to display his eclairs in a kind of helter skelter-esque contraption that he’d made at home.

It was time for the eclairs to come out of the oven and cool, and Gold was pretty pleased with how well they had turned out, all things considered. Some of them had ended up slightly bigger than the others, but they were a nice colour and they didn’t seem to be too soggy. Now to wait for the perfect moment to fill and ice them.

“Oh no…” At the bench in front of him, Gold heard Elsa moan and then heave a huge sigh. It really wasn’t turning out to be her week. He was about to ask her what was wrong but Ella had sidled up out of sight of the cameras and was taking on the duty of consoling the contestants as she had always done.

“My crème pat’s curdled,” Elsa said mournfully. “I left it on the heat too long because I got distracted getting the eclairs out of the oven.”

“I’m sure that there’s something that we can do to salvage it.” Ella said.

“There’s not enough time! I can’t make it again!”

“Ok, is there something you can use instead? Have you got enough cream to whip up some cream to fill them with?”

“I think so, I’m not sure.”

“Don’t worry, I think I can help with that.” Ella cleared her throat and hollered across the tent, much to the consternation of the sound guy, who almost jumped out of his skin. “DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY SPARE CREAM?”

The tent was silent for a moment, everyone thrown for six by Ella’s sudden announcement, but then Lance and Jefferson came over bearing half-empty tubs of cream, and the tent returned to business as usual. It was testament to the communal nature of the competition that no-one really batted an eyelid about lending their own ingredients to help out one of their number who was floundering. Gold returned his attention to his own work, carefully making small incisions into the eclairs so as to be able to fill them up with the maple custard, and allow them to cool quicker. From all around the tent, the rich smells of creams, custards and sugar in various forms was unavoidable, and not for the first time, Gold wondered idly just how many calories they all ended up consuming every weekend as they sampled each other’s work after the day’s filming finished. Mind you, they probably sweated them all off in stress during the challenges so perhaps it was just as well that everything was laden with fat and sugar. Still, time was getting on and there was none to be wasted on rumination, just on filling eclairs ready for presentation. Once both sets were filled and the icing was setting on the top, he looked over to Elsa, who was covered in icing sugar as per the norm, but appeared to have managed to pull it all back from the brink and was plating up the now-cream filled eclairs whilst the curdled crème patissière sat solidifying in the sink looking like very sad scrambled egg.

Ella called time on the challenge, and Gold was pretty sure that it was the quickest they’d ever got through one, even though he knew how long they’d had. He didn’t feel like there had been any respite during the bake, always something else to be preparing ready for the next stage. Normally at this stage of the proceedings during the clean-up, he would take the opportunity to sneak a peek at the other contestants’ offerings, but today he was just glad of a breather and the chance to finish his long-cold cup of tea.

The judges entered, and the tea had to be put to one side again as rating commenced. Leroy was the first up, and however precarious his eclair helter-skelter looked, it certainly held its own as he took it up to the front. His peanut butter and coffee eclairs, definitely impressed the judges. Gold couldn’t blame them. He was impressed and he hadn’t tasted one yet. Regina’s cocktail pastries also went down well, and then it was his turn, with Ursula waving him over.

“Raymond, could you bring your eclairs up please?”

Gold adjusted his hold on the two-tiered cake stand and made slow progress up to the front of the tent with it, praying that none of the eclairs would fall off. Thankfully they all made it to the top table unscathed, and both Granny and Belle were smiling as they took in the pastries.

“Well, these all look very tempting,” Granny said.

“You’re telling me,” said Ella. “Can I have one?”

Gold laughed. “Sure.”

Ella snaffled a neapolitan eclair and bent it in half, shoving the entire thing in her mouth in one go. Ursula just planted her face in her hand and sighed dramatically, but Gold could see that behind her palm, she was smiling at her partner’s antics. Granny and Belle were slightly more sedate in the way they tackled the eclairs, namely that they used a knife.

“Well, this looks very well filled and the crème patissière is a good consistency,” Granny said. “The chocolate on the top is nice and shiny, which is what we like to see, and the bake on the eclairs themselves is a very good colour. I can tell that you’ve practised these a bit more than yesterday’s pasties, haven’t you?”

Gold nodded sheepishly.

“Still, I think it’s definitely paid off. The thing pulling it down is the strawberry jelly - as you can see it’s a little runny and it’s bled into the pastry at the bottom here, but as it hasn’t leaked through completely I think we can count that one as a success. Now for the maple and pecan.”

“I love the brittle,” Belle said, and her voice had taken on that slightly dreamy quality that it had displayed when she had first spoken to him in the first week, a month and a half ago now, and she had been enamoured by the idea of the cherry jam in his black forest swiss roll. “It tastes great and it adds a wonderful different texture to the eclair.”

“Again, the eclairs are well-baked,” Granny said, “and you have good textures. My problem is with the maple. It’s a very distinctive taste and it’s quite overpowering. I’m not getting any of the pecan really, and it makes the eclairs very sickly sweet. I wouldn’t want to eat more than one on the go.”

Gold nodded and bore the eclairs back to his workbench. Those were comments he could live with, and he hoped beyond hope that he had done enough to stay in the game. The judges were certainly much more impressed with his offerings today than they had been yesterday, so perhaps he had managed to claw it back.

The judging continued, but Gold did not pay all that much attention to it, too busy stewing about what was to come when the results were finally announced. He noted that Jefferson received praise, that Lance and Elsa didn’t do so well thanks to overbaked eclairs and leaking cream respectively, and Elsa sighed as she took her place on the stool next to Gold in the middle of the tent, ready for the reveal.

“I’m not feeling too hot about this one,” she said. “Those eclairs were the final nail in the coffin and I can’t even blame it on Zelena.”

“You never know,” Gold said, although he had to admit that things did look pretty bleak for her. And for him, if he had not done enough to impress them after his abysmal performance in the technical yesterday afternoon.

The judges and presenters re-entered the tent. It was show time once more.

“Well, the decisions have been made,” Ursula said. “This week’s star baker, as Ella will no doubt be incredibly pleased to hear on account of her affinity for alcoholic refreshments of all kinds, including pastry form, is Regina!”

Gold applauded readily; Regina was now the first contestant to win the star baker title twice in the competition and he couldn’t begrudge her it, she was always a strong contender in whatever they were making; usually placing high in the technicals.

“Unfortunately,” Ella continued, “as you know, we’re going to have to say goodbye to one baker. It’s been a weekend of ups and downs and highs and lows for quite a few people, but ultimately, the one who will not be joining us next week is Elsa.”

Beside him, Elsa let out another long sigh and Gold automatically put his arm around her. It was sad to be losing her; although he knew that not everyone could make it to the final, Elsa had become a good friend and ally over the few weeks that they had spent in the tent together and it felt strange to know that she would not be there going forward. Whatever was going on, he had always been able to count on her happy go lucky attitude and messy approach to baking to lift his spirits in the midst of all the last-minute panic. Elsa was the first of the leavers that he would really miss - the others he was glad to see the back of or he had not really had chance to get to know properly. What made it worse was that he knew that of all the bakers, he and Elsa were definitely at the bottom of the list that week and if Elsa hadn’t had a cream crisis, it would probably have come down to a knockout between the two of them, and that left him feeling a little guilty.

“I’ll really miss you all,” Elsa said as the group converged around her to share their commiserations and encourage her in her future baking endeavours. “You’ve been such a great group to get to know and I hope that we can keep in touch.”

The process of swapping phone numbers began; everyone deciding it would make sense to get everyone’s details at the same time so that no-one would be left out when they came to leave, and it made Gold feel slightly more confident about being able to keep up with the friends he had made after they all left the competition and went their separate ways. It could be, of course, that nothing came of it, but it was nice to know that the intention was there, and that it was genuine.

Then Elsa started taking selfies with everyone for posterity, even Leroy who was rather taken aback by the request and who went bright red at the prospect, but nonetheless agreed to pose. It seemed like the end of an era, almost; none of this had happened when any of the other bakers had left the tent because they hadn’t really got to know each other well enough, but it seemed that Zelena’s departure last week and them all being safe then had led to an increased sense of community, and since Elsa was the first to leave after they had all survived Zelena’s sabotage attempts - well, potential sabotage attempts since she hadn’t had chance to get round to everyone - it made her leaving more poignant in a way. Gold wondered what would happen about Rory, whose departure was looking even more likely to have been a result of foul play on Zelena’s part. Would she be compensated in any way or would it just be chalked up to experience since there was nothing that they could do to prove it? It wasn’t like there was prize money that she was missing out on; the grand finale winner at the end did not receive anything except a trophy and the prestige of being able to say that they won. He went over to congratulate Regina. She tended to keep herself to herself, usually quiet and serious, so it was nice to see her looking so elated and open.

“I’m so happy!” she said. “I can’t wait to see Mal’s reaction when I tell her.”

Gold chuckled. “I’m glad that you two are still in touch.”

“Oh, yes. We are. To be honest we actually exchanged numbers halfway through biscuit weekend.” A blush began to rise in Regina’s cheeks. “You know when you meet someone and you just click with them, and you know that there’s something special about them?”

Gold nodded, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder towards Belle where she was chatting to Leroy and Lance.

“Yes, I know that feeling.”

“Well, I had that with Mal. And I know it’s early days, and there’s such a lot to consider, like the fact she has a teenage daughter and we live at opposite sides of the country and we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I’ve got a good feeling.”

“Long may it continue.”

“Thanks. Eclair?” She offered him one of the mojito flavoured eclairs, but Ella grabbed it before he could partake. Ursula, hot on her partner’s heels, just sighed.

“Ella, if you eat any more of those I swear you won’t be fit to drive home, and I’m not insured to drive your death trap so we’ll be sleeping here in the car park until you sober up, which is not something I want to do.”

Regina laughed. “It’s all right, there’s not that much rum in them.”

“And there is an amazing convention known as a taxi,” Ella pointed out through a mouthful of mint icing. “We’ll be fine, darling. Now, why don’t you enjoy a pina colada, they’re even better when encased in pastry.”

Gold left them at that point, and wandered back over to his own bench and his eclairs, now packed into a coolbox ready for the journey home.

“Well done. I told you that you could pull it back today.”

He glanced across to see Belle standing at the end of his workbench. The memory of their sort of date the previous evening was still fresh in his mind and he smiled.

“Thank you. I’m just sorry for Elsa; she had a bad week.”

“We all have bad weeks sometimes. Still, next week’s a new week, a new challenge. I’ll see you then.”

Gold nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

There was a little blush in Belle’s cheeks as she moved away, and Gold wondered if he was showing a similar attraction. He was certainly feeling it.

X

It was only when he got home and was sitting at the kitchen table after getting the sheep in that Gold realised just how much the weekend had taken out of him, and he rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the crick in his neck as Aunt Elvira bustled about making a pot of tea and scones.

“You haven’t said anything about how it went,” she said, once she was finally sitting at the table with him.

“I’m still in,” Gold said, picking at the sultanas on the top of a scone. “Just. It was not a good weekend. I’ve never been so stressed about pastry, of all things.”

But despite the stress and worry, something good had come of the weekend, and he smiled once more. Aunt Elvira raised an eyebrow.

“There’s something that you’re not telling me,” she said shrewdly. “I’m ready to believe anything from the second coming of the Messiah to all kinds of romantic intrigue.”

“Well, no-one saw an image of Jesus in their pasties,” Gold said.

“So, a romantic intrigue?” Elvira leaned in close. “Tell me more!”

Gold just looked at her and took a long gulp of tea.

“No.”

Aunt Elvira huffed and put her hands on her hips. “If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to have to guess. You know you can’t lie to me, Rum, I know all your little tells. Did you have a conversation with Belle that lasted more than three sentences? Did anything remotely like that happen? Was there another proposal? Was someone discovered hiding their paramour in the fridge?”

But Gold remained silent on the matter. He would tell her about the developments between him and Belle soon, but he wanted to keep them to himself as a private happy memory for just a little while longer.

=====

Next week: The bakers tackle European-inspired cakes, Gold fears that Zelena has returned to the tent in spirit, and Emma discovers a hitherto unknown advantage over the other contestants.

=====

Elsa’s sausage rolls recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mini_sausage_plaits_04508

Kouign-Amann recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/kouign_amann_09102

Chapter Text

Belle was feeling distinctly positive as she pulled up outside the filming venue and entered the building. She was one of the first to arrive and availed herself of the fresh coffee that had been put out in the break room before anyone else could get to it. Things seemed to be looking up in all respects. She and Gold were moving along quite nicely, she felt, and their friendship, well, a little bit more than a friendship now, was definitely cemented. She knew that he was available, and that he was definitely looking for something more than what they already had. That was a good sign. She was very much looking forward to seeing him again today and she hoped that the future would hold something spectacular. Even if he did end up going home this week, she knew that she could ask him for his number without any kind of guilt or unease creeping up on her, and she was certain that they could keep in touch.

“Morning Belle,” Leroy said as he entered the break room. Belle could see Astrid rushing hither and thither outside the open door, and she wondered what on earth it was that had to be done so early that required such speed, but she didn’t ask. Astrid had already proven herself to be an incredibly invaluable member of the crew and it wouldn’t do to question her tasks. If she was doing it then it was important, whereas all Belle had to do was turn up on the day and talk to the camera. She remembered when she had first started doing baking shows on the TV; she had been so nervous and would never look at the camera properly, always addressing the person who was standing off to one side with the boom mic. Over the years she had shed her fears considerably and the camera was now just another thing in the room, another observer. Seeing the bakers’ reactions to the camera was always fun, and it was great to see the ways that they relaxed over the course of the show as they became used to its presence - and in some cases befriended the camera operators. Jefferson had been a natural in front of the camera from the first day, and Emma had not been bad either. Gold, Aurora and Regina had taken a little bit more coaxing out of their shells, but they too were now talking through the steps of their recipes with the camera operators with ease. At least one of them - probably Jefferson - would go on to other television appearances, even if it was just being invited back to one of the bake-off Christmas specials, wherein they asked a few previous contestants to return to the tent for one more weekend of baking and camaraderie. There were still a few more months before they had to think about that though. Best to get through the current competition first. Belle thought back to the filming work that she had done during the week with Granny - alongside the bake-off, the production company also filmed a series of how-to segments that would be aired after the series finished showing how all the various technical challenges ought to be made and giving people ideas for their own signature bakes. This week, Granny had been making kouign-amann and Belle had been perfecting puff pastry. It was always an enjoyable experience filming the segments with Granny, and even now, years after she had learned to bake and begun her career in the professional patisserie world, Belle was still learning new things.

She stopped to chat to Leroy for a bit as the other bakers began to arrive in the room, then with some reluctance she moved away into the little ante-room that she shared with Granny. Passing the open front doors on her way, she could see a taxi pulling up at the gates, and a familiar figure with greying hair and a cane getting out of it, and Belle smiled.

X

Bonjour tout le monde!” Jefferson exclaimed as he came into the break room. Gold raised an eyebrow and took a sip of tea. His enthusiasm was laudable, but it was too early in the morning for it to be reasonably applauded. For his part, the tailor just rolled his eyes at the lack of response to his greeting and came over to get some coffee.

“Honestly, all I’m trying to do is inject a little bit of European verve into the day to get us all ready for the challenge.”

“Jeff, I have not had any coffee yet, therefore my brain can barely understand English let alone a language I’ve never learned,” Emma muttered. “Although I am looking forward to this week’s challenges. Maybe not the technical, I don’t think anyone ever looks forward to the technical.” She narrowed her eyes at Jeff. “Well, except perhaps you, because you’re weird.”

“I look forward to the challenge, not necessarily to the recipe,” Jefferson said. “These are the things that you have to embrace in the competition. We can’t change it so there’s no use in dreading it. Jump in with both feet I say, and grab the bull by the balls.”

“I think you’re mixing metaphors there, Jeff,” Lance said. “I certainly wouldn’t want to grab anything by the balls, least of all a bull.”

“Don’t try it with a ram, either,” Gold said dryly. “I can speak from personal experience on that one.”

The other gathered bakers looked at him with expressions ranging from the startled to the disgusted to the faintly admiring, and he gave a snort of laughter. “Perhaps I won’t start the lecture on animal husbandry before we’ve even started with food today, it might put us off. But if you ever do want any tips on healthy sheep breeding, I’m right here.”

“I trust your own appendages are intact following the incident with the ram?” Jefferson inquired politely. Gold just looked at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The subject was thankfully dropped as Astrid came in to fit their mic packs and Ursula rushed in, grabbing a pastry from the breakfast basket.

“Morning all,” she said. “Slightly held up in make-up. Ella drew her eyebrows on wonky this morning and neither of us noticed. I’m not sure what’s worrying, the fact I didn’t realise or that I thought she was just giving me a permanently surprised look for no apparent reason and didn’t question it. Still, good luck for today and I’m sure you’ll all do well. I’ll see you down in the tent in a minute.”

Soon enough they were being herded down into the tent ready for filming to begin. Whatever Ella had done to her eyebrows had evidently been fixed, as Gold could see no difference to their usual starkness. Still, enough of the presenters’ eyebrows, it was time to bake.

“Good morning bakers,” Ursula began. “Welcome to the first day of a weekend inspired by European cakes. Considering our rather tenuous position within the EU at the moment, we decided that it was probably a good idea to get this week out of the way in case it causes anything politically catastrophic down the line.”

“For your signature challenge this week, Granny and Belle would like you to make a cake inspired by a traditional European bake - a savarin or a kugelhopf, or something along those lines. This cake must be leavened with yeast instead of a raising agent such as baking powder. You have three hours to complete your cakes, so on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The usual flurry of activity in the tent began, and Gold got to work. Up until being selected for the bake-off, he had never heard of using yeast in a cake before, and he’d had to do some research into the types of cakes that used it. The baking cupboard in his kitchen did play host to a beautiful kugelhopf mould that he had never used and had never had cause to question. It had belonged to his Aunt Miriam and had been passed down the generations ever since her grandmother had brought it over with her from Germany, but according to his Aunt Elvira she’d never used it in all the years she’d been living in the farmhouse, and since all the old recipes that he could have used from Miriam’s stash were in German and coming up for one hundred years old, he didn’t really have a lot to go on in terms of tried and tested recipes. In the end he’d resorted to scouring the Internet, and was going with a rich chocolate and hazelnut cake, drizzled with syrup.

With fewer bakers to get around now, Belle and Granny seemed to be taking their time in talking to each of the contestants, spending a little more time with each one instead of rushing away to the next person, and as a result when they came to Gold, his mixture was already in the proving drawer, waiting until it rose to the top of the tin. That was a problem that Gold had discovered during the practice bakes he had made - because the kugelhopf tin was patterned all the way to the very top, if the mixture did not rise enough then it would lose definition and not look even. He’d tried to make the dough as quickly as he could it order to give it maximum rising time, but it would still need about an hour in the oven to make sure that it was well cooked all the way through. He was busying himself measuring out the ingredients that would form his syrup when the camera crew arrived.

“Good morning Mr Gold,” said Ella. “I can already tell that whatever you’re making I am very much going to enjoy it.” She indicated the large bottle of chocolate liqueur that was standing on his workbench and that would form the basis of his syrup. “In fact, I don’t really care all that much about the cake, just give me the syrup.”

“Well, I care about the cake,” Granny said. “What kind of a cake are you making, Raymond?”

“This will be a chocolate and hazelnut marbled kugelhopf, with a chocolate liqueur syrup, drizzled with white and dark chocolate.”

“It sounds lovely,” Belle said. “How have your practice attempts turned out?”

“Not too bad, considering I made up the recipe from about three different ones and I’m using a mould that’s almost a century old. I’m just hoping that I get a really good marbled swirl throughout the cake, as the last thing we want are lumps of colour. I was reading that the traditional kugelhopfs were marbled cakes, so that was what I went with today.”

“Well, the best of luck to you,” Granny said. “Just make sure that your syrup doesn’t crystalise on the top of the cake, make sure it soaks in nicely.”

“Yes, no pressure there at all, Granny,” Ella said sagely. “Whatever happens, I am very much looking forward to tasting it.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “I would never have guessed.”

Given the size and comparative density of the cakes, they required a long bake, and by necessity towards the end of the bake they ended up spending a long period sitting around watching their ovens. Gold had managed to get the necessary rise on his dough before it went into the oven so he just hoped that it would hold its shape and not sag. It was a good opportunity to find out what everyone else was making and track down the delicious smell of cinnamon that was pervading the tent. It turned out to be coming from Regina’s bench, where she was caramelising apple slices to top her kugelhopf with.

“I cook a lot with apples,” she said. “I just hope that people don’t start to associate me with them too much. I know we all made fun of Zelena for making everything green, but in all seriousness I don’t want it to become my trademark. I just have a huge apple tree at home and I can’t use them quick enough.”

Lance had gone with an orange savarin that Ella was also looking forward to sampling given the large quantities of Cointreau in the glaze, and Leroy was lamenting the fact that his almond and raspberry savarin seemed to be shrinking in the oven before his eyes. All too soon it was time for the cakes to come out of the oven and glazes and various other decorations to be applied in the hope that the syrup would permeate well through the warm cake and would make it moist and delicious. Perhaps now more than ever before, Gold wished that he could cut into his bake before the judges sampled it so that he could see what it looked like on the inside. It didn’t look amazing on the outside since it was so dark from the cocoa in the cake itself and the dark syrup soaking into it, but hopefully some artistic chocolate drizzling could make it look slightly more appetising.

Ursula called time on the challenge and Gold looked at his bake critically. It didn’t look the neatest thing that he had ever made, but he knew that it was cooked through and it didn’t appear to be over or underproved. It looked like all his practice attempts had looked, and they had come out rather well, all things considered. Well, Bae and Aunt Elvira had said that they tasted all right, which was as good as he was going to get before he faced the judges. The clean-up began around them. That was one thing that was noticeable as the number of contestants dwindled - the clean-up time was faster and faster with now only six people to wash up after. One of the things that had amused Gold the most when he had first come into the tent was seeing all the little hidden cubby holes that the production crew used to store all the equipment and cleaning products that were invisible to the viewers at home. No matter what kind of mess might have been generated during the baking time, whenever it came to the judging, the tent always looked pristine. Watching at home, no-one really got to appreciate just how long the filming process took, and all the waiting around that was involved between the baking time finishing and the judging time beginning. Clever editing made it all look so seamless.

The judges began to make their way around the tent. Leroy’s shrunken savarin was put down to it being underproved, but the taste was good. Emma had also had shrinkage problems, but hers came from a different source - she’d added too much syrup to her cake and it had become so saturated that it had started to dip and sag with the weight of the liquid on it. Regina’s apple and cinnamon cake was well-praised, as were Lance and Jefferson’s bakes. Then it was the moment of truth for Gold, and he crossed his fingers under the table as Granny cut into the cake. Thankfully, it was marbled properly and he let out a sigh of relief. That was one less thing to worry about.

“It tastes very good,” Granny said. “The dough is quite sweet but the bitterness of the dark chocolate sets it off nicely. You could have used a bit more syrup, there are some places at the bottom here where you can see that it’s quite dry, but it’s been well proved and well baked, your timing is excellent.”

Gold smiled. “Thank you.”

“I agree,” Belle said. “Don’t be stingy with the syrup. Don’t flood it, but you do need to make sure that it gets right down inside the cake. And I love the marbled effect, you’ve done that really well.”

“If there’s any syrup leftover…” Ella began, but Gold shook his head with a smile and she gave in with good grace. It had been a good start to the day. He wasn’t on shaky ground going into the afternoon’s technical, so there was room for error, he felt. Of course, there was still another day to get through, one that would prove very tricky for various reasons, but that was something to worry about tomorrow. For now, it was time to forget baking and have lunch.

Well, if sampling everyone else’s cakes counted as lunch. Astrid kept trying to push them all back up to the house so that they could reset the tent for the technical, and eventually all the cakes had been tasted by everyone and they returned to the break room.

“I seem to have a penchant for sogginess,” Emma was musing as they ate. “First the tiramisu, then the savarin. It’s all very strange. I wonder if the cake universe is trying to tell me something.”

“That’s probably something best left unexplored,” Jefferson said. “We’ve already caused enough of a stir with Gold’s remarks on rams’ unmentionables. At least we’re not on camera. That would certainly draw us a few complaints from the viewers.”

“What with all the trouble Zelena caused I don’t think we’ll have a lot to worry about on that score. She’s upped the scandal count enough on her own. To think, bake-off always used to be so calm and placid and now we’ve got proper drama!”

“Let’s not think about it,” Gold pleaded. “We’ve only just managed to exorcise her from the tent, can we not drag up her memory?”

“Yes, she might be like one of those b-movie monsters where you say their name three times and they appear and cause havoc,” Emma said.

“Oh god, can you imagine her crawling out of the freezer?” Jefferson sounded morbidly fascinated by the prospect and Gold buried his face in his hands.

“Please Jeff, just stop.”

“All right.” There was one thing to be said for Jefferson and it was that nothing ever really phased him. “We’ll move onto much more palatable topics. What do you think that they’re going to get us to make this afternoon? I mean, the last time they did a European-themed week they had them making a classic Savarin so I don’t think that it’s going to be that. And they did Sachertorte last year. I can’t think of any other classic European cakes that they could choose, and I don’t really think that we’ve got enough time for a croquembouche.”

“Baumkuchen?” Lance suggested. “I can’t think of anything more technically complicated than that.”

“Isn’t that the one that’s cooked on a spit?” Jefferson said. “I mean, we had enough trouble with fire scares when Mal was here with her blowtorch, I dread to think what would happen if we had to start spit roasting cakes.”

“I don’t know, they do like to test all our different techniques.”

“Cannoli,” Regina suggested. “They’re Italian, that would fit. Mmm. I love cannoli, I hope it’s that. Mind you I might end up eating them before they can be judged.”

“What about you, Gold?” Emma asked. “What do you think it could be? You’re the one with German ancestry somewhere along the line.”

“I really need to point out that the Germans are on my Aunt Miriam’s side and she’s not technically a blood relation. I’m just as in the dark as you are.”

“Macaroons,” Jefferson suggested. “Or maybe they’ve gone to the other end of the scale and it’s going to be something completely different like a traditional bread or something. Maybe brioches. Or pizza. Did they specify that it’s cakes, or just bakes?”

“Cakes,” Gold said.

“Well, at least that narrows down the possibilities.” Jefferson’s optimism was unfailing, even as they went back down towards the tent.

“Good afternoon bakers,” Ursula began. “I hope that you’re all well rested and refreshed and ready for today’s technical challenge. As always, this will be judged blind so Granny and Belle will be leaving us to do mysterious things over in their little pagoda. This recipe is one of Granny’s, any sage words of advice for our contestants?”

“Read the recipe,” Granny said. “Read it very carefully.”

“Right. And with that rather ominous warning, I think it’s time that you left us.” Ursula shooed the judges out of the tent and the presenters turned back to the bakers.

“All right, now that we’ve sent Granny and Belle off to their extreme knitting class, or whatever it is that they get up to whilst you’re all sweating away in here trying to make their ridiculous confections, we can tell you what you will be making,” Ella said. “This is a traditional and complex recipe from Sweden.”

“Granny and Belle would like you to make a princesstarta, a celebration cake with layers of sponge, crème patissière, and jam, covered with a dome of green marzipan.”

Behind him, Gold heard Emma give a little gasp, and he glanced at her over his shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly on realising that everyone’s attention was on her. “Carry on.”

“Ok. Well, you have two and a quarter hours to make this Scandinavian delight, so on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold lifted the cloth off the ingredients that were stacked on the table, and turned over the recipe card. It was definitely one of the more demanding technical challenges that they’d faced over the course of the bake-off, and he read through the many instructions and looked over all the separate elements that had to be made, in such a short space of time. It was going to be down to the wire, and he had no idea what he was meant to be doing. Well, putting the oven on and beginning to make the sponge would probably be a good idea.

He glanced over his shoulder at Emma, who was working quite happily with a secret little smile on her face, and he wondered what she knew that he didn’t.

X

“For the record, Granny, I think you’re evil.” Belle and Granny were sitting in their little pavilion, eating slices of Granny’s ‘here’s one I made earlier’ princesstarta and enjoying a little respite before they had to go back into the main tent and judge the technical. “First the kouign-amann last week and now this. You’re on a role for giving them things to make that they’ve never heard of.”

“You can talk.” Granny gave her a sly look. “You’ve set them a povitica next week. How many of them are going to have heard of that?”

“They might not know what it’s called, but I bet that once they get reading the recipe they’ll know what it’s supposed to look like,” Belle said.

“Well, that’s not so different to a princesstarta. I gave them fairly specific instructions, so it’ll be interesting to see how differently they interpret them.”

“Last week certainly saw a lot of variation,” Belle agreed. “But then the recipe was a lot vaguer. I think it will probably be closer than last week. I don’t think cake is as easy to get dramatically wrong as pastry is, especially laminated pastries. I think it’ll be a question of timing for most of them, getting everything done in the time.”

“And making sure that nothing starts going wrong in the time it’s sitting waiting to be assembled,” Granny added. Belle knew that they were both thinking of Elsa’s mishap with the crème patissière during the eclair challenge the previous week, and since crème was one of the key elements holding the princesstarta together, she hoped that none of the bakers would have a similar catastrophe this afternoon.

“They’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to seeing the vast variations in colour on the marzipan coating though.” Granny looked positively mephistophelean. “In a way I’m sad that Zelena’s no longer here. She’d have been in her element with all that green.”

“Don’t remind me,” Belle muttered. All the same, she did have to wonder what the bakers who had already eliminated would have made in the previous few weeks if they had made it this far.

“Yes, you’re right. Let’s leave Zelena well out of it for the moment and focus on happier things. How’s our little tent romance going?”

“Well, Mal hasn’t been here for the last two weeks but as far as I can make out, she and Regina are still in touch and everything’s progressing very nicely,” Belle said blithely. She knew that wasn’t what Granny meant, and the older woman also knew that she knew, and just gave her a look over the top of her glasses.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and Belle looked down at her cup of tea to avoid meeting Granny’s gaze.

“It’s going all right. Slow and steady.”

“You seemed to be getting on well last weekend. Can we hope that something along the same lines might happen again?”

Belle didn’t reply, thinking back to the little proto-date that she and Gold had shared one week ago now. It had been a lovely evening, just the two of them talking and drinking tea, and as much as she wanted it to happen again, the very fact that Granny had commented on it put her off in some respects. It had reminded her forcibly that this relationship was beginning in the public eye. Not necessarily in front of the cameras per se, although there were the odd little flirtatious moments that she instigated whilst the baking was going on, that Gold never really quite knew how to handle. It was nice to see him blush, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. No, it was the idea that there were no secrets in the tent, and that everyone knew everything that was going on in the small, open space. This thing that was developing with Gold, she wanted it to be private, not conducted out here under everyone’s noses where anyone and everyone could pass comment on it. It was true that the people who were best placed to notice it all seemed to be encouraging it, but that wasn’t what she needed. She didn’t want the scrutiny and she didn’t want people asking her how it was going all the time. Belle wouldn’t class her previous break-ups as failed relationships, but they were still break-ups and there were quite a few of them, and she was trying to look for something that lasted. And Gold too, as she had learned from talking to him the previous week, had not had the happiest time of it when it came to love. They were both looking for something real and solid, and she didn’t want outside pressure from Granny, Ella and Ursula to cause this fledgling little spark to buckle under the strain of trying to be the perfect storybook romance that they all seemed to be pinning their hopes on.

“Ok, I’ll leave it alone.” Granny reached across and patted her hand. “It’s unfair for me to take such an interest when I wouldn’t ordinarily. I think because it’s here on the show, we all feel more invested in it. We’re spectators just like the viewers at home, and we’re all cheering you on. The difference is, of course, that we’re here and we can actually talk to you and cheer you on, rather than being separated by a TV screen and thousands of miles.”

“Yeah,” Belle said. “It doesn’t matter when you’re rooting for two people on the TV to get together because you can yell and shout and tell them they’re idiots and throw popcorn at the screen whilst you wait for them to get their acts together, but it won’t make the blindest bit of difference and that’s absolutely fine. You can’t do that in real life.”

“I know. I won’t push it. But I’m glad that things seem to be going in the right direction, certainly. You deserve that happiness. I don’t claim to know Gold as well as you do, but I get the impression that it certainly wouldn’t hurt for him to have some love in his life.”

Belle smiled. “No, I think you’re right there.” She sighed. “It’s hard to strike a balance, I think. I don’t want to get too close too quickly, not only for fear of frightening him off but also for fear that someone’s going to get suspicious and raise it with the producers. I mean, the only person who I really fear doing that has gone now, but even so, it’s something that we’ve got to consider. And at the same time, I know just how changeable things can be on this show and he might go home tomorrow, and then I’m not quite sure where we stand.”

“They do always say that absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Granny pointed out. “I think that where there’s a will, there’s a way. You’ll make it work, no matter what happens. But I don’t think he’s in too much danger this week. His signature cake wasn’t the best in the tent but it was still pretty good. He’s coasting along in the middle at the moment.”

“Yes.” Belle said nothing more, contemplating everything that was happening. She hoped that Gold would have a better technical than the previous week, when he had come last. That had really hammered home the possibility of him not coming back, and Belle wondered if perhaps another date was in order this evening to make the moment of parting a little sweeter - if it came at all. Or maybe Granny was right, and absence would make the heart grow fonder. Whatever happened, she knew that she wasn’t going to let him go home without giving him her number. She’d never felt this way about a contestant before. Certainly there were the odd couple whom she’d rooted for a little more than the others, but generally those were the ones who really showed an innate and exceptional talent for baking, or the younger ones who showed such passion and determination for it in the middle of studying to become something else entirely. She’d never had a favourite for personal reasons. If Gold won the competition then that would be great, but she wasn’t really hoping that he would stay in so that he would win, more so that she could keep on getting to know him better.

The first few spots of rain were pattering down on the roof of the tent as Astrid hurried over with an umbrella to bring them back in for the judging. The table, now down to just six bakes on it, looked very large, and the six princesstarta were showing great variation in shape, size, and colour. Belle’s eye was immediately drawn to the cake on the far end and she glanced over at Granny, because they both knew that one was likely to be the winner even without sampling it. From the outside, it looked absolutely perfect, as if it had been bought in a shop and brought out. The marzipan was a nice pale green, no telltale streaks or sugar marks on it, and it covered the cake evenly without patching, like some of the other cakes had. It was nicely domed and not flat, and the sugar and chocolate decorations, although a little rough around the edges, looked exactly like they should. Still, even though it looked like there was a clear victor, all the cakes had to be sampled, and looks weren’t everything - once they got inside it, it might not be up to snuff.

Most of the bakers had done a fairly decent job on the inside of the cakes but it was presentation that let them down - patchy marzipan or sunken cakes. A couple had crème patissière that was very obviously too runny, as if they’d run out of time on the bake and they were making the best of what they had. Lance’s cake was the messiest and came in last place, with Leroy’s sunken cake just above it, followed by Jefferson, Gold, and Regina, who could always be relied on to produce something with excellent finish, be it in a signature or a technical. Emma’s was the near-perfect cake, and as she received the congratulations of the judges, presenters and her fellow contestants, she looked a bit sheepish.

“I’m not sure whether I really deserve the accolade to be honest,” she said. “Because I know that this technical was probably chosen because it’s something fairly obscure that not everyone will have heard of or know what it looks like, but I’ve made a few of these when I was younger.”

“Really?” Jefferson was looking completely incredulous. “How on earth have you had such specific confectionary exposure?”

Emma shrugged. “I had a foster mum who was Swedish. Well, half-Swedish, half-Danish. She used to make these cakes for birthdays and stuff. I love them. They’re a reminder of one of the best parts of my childhood. As soon as you said it was a princesstarta I immediately remembered making them with Ingrid.”

Belle smiled. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to disqualify you based on your knowledge of non-mainstream cakes. I’m just glad that this challenge turned out not to be so much of a challenge for you.”

“Yes, and as the winner of the technical, you can stand us all drinks at the hotel bar,” Jefferson said with a wink. Emma rolled her eyes.

“You know, I really think that you ought to be the ones standing me drinks, but sure, I’ll get the first round in.”

“Bearing in mind, of course,” Jefferson added, “that it will probably be the only round because we need to make sure we’re all level headed tomorrow for the showstopper. We can’t have anyone turning up sozzled to make their cakes or else we could be in for some spectacular collapses. And I’m not just talking about the cakes.”

“You know, Jefferson, I do get the distinct impression that you were talking about me then,” Ella said. “I would be heavily offended if it wasn’t true.”

“Ella, my dear, you know I would never say anything that would slander your good name.” He bowed low, and the contestants left the tent, all of them moving up towards the driveway and the various forms of transportation waiting for them there. It was good to see these remaining few getting on so well together, and continuing that sense of community by going out after the day’s filming had finished instead of all going their separate ways. Belle and the others who remained knew better than to join them. They needed to maintain some distance, which was why Granny and Belle were always ensconced away in the little ante-room whilst the others were all relaxing in the breakroom. And even though Ella and Ursula had much more contact with the bakers and were on much friendlier terms with them, it would still be a little strange for them to socialise with them as a group outside of the context of filming. It was a bit like going on a school trip and having the teachers socialising with the kids - it would be awkward to say the least.

“Still,” Ella said brightly. “We can have our own girls’ night out. What do you say, ladies?”

“Well, I think I’m about fifty years too late to qualify as a girl,” Granny said, “but I wouldn’t say no to a gin and tonic if you’re offering one.”

“I am indeed. Belle?”

“Sure.”

They took a taxi into the town centre; the security team would keep their cars safe in the carpark overnight, although Belle wasn’t sure who would want to steal either Ella’s ridiculously large black and white Panther or her own nondescript Vauxhall. Ella was responsible for finding a suitable watering hole. The bake-off had moved location a couple of times during its run and every time, Ella always managed to find a new favourite bar. This particular one was on the less classy end of the spectrum, but the drinks were well made and reasonably priced, and no-one paid them all that much attention as they sat at a table in the corner with their cocktails. There was usually at least one night out like this during filming, a spontaneous trip with no real reason behind it, just because they felt like letting their hair down. Their tongues would be loosened by the alcohol and outside of the tent and the cameras, they could share what they really thought about the bakers and the progress of the show so far. It was never malicious; the nearest they really got to badmouthing a contestant was lamenting a bad run of bakes, or consistent mistakes like time management that weeks in the tent never seemed to put right.

This time, though, Belle knew that there would be more than a few disparaging comments about bakers not so dearly departed, and she hoped beyond hope that the conversation would not turn in the direction of her and Gold’s… What was it, exactly? It was more than a friendship, as mutual attraction had been admitted and acknowledged, but it wasn’t really anywhere near a relationship yet. It was just a kind of nebulous, undefined thing.

“So, here we are. We’re over halfway through the competition and we’ve got half the number of bakers that we started with,” Ella said. “The tent really does look horribly empty with only the six of them in it. I feel that we ought to start scaling it down, so that as we lose contestants, the tent gets smaller and cosier so it doesn’t feel so cavernous.”

“I don’t know,” Granny pondered. “I think that when it gets into the final few weeks they’re always glad of the extra space and the spare workbenches. You know what they say. However large your kitchen is, it’s never large enough, and we only give them the one, comparatively small, bench to work on. I know that when I’m baking on a large scale at home, every surface gets covered in ingredients and utensils and things that are cooling.”

“Considering your kitchen is the size of our entire apartment, that’s saying something,” Ursula said dryly. Belle just laughed. She was well aware of the problem of running out of space. When she’d been studying, she’d been living in a tiny bedsit with an equally tiny kitchenette that had practically no work surface space, so she’d often ended up covering her bed with a dust sheet and doing all her cooking and baking there instead of in the kitchen.

“Still we can’t deny that there are a few that we’re glad to see the back of, but we won’t dwell on those. Let’s focus on the ones that are left.” Ella said. “You know, I can never tell what Jefferson’s thinking. I keep expecting him to do something incredibly outrageous during filming because when you first meet him, you think of him as the attention-seeking sort. He’s always wearing the waistcoat and pocket watch combination, all he needs is a top hat.”

“Maybe he’s saving that for if he gets to the final,” Granny said. “Perhaps his final showstopper piece will be a giant sponge cake top hat.”

“Yes, but he couldn’t wear it then. Although, considering some of the mishaps we’ve had with messy bakers in this and previous years, I’m not sure that wearing it wouldn’t make it better.”

“So, it has to be asked at some point, I may as well ask it now.” Ella turned her attention to Belle and grinned conspiratorially. Belle rolled her eyes.

“No,” she said before her friend had even had chance to open her mouth. “We’re not talking about my lovelife. I mean, it can’t even be called a lovelife yet.”

“I don’t know, you were getting very close over a cup of tea last week.”

“I’m serious, Ella.”

“So am I. Come on, we’re already hearing wedding bells in the distance. It’s plain to see when you look at the two of you together that you’re absolutely made for each other and marriage is on the horizon once the show finishes.”

“Ella, I know hardly anything about him, we’ve been on one date that can barely be called a date. It’s bad enough that Granny’s already thinking about designing the wedding cake. Perhaps not adding too much pressure too soon?”

“Oh, but it’s so much fun!” Ella exclaimed. “You’ve always been so sensible about everything related to the competition and I’ve never had the chance to tease you about something, and now I do. It’s all part and parcel of the experience.”

“It’s the bakers that you’re meant to be bantering with, not the judges,” Granny pointed out.

“Yes, but the bakers are not here, so I have to make do with what I’ve got. Anyway, do you think that he can go the distance and make it to the final?”

Belle nodded. “Yes, I like to think so. The trouble is at this stage that they’re all so good that it’s hard to pick between them, but I think the finalists will end up being Regina, Jefferson and Rum.”

“Oh, so he’s called Rum now?” Ursula said, smirking, and Belle let out a long sigh, resting her forehead against the edge of the table.

“You know what, I’m just going to stop talking altogether and then see how you all get on for entertainment,” she muttered.

“Oh, you don’t have to talk, watching your reactions is just as good as listening to them,” Ella said airily. “But perhaps we ought to stop; we’re attracting attention to ourselves and it really wouldn’t be doing to be giving out any spoilers before the show airs. There was that time two years ago when the bookies stopped taking bets on who was going to win because I’d accidentally let slip who’d got through to the final when we went out for Ursula’s birthday that night. I was nearly fired for that and despite the inevitable yearly weight gain from so much sampling I do enjoy this gig.”

Thankfully the others agreed that it would be best to move on from the topic of the contestants and who they thought was going to win, and by necessity they moved on from talking about Belle and Gold’s developing relationship as well. They chatted about the renovations that Ursula and Ella were making to their home, and about Granny’s various relations up and down the country, and if anyone had come into the bar at that moment and overheard their conversation, none of them would suspect that they were television personalities unless they were recognised. All told it was an enjoyable evening; they usually went out as a small group at least once per season and Belle always looked forward to the event. Today’s impromptu outing was no exception. She could even take the ribbing she’d got about Gold, because she knew that it was all good-natured and that she had the complete support of the other three women around the table. It was a good feeling, and one that she couldn’t wait to act on when the time was right.

X

The second day of the baking weekend dawned grey and overcast, with the threat of rain hanging over them throughout the setup. Gold hoped that it would not actually rain. It was not that he feared the tent leaking, as Ella seemed to constantly threaten, but the sound of the raindrops on the waterproof canvas was maddeningly distracting and in the past, the downpours seemed to come just when he was trying to concentrate on something fiddly. Yesterday’s soirée in the bar with the rest of the bakers had been a good evening, and it had been nice to spend time with everyone all together for a change. Since there were only six of them left and they would soon only be five, it was good to have done something in which everyone had been included.

Ella stepped forward and cleared her throat. “Good morning bakers, and welcome to your showstopper challenge. Today, Granny and Belle would like you to make a dobos torte. This is a traditional Hungarian cake made with several layers and lots of caramel. The dobos torte must have two tiers and it can be decorated in any way you wish, but Granny and Belle are looking for a focus on sugarwork skills - whatever you can show off, use it and create the best caramel confections that you can. You have five hours to complete the challenge.”

“On your marks!”

“Get set!”

“Bake!”

The challenge began, and Gold set about making the sponge mixture. As soon as that was out of the way he could then start focussing on his caramel. Since the dobos torte was made up of so many thin layers of cake, it was essential to get them baking as soon as possible as he would have to make several batches. Each tier of his cake required six layers of sponge and he could only fit three in the oven at a time, so he would need to get a production line going. Sponges first, then the caramel buttercream that would coat the entire cake and sandwich all the layers together. Then the final caramel work that would be the pièce de résistance. Hopefully. If he got it done in time and without any mishaps, which was perhaps easier said than done. He’d already decided that caramel was going to be his nemesis throughout the competition, what with the florentines and then the crème brulées, and now he was having to face it again - and be judged on it no less. He couldn’t believe quite how much caramel he was willingly making, but if he wanted to impress Belle and Granny then he had to go all out, and no half measures or shortcuts would be accepted. They would notice if he had tried to shy away from making too much caramel, so he’d decided to just jump in with both feet and go for it. He glanced around the tent at some of the other creations that were going up. Some of the bakers were adding other flavours to their dobos tortes - chocolate and coffee being the predominant ones, and Gold wondered if perhaps the judges would think that his own was too plain. Still there was no time to be wasted worrying about that now; he couldn’t change anything. He just had to focus on making sure that what he was doing was absolutely top notch.

Over on the other side of the tent, Jefferson was talking to Ella and Ursula and outlining his plans for a massive three-tiered cake in chequerboard chocolate and caramel topped with squares of millionaire’s shortbread that Gold really didn’t think he would be able to get done in the time, but then again, if anyone could pull it off then Jefferson probably could. Behind him, Emma was counting sponge circles, hands on her hips.

“I’m just wondering,” she was saying to Walter, who was standing by patiently with his camera, “if it might be easier to bake all the layers of sponge in the same cake tin. That way I know that they’re all going to be exactly the same size and they won’t get thin at the edges. On the other hand, if they’re all packed in so tightly then they won’t cook as quickly. On another hand, they shouldn’t theoretically take longer to cook than a normal cake. Argh, decisions, decisions, and none of them right.”

Gold did not find out what Emma ended up deciding with regard to how to bake her sponges, because it was time for his first batch to come out and his second batch to go in, and at the same time the judges were coming over to speak to him. They did kindly wait until he was vertical and not holding delicate trays of sponge before they spoke.

“Good morning, Mr Gold!” Ella said brightly. “So, what can we expect from you today? Great things, I hope.”

“I hope so too.”

“What kind of caramel work are you going to be using?” Granny asked. “Spun sugar, moulded sugar?”

“I’m making caramel buttercream which is going to coat the whole cake,” Gold said. “I’m making about three kilos of the stuff. Then the sides are going to be decorated with hazelnut brittle and caramelised nuts, and I want to do shards of caramel to stick on the top.”

“It sounds ambitious,” Belle said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.”

“Well, it’s not as ambitious as some people’s.” Gold glanced across at Jefferson, who appeared to be juggling trays of sponge circles in one hand and making a biscuit base for the millionaire’s shortbread with the other.

“Maybe not, but there is such a thing as being overambitious, and for all this is a showstopper, you do need to be able to work within your limits,” Granny said. “We’ll let you get on. Those sponges are so thin and light that they won’t need long and I’d hate for anything to get burned because we were distracting you.”

The bake continued, with various exclamations and the odd torrent of profanity going up from various workbenches as the cakes were created to different levels of success. Gold’s sponges were not burned and his first batch of caramel for the buttercream came out well, but trying to make a second batch of caramel that he could use for brittle at the same time as trying to assemble and sandwich the layers together was never going to be an easy task and he ended up binning that lot of caramel. In hindsight he realised that throwing burning hot caramel into the bin was probably not a good idea and he’d likely melted the bin bag, but that was something that he would just have to chalk up to experience. He gave the caramel his full attention this time; luckily the brittle was easy to make and could just be left to cool once it was made and he could get back to the trickier task of icing. This, he thought, was where the challenge ended up being so time-consuming. With so few of them left in the competition, Belle and Granny would be looking for the slightest discrepancies that they could pick up on and anything less than perfectly precise icing would be marked down. The trouble was, as it always was with these things, that his hands were shaking with the pressure and it was going to be very hard to pipe perfect buttercream rosettes when the piping bag was going all over the place. At least he’d made the executive decision to assemble his second tier on top of his first tier rather than making the two tiers separately and then having to manouver one on top of the other like Jefferson was doing. The other man was calling out for a stepladder so as to have maximum leverage, and he ended up getting Ella and Ursula to help him hold the tiers in place as he assembled. Time was counting down and all of the dobos tortes were in various stages of disarray. Behind him, Emma was muttering under her breath as she made a spun sugar nest to sit on the top of her cake. She was already on her third attempt to make it and the muffled cursing was only getting worse until he finally heard a quiet hiss of eureka and he risked a glance over his shoulder to see her placing the nest - complete with sugar bird and chocolate eggs - on top of her cake.

He finally managed to get the rosettes piped cleanly and topped each one with a caramelised hazelnut before spreading out crushed shards of leftover caramel over the top of the cake. Overall, he didn’t think it looked too bad. It might not be as complex as some of the other bakers’ creations, but it was neat and well-presented, and that should hopefully account for something at this late stage.

Ella called time on the challenge and Gold sat back with a sigh of relief, looking around the tent. Jefferson’s gigantic masterpiece was looking magnificent, although Gold noted that it had only ended up with just the two tiers in the end. The clean-up began, and it was clear that everyone was checking out the competition and trying to work out who had done enough to make it through and who had fallen short. To be honest, Gold thought that it would be pretty close between all of them, he couldn’t see one cake that really stood out as being worse than all the rest. Finally, it was time for the moment of truth. Jefferson was up first, and Belle and Granny praised his ambition and creativity, although they criticised the texture of his caramel work.

“It’s a bit grainy,” Belle said. “Caramel in a millionaire’s shortbread should be smooth and creamy; I can feel that there are still unmelted grains of sugar in there, which probably came about because you were running out of time.”

Jefferson nodded. “Guilty as charged. I did rather misjudge how long it would take to get that many cakes in and out of the oven.”

The other bakers were all praised for some aspects and not for others; Gold’s presentation was good, Granny would have liked to have seen a bit more pizazz to it but the things he had done had been executed well. Emma’s bake overall looked a bit messy, but she’d used a wide range of sugarwork techniques to create her nest cake and when it was cut open, the sponge layers inside were striped with vanilla, caramel and chocolate. It was going to be very close, and during the judges’ deliberation time whilst the tent was reset, no-one could think of anything to say to each other, all of them too nervous about what was to come next. True, they were all friends in the tent and the conversation had flowed easily enough last night, but now things were different. Now they were baking and the competition was all too real.

The judges and presenters returned to the tent for the moment of reckoning.

“Well, bakers, the decision has been made. It’s been an incredibly close week, one of the closest we’ve had on the bake-off in a long time. We almost had to break out the boxing gloves again and have Granny and Belle go ten rounds to see who would come out on top. But at long last I can reveal that this week’s star baker, after giving us a show-stopping array of caramel and an almost perfect princesstarta, is Emma.”

There was a spontaneous round of applause and Emma went distinctly pink.

“We’d dearly love to take all of you with us,” Ursula said. “I even offered to smuggle one of you back into the tent in a huge cake. But sadly, Belle vetoed that idea as being against health and safety regulations. The baker who will not be joining us next time is Leroy.”

Leroy shrugged. He hadn’t had a terrible week, he just hadn’t had as good a week as the rest of them had had, and going into the quarter final next week, that was all it took to be sent home at this late stage. The bakers all gathered around in a little huddle, exchanging words of celebration and commiseration, and it was only once people started to disperse that Gold was able to talk to Belle properly.

“We didn’t get a chance to chat yesterday,” he said. “I just wanted to say hello, you know.”

Belle smiled. “Hello yourself. Well done for this week. You really pulled it off and held your own in all three challenges. I’m sure you’ll be able to keep it up to the end if you stay at this standard.”

“Well, I can hope. Fingers crossed.” It was annoying that it was the end of the weekend and there was no room for quiet, casual conversation like they had shared after the technical the previous week, but that was all right. There was always next week, and they could make the effort to make sure that they got more than a few minutes together.

Belle was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and Gold very much wanted to kiss her in that moment. He wondered where that thought had suddenly come from, but he didn’t act upon it and he just smiled at her instead.

“Well, I’ll see you next week, Belle.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Rum.”

X

“Rum! Rum!”

It was very irregular for Aunt Elvira to come running out of the house to greet him when he got in from filming on a Sunday evening, and Gold had the distinct urge to run in the opposite direction away from whatever catastrophe might have occurred in his absence. He knew, of course, that no tragedy had occurred in his absence because he would have heard about it much sooner via the medium of mobile phone. The fact that Aunt Elvira was waving a sheaf of papers at him and was grinning from ear to ear in an utterly terrifying manner served only to increase his desire to run away.

“Rum, you’ll never guess what turned up today!”

Gold could guess, and he really didn’t want to think about the prospect, but he duly stood his ground and let Elvira bound up to him as the taxi rolled away down the drive. She thrust the papers at his chest and waited for him to read them, bouncing up and down on her heels excitedly. Considering that his aunt was pushing eighty and constantly complaining about her bones feeling old whenever she got the chance to, she was remarkably sprightly today. Gold looked down at the papers, immediately recognising the letterhead of the bake-off production company that had graced so much of his correspondence over the past couple of months.

“Can’t I read them when I’m inside?” he asked, trying to put off the inevitable for as long as possible. Aunt Elvira rolled her eyes but dutifully conceded, and dragged him into the house by the hand. Bae was in the kitchen looking bemused but with a distinct excitement of his own, and he started making cups of tea without any prompting. Gold sank onto a seat at the kitchen table and spread the papers around in front of him. The first was a letter inviting Elvira and Bae (and himself, should he be knocked out of the competition within the next two weeks), to the grand finale party held in the grounds of the filming site outside the tent. All the bakers from the series and their extended family and friends would be there to see the winner crowned on the final day, and there was generally a celebratory atmosphere all around. If he was being perfectly honest then Gold thought that this was the part of the proceedings that Aunt Elvira had been most excited about ever since he learned he would be one of the twelve contestants. The other letter was addressed to him, and he looked up at his aunt with a raised eyebrow.

“You’ve been opening my mail.”

“Well, I could see that it was from the production company and I thought I knew what it was and I was just so excited. I didn’t really read it. Just skimmed it a bit.”

“And was it what you thought it was?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Gold read the letter, which was informing him that the production crew planned to come to the farm to film in two weeks’ time, during the week between the semi-final and the final, and they had suggested a few dates, asking Gold to confirm which would be the most convenient. Every year the bakers were always filmed for a small segment at home - ‘baking in their natural environment’ as Elvira called it, and Gold knew that he would be no different. They would come and film a little of the farm and his day job, and his kitchen, and it would all be over within an afternoon or so. Except if he made it to the final, because then Belle would be coming to the farm and there would be a slightly more in depth mini-movie made about him, and the crew would likely want to talk to Bae and Aunt Elvira about his baking skills. Bae wasn’t going to be a problem, but Gold already felt a distinct sense of panic about the possibility of Elvira and Belle interacting. Was it bad to hope that he failed at the last hurdle just so that this possibility never came to fruition? No, ultimately he had grown to be too competitive to do that and considering that he was doing this for Bae, sabotaging his own chances because he was embarrassed of his aunt wasn’t fair. And he really wanted to do as well as he could for his own sake. Having had a couple of bad weeks but managing to claw it back to some degree of success today, he wanted to see if he could continue the streak. Next week was back to dough and bread, and he really wanted to prove himself again and show that his triumph in the third week could be repeated.

“You know, you’ve got to get through to the final now,” Aunt Elvira said sagely. “So that we can meet Belle.”

“You’ll probably meet her at the party anyway,” Gold pointed out. “You’ll meet everyone.”

“I know that, but I want to meet her here, where it’s a nice cosy environment rather than at a big party where there’s a hundred other people who’ll she’ll have to go forth and greet. It’s so exciting when it’s more personal!”

Gold shook his head. “I really think that you’re looking forward to this more than I am,” he muttered. “But fear not, for I am not intending to fail this late in the game.”

“You should get on fine next week, it’s one of your specialities.”

Gold raised an eyebrow.

“Anything that involves a deep fat fryer is not one of my specialities,” he said darkly, but Elvira just gave him the indulgent smile that showed she didn’t agree with him at all but wasn’t going to argue. He’d had a long couple of days after all, and he just wanted to be able to relax. All the same, he did have to consider what he was going to do with Aunt Elvira once the film crews arrived. He liked to think that he was above drugging her and shoving her in a cupboard somewhere so that she couldn’t embarrass him, but at the same time, it was worryingly tempting.

Still, before he had to worry about Aunt Elvira meeting Belle, he still had six more challenges to get through, ones that would only get progressively harder as time went on. If he was going to stand a chance of Belle coming to his home then he was going to have to really pull all the stops out over the next couple of weekends.

He stayed sitting at the table long after Aunt Elvira had left him to start pottering around the kitchen and Bae had excused himself to bed ready for school in the morning, thinking about the possibility of Belle coming to the farm. He wanted her to see it, he was proud of his home, and he liked to think that if their little proto-relationship continued to grow organically as it was doing, then there would be no reason why she shouldn’t see it anyway, with or without a film crew in tow.

Gold smiled at the thought.

=====

Next time - The bakers face advanced dough, try not to give the judges food poisoning, and discover new and innovative uses for doughnuts.

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Princesstarta recipe here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/prinsesstrta_17336

Dobos Torte recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/dobos_torte_82293

Chapter Text

Gold was not having a good week. In fact, to say that he was not having a good week would be the understatement of the century. He had been having a fairly reasonable week up until Tuesday, when he had taken the sheep out into the fields in the morning only to discover that one of them was very clearly not well, walking with difficulty and breathing heavily. Since then, all his time had been taken up with vet visits and nursing the poor ewe back to health. It was a simple infection and could be treated with antibiotics, but she’d had to be segregated from the rest of the herd to prevent the infection spreading, and Gold and Dove had spent the remainder of the week carefully checking over all of the rest of the herd for the slightest sign that something was not right. Even Aunt Elvira had been roped in to assist with their efforts, despite the fact that she had not tended to the sheep on a regular basis for twenty years.

Twice during the week Gold had almost picked up the phone and withdrawn from the bake-off, because his flock was infinitely more important to him than a baking competition and he knew that everyone involved would appreciate that. It was just one of the risks that he had to take, but his farm and his livelihood would always come before anything else.

It was now Friday evening and Gold was waiting for the vet to come and check the ewe over again. If he said that she was on the mend and could be put back in with the rest of them, then he would go to the competition in the morning, safe in the knowledge that Dove and Aunt Elvira could take care of her, but if she was still in need of further treatment and isolation then his time on the bake-off would come to an end; it was as simple as that.

“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, really, could it, Mr G,” Dove mused as they waited for the vet. The ewe certainly seemed happier in herself as she nibbled at her feed and Gold had high hopes for her receiving the all clear and just needing to finish up the course of antibiotics.

“Oh, it could,” Gold said. “I could have got through to the final and then have this happen.”

“True enough. Still, even if you can’t go back tomorrow, I’d say you’ve had a pretty good run of it.”

Gold nodded. “Yes, I’d say that I had.”

“You know, even if she does need more care, I can handle it if you want to go.”

“No,” Gold said firmly. “The sheep come first. Everything else can wait.” Of course he would be disappointed if he couldn’t make it tomorrow, but his priorities in life had always been clear and he wouldn’t change them for anything. In the back of his mind, he kept mulling over the fact that he hadn’t had any chance to practice baking this week thanks to everything else that was going on, so even if he did make it to the filming, it would likely not be a great week for him. He thought about what they were due to make. The signature was something that he had made before many times outside of the competition so that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The technical, obviously, he had no control over so there was no point in worrying about it. It was the showstopper that was giving him the most bother. Doughnuts. He enjoyed eating doughnuts as much as the next person but given the very flammable nature of his home he had always been rather wary about deep fat fryers and he was not looking forward to using one in the tent any more than he was comfortable using one in his own kitchen. So, he might be flying by the seat of his pants a little this week, but there was still hope.

All thoughts of baking were pushed from his mind by the arrival of Aunt Elvira with the vet.

X

“We’re missing someone.”

Jefferson looked around the break room with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, depending on how you look at it, we’re missing quite a few people,” he said. “We’ve lost seven since we started.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Someone who should be here isn’t. Where’s Gold?”

“The curse of amended train timetables again?” Jefferson suggested. “He was the last to arrive on the first week, but I’ll admit that he’s been pretty consistently on time ever since. He usually gets the train that gets in at half past eight, doesn’t he? Maybe the taxi’s broken down. Or there was an unexpected power cut at Edinburgh Waverly.”

“Maybe something came up,” Lance suggested. “He’s a farmer, after all. The unexpected does often happen in the world of agriculture.”

“You’d think that they would have told us if he’d dropped out though,” Jefferson said. “And maybe got Leroy back in or something so we’d have the right number of bakers.”

“Or they might just not eliminate anyone this round.” Regina looked around the break room. “It’s pretty empty in here with just the four of us, it must be said.”

“Think what it’ll be like in two weeks when there’s only three,” Jefferson pointed out. “It’ll be like the Marie Celeste. We’ll all be sitting huddled together for fear of disappearing.”

Astrid came in at that point with the mics and she too looked rather puzzled by Gold’s absence.

“No-one’s told me that he’s not coming, so I’m expecting him to be here,” she said. “I’ll go and talk to the producers, maybe they know something.”

She vanished off again, and could only have been gone for about thirty seconds when the door opened again and Granny and Belle entered.

“I know that we’re not supposed to be here,” Granny said, “but we’ve been hearing so much rushing around and worrying and it feels like everyone’s forgotten about us in the other room, so we’ve come to investigate. What’s going on?”

Jefferson gestured around the room. “We’re one baker short. He’s sunk without trace.”

“Not exactly without trace.” Emma was typing furiously on her phone. “We all exchanged numbers when Elsa left, it makes sense to use that information now.”

The two judges looked at each other, wondering what this could mean for the show. They’d had bakers drop out due to health issues before, but they usually had a few days warning before that happened and they could make the necessary changes accordingly. They’d never had someone just fail to show up before.

Emma’s phone began to ring.

“It’s him.”

She went outside to talk the call, bumping into Astrid who was on her way back in. She never seemed to be able to do anything at a speed below breakneck, and she skidded into the break room, did a double take on seeing Granny and Belle in there as well, before announcing, ‘we’ll be starting a little bit later today’, and racing off out again.

This information didn’t do anything to stop the remaining contestants and judges from looking at each other completely perplexed, and it raised more questions than it answered. Was Gold coming and had been hideously delayed, hence the wait? Or was he not coming and the producers were having a last minute confab to work out what they were going to do now? They all awaited Emma’s return with baited breath, and when she finally returned, her manner calm and casual, Jefferson exclaimed, waving his hands: “Well?”

“It’s a long story,” Emma said. “But he’s on his way. We’ll see him in about an hour.”

“What’s happened?” Jefferson said, pulling out a chair and indicating for Emma to sit down. “You need to tell us everything! We’ve got an hour, we’ve got time! What’s been going on? Has Zelena tracked him down and held him hostage with a bread knife? Did he get stuck on a bus replacement service that went to Penzance by accident? Tell us!”

Emma just looked at him.

“He’ll tell you himself when he gets here,” she said levelly. “Just know that he’s coming, and that everything’s all right.”

“Emma!” Jefferson was evidently on the verge of shrieking with frustration, and as amusing as that might have been, Granny put a firm but kind hand on his arm.

“Jefferson, just calm down. It’ll all come right in the wash and we’ll just start filming later, there’s nothing to be worried about at this stage. Gold will arrive and he will tell us what has happened, if he wants to share that information with us, in his own time. For now, I’d advise you to take some chamomile tea to quiet your highly-strung nerves and focus on your own bakes for now.”

The judges remained in the break room with the contestants; now that there were only four of them it seemed a much cosier, relaxed atmosphere and there was less of an us-and-them mentality. Belle also thought that Jefferson might end up causing one of the others to strangle him so the more people in the room to calm him down, the better.  She was just as anxious to know what had held Gold up as the rest of them were, but she accepted that she was just going to have to wait for his own account of proceedings, and that if he didn’t want to relay that then they would all have to remain in the dark. She just hoped that the complications of the morning wouldn’t put him off too much and he would have a bad week because of it. She would be quietly rooting for him to pull through whatever happened, and she knew that she would be able to console him if the worst did come to the worst, and give him even more congratulations when he managed to triumph against the odds.

At last, after about an hour, as promised, Belle saw a vehicle pull up to the house gates and Rum’s form jump out of it. It was a rather dusty and slightly battered land rover, and evidently not a taxi, which was probably one of the contributing factors to his lateness. He was harried and flustered as he made his way up towards the building, and for a moment Belle thought that she might have to physically restrain Jefferson to stop him from mobbing the other man as soon as he arrived in the room. Thankfully, when Gold entered it was immediately clear to everyone that he was not to be messed with, and the others gave him a wide berth as he grabbed a cup of tea and let Astrid fix his mic in place. He did not look angry, just very, very tired and harassed, and it really would not have been fair to add to the stress that he was no doubt already feeling. There would be no point in enquiring as to what had happened, he could tell them all later when there was no pressure to be getting on with the bakes hanging over them. Ideally Belle would have liked to have given him half an hour or so to calm down, but they were on a tight filming schedule as it was with the delayed start and they were going to have to get on as soon as possible. To launch straight into baking something competition worthy after such an upheaval was going to be a challenging task. She only hoped that Gold was making something from a tried and tested recipe that did not take too much brain power. This signature was a bread challenge, and he really ought to do well in it. Well, all she could do was pray.

The runners took them down to the tent and everyone got settled behind their workbenches with their aprons on, and Ella and Ursula began their usual speech.

“Good morning everyone,” Ella said, making no mention of the morning’s dramas since none of that would be shown on the TV when it all aired. “Welcome to your advanced dough week. For your signature challenge this morning, Granny and Belle would like you to make a sweet fruit loaf.”

“The loaf must be freeform,” Ursula continued. “Tins and moulds have been temporarily banned from the tent. The loaf must also be made using an enriched dough. Besides these stipulations, you can use any fruit you like and the loaf can be any shape you wish. You have two and a half hours in which to perfect your loaves. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The bakers got to work straight away; when it came to enriched doughs there was very little time to spare because they required such a long proving and baking time to make sure that they were well-risen and well-baked. The added butter in the dough made it much slower to rise and therefore its first prove had to be a long one in order to gain any growth to the dough. Given the denseness of the enriched dough, it would also require a long time in the oven to make sure that it was cooked through and there was no raw dough in the middle. On the other hand, it was critical not to burn the finished product by leaving it in the oven too long, so it was going to be a delicate balancing act for the bakers to get the timings just right.

Once the bakers were in the swing of things after about ten minutes, Granny and Belle began their rounds of the tent. Gold was right at the back this week and they would come to him last, which would hopefully give him time to get his head in the game and not be too flustered by what he was baking. The first person that they came to was Emma, who was making an apricot and honey loaf.

“How are you going to shape it?” Belle asked. It was always interesting to see freeform loaves being made as there was always a huge variation in appearance, with some going for more complex plaits or knots, some trying large tear and share style loaves made up of much smaller rolls, and some going for more traditional and simple cottage loaf type shapes.

“I haven’t really decided,” Emma said. “I didn’t really want to make it into too bulky a shape because it’ll take so long to bake. The last time I tried making it at home I made it in a kind of pinwheel shape. My son said that looked really good as it’s a fairly light, golden loaf and he said it looked like the sun, so I’ll probably try and do that again.”

Belle smiled. “It sounds like it’s going to look lovely once it’s finished. Be careful with the points if you end up with tapered ends on your pinwheel, because they can burn and crisp very easily if you don’t keep an eye on them.”

Emma nodded. “Duly noted, thank you.”

They moved onto the next baker. Lance was making a rum and raisin swirl, and for a moment Belle wondered if perhaps Ella had had it stipulated in a contract somewhere that at least one baker per week had to use some form of alcohol in their bake.

“Rum and raisin is a classic flavour combination,” Granny said. “I can honestly say that I’ve never had it in a bread before. Are you using any other fruit in the loaf or just the raisins?”

“It’s a mixture of dried fruit,” Lance explained. “And also some mixed peel and fresh orange zest just to give it a bit of kick.”

“It sounds a bit like a Christmas cake,” Ella said. “I wholeheartedly approve. Christmas cake in bread form. Just imagine having a cheese sandwich made with that.”

Belle grimaced. “Ella, I have to say, that sounds absolutely disgusting.”

“What do you mean? People serve cheese with Christmas cake and mince pies all the time!”

“And I really don’t know why.” Belle returned her attention to Lance. “Well, my opinion of cheese with Christmas cake aside, it does sound like it’s going to be delicious, so we’ll let you get on.”

Jefferson was being remarkably sedate with his loaf, although he was not intending it to be very large or incredibly showy, it was still going to showcase his creativity, as his chocolate and date filled loaf would be shaped into a long twist that he was intending to pull into a knot. Regina was making a large round tropical tear and share, the tops of each individual bun studded with golden sultanas and hiding dried chopped pineapple and mango inside. It sounded incredibly exotic and ambitious; Belle’s main concern was that the rolls would not rise enough to stick together when baked and she would end up with a tray of individual rolls rather than something that could pass for a whole loaf.

Finally they came to Gold, who was sitting at his workbench with his eyes on his dough, which was proving on the side at room temperature.

“Hello there Raymond,” Granny said brightly. “How are you this morning.”

“On the record, I’m absolutely fine,” he said, but now that Belle was up close, she could see the dark circles under his eyes and the pallor in his face that the make-up people had not been able to quite salvage. He looked ill, although Belle knew that he could not be because health and safety rules meant that bakers couldn’t continue in the competition if they came down with anything infectious during filming, since they were working with food that others would be eating.

“All right, tell us about your loaf,” Granny said.

“This is a chocolate and cherry plait,” Gold said. “It’s kind of like a black forest gateau in bread form. At least that’s the idea. I’ve just realised that I made a black forest gateau swiss roll in my first week and now I’m making it again. I just really like the flavours, and so do my family. Chocolate and cherry end up being incorporated into a lot of things in our household.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Granny took a look at the proving bowl. “It’s a beautiful colour where the cherries have seeped some juice into the dough,” she said. “I’m looking forward to cutting into it. How many strands are you plaiting with?”

“Six. I tried with five but it looked messy and eight took a ridiculously long time to make. Six is optimal I think.”

“So, how much practice with this one have you had?” Belle asked. Gold made a face.

“Over the course of the last year or so? Quite a lot, it’s not a recipe I created especially for the bake-off, it’s a tried and tested one. But within the last three weeks whilst getting ready for today, nowhere near as much as I would have liked. The problem with going with your own recipes instead of creating something new is that when you make it at home, you don’t tend to refine it in any way because it doesn’t matter if it’s rough and ready. Here, it needs that extra bit of polish to it.”

“Well, whatever it looks like we’re sure that it will taste delicious,” Granny said.

“I certainly hope so.”

Gold didn’t seem all that confident in his ability not necessarily to get it right, but to get it as neat and professional looking as the judges were looking for. Belle really wanted to say something to reassure him, but she knew that would probably have the opposite effect. It was a shame that he was suffering under so much stress this morning but ultimately they could not give him any kind of special treatment because of that; his baking would be judged to the same standard as everyone else’s. All she could hope was that if he was struggling in any way, the others in the tent would dig deep into that sense of community which they had developed over the last seven weeks and help him out.

X

Gold had been frazzled whilst in the tent before, but that was usually whilst making something that he had no idea what he was doing with it and had no experience of making. He had never yet been so incredibly flustered when making something that he ought to have been confident in, but the past week had been so stressful that even now, with everything all but resolved and his life back on track in all respects, he still didn’t know whether he was coming or going and he was glad of this moment of respite whilst his dough was proving to try and get his head back in the game. He kept feeling that he had forgotten something essential in the dough, but it was rising nicely so it couldn’t have been the yeast, and he could see the chopped cherries and the chocolate chips, so it couldn’t have been the filling. Perhaps he had done it correctly after all, but he wasn’t going to know until the judges actually cut into the thing. All that he had to do was wait. Luckily, all everyone else was doing was waiting as well, so the tent was quiet and there wasn’t a lot of frantic activity sending his worried mind into overdrive. Emma came over with her mug of tea and leaned against his workbench, glancing over at his dough.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “I mean, the dough looks ok and I can’t really help with any other outside woes, but is everything ok?”

Gold sighed. “I’m very tired,” he said. “It’s been a difficult week which only stopped being difficult a few hours ago. Up until seven o’clock this morning I might not have been coming today at all, let’s put it that way.”

Emma grimaced. “Ouch. But it’s all solved now?”

Gold nodded. “Yes, thank God. I’m not entirely sure I made the right decision in coming here after having a week without baking anything and with so much else fresh in my mind; a large part of me is saying that I should have packed it in, but since I did have the opportunity I was going to take it, even if it meant a mad dash down here.”

“What happened, if I may ask?”

“Sick sheep,” Gold said succinctly. “But she’s fine now.”

“I guess that’s one of the occupational hazards,” Emma said. “I’m glad she’s ok and I’m glad you’re here. Jefferson was getting extremely worried about you so you’re probably going to be given the Spanish Inquisition at lunch when he gets his hands on you. I’m surprised he hasn’t come over sooner, to be honest, but then Granny might have put the fear in him earlier and he’s on his best behaviour.”

Gold chuckled, quite possibly for the first time in five days. “I did notice that he seemed rather subdued,” he said. “I wonder what she said to him. It would certainly have to be something, I don’t know of anything that could curb his exuberance.”

“I guess that will remain a closely guarded secret.” Emma moved away from his bench. “Well, I’ll let you get on, but I’m sure that it’ll turn out all right in the end. I need to get back to mine. I still don’t know what shape it’s going to turn out so hopefully it will be something artistic and not just a lump of bread that can’t make its mind up.”

Gold smiled and turned his attention to his own dough. It had almost doubled in size in the bowl, so it was time to knock it back and plait it up ready for a short second prove and a long bake. He could do this. He’d done it before, even if not recently. Working with dough was something that he had always found soothing, and he needed it to start having the same effect now. He just focussed on the strands of dough, ignoring the other bakers and the atmosphere in the tent. Walter had come over and was watching him work with the camera, but he didn’t interrupt or ask for any soundbites. To all intents and purposes, the cameraman was utterly entranced by the plaiting process and after one attempt a little bit fluffed due to shaking hands, the plait was complete and nicely even, there really wasn’t anything else that he could do to improve it. The others were all focussing on the finishing touches to their own loaves as Gold put his in the oven. This was probably going to be the crunch point for all of them, whether their dough would be cooked in time. The bread challenges always tended to be very tight for time, which was ridiculous when one considered just how much sitting and waiting around they involved, but often in the past people had cut into their proving time or their baking time in order to try and make sure that it was well-baked or well-risen, and had ended up with something baked but underproved, or risen but underbaked, and Gold hoped that none of them would fall into that trap. The loaf was browning nicely in the oven and Gold realised that he’d forgotten to glaze the bread to make it shiny. Oh well, no chance to change it now, and the rest of the presentation looked neat. It seemed to be baking fairly evenly which was always a bonus. He pulled it out of the oven with one minute to spare and cast a critical eye over the bake. Thankfully, it looked much the same as the occasions in the past when he had made it at home. Whether this was going to be a good thing in the judges’ eyes or not remained to be seen.

Ursula called time on the challenge and Gold breathed a huge sigh of relief. He’d had time to calm down now and the rest of the day should proceed in the way that any normal weekend would, with no unexpected mishaps. The clean-up was quick, as a lot of it had been done during the waiting periods whilst the doughs were rising and baking, and they looked to be completely back on schedule with regard to the afternoon’s filming. Soon enough, it was time for Granny and Belle to come around and judge. Overall, the loaves were of good quality all around, although the tips of Emma’s pinwheel had ended up slightly overbaked despite her efforts to salvage them with tin foil hats. Then it was Gold’s turn.

“It looks very neat,” Granny said, “and it has good colour. I would have liked to have seen it look a little more finished, with a glaze or some other kind of decoration on the top, but all the same it looks nicely rustic. Let’s take a look inside.”

The bread cut nicely and Gold thanked his lucky stars when he saw that it was fully baked on the inside. They always said that if you tapped the bottom of a loaf and it sounded hollow then it was fully baked, but then again, Gold had never really be able to tell what hollow sounded like so it wasn’t a foolproof technique.

“It tastes lovely,” Belle said. “Chocolate and cherry is a classic flavour combination and it works just as well here in a loaf as it does in other things. The chocolate and cherries are well distributed and the mixture of dark and white chocolate chips means that it isn’t too sweet or too bitter. Overall, that’s a very good loaf, just missing that polish, like you described earlier.”

Gold smiled. He’d managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and he was more than happy with that.

Filming broke for lunch, and this time Belle and Granny decided that it would probably be best to sequester themselves away from the bakers again. Gold gave a succinct account of the week’s events to the other bakers; Jefferson expressed utmost relief that nothing terrible had happened.

“Not that one of your sheep getting ill isn’t terrible,” he added. “I don’t mean that. But I’m glad that it all turned out all right in the end and you managed to get here after all. And do very well, all things considered.”

“Yes. I’m still not entirely sure how I pulled that one out of the bag. I wouldn’t impart congratulations too soon, I still have to get through the technical and the showstopper tomorrow, and doughnuts are one thing that I have not made prior to this competition.”

“Has anyone?” Jefferson asked. “I mean, I can completely understand a love of baking but like with Emma and her packet puff pastry, there are some things that are just too complex to be worth the time and effort to make at home.”

Well at least he was not the only one who had come into the weekend with no background in doughnut making, and it soon became clear that Regina was the only one of their number with any kind of experience in the field.

“They weren’t very good,” she said. “My first attempts a few years back were oven baked rather than fried, and they ended up as solid as rocks. I couldn’t get any jam into them, it just flowed straight back out of the hole I’d made for it. I did once see a recipe for rectangular doughnuts that apparently turned themselves over in the oil when they were ready to turn, but I wouldn’t trust an inanimate piece of dough to know when it was cooked, personally.”

“Before we can get to doughnut disasters, we still have to get through this afternoon,” Lance pointed out. “I’m not sure what kind of cruel and unusual tricks the judges have up their sleeves, but if the previous few weeks are anything to go by then it’ll be something that none of us have heard of or even seen.”

“Unless its Swedish,” Jefferson pointed out, and Emma bowed. “Although, that is the beauty of the technical. As we’ve got no idea what they might be planning, they could have changed it since last week to make it even more obscure in the hope that none of us will recognise it. Granny’s been scouring all her recipe books to find something ridiculous from the Victorian era that’s not been made in over a hundred years.”

“Granny’s not that old!” Lance protested. “You’ll be getting a black mark against your doughnuts if she finds out you said that, you know.”

“In that case, you’ll all have to keep your mouths shut and keep me in her good books.” Jefferson smiled sweetly, and Gold had to laugh. He was definitely going to miss this camaraderie when they all moved on. As they had reduced in number, their friendships had become even closer. He would miss Jefferson’s gesticulating with whatever piece of fruit he had to hand, and Lance’s down to earth attitude that tempered the other man’s wildness. He would miss Regina’s quiet but sharp sense of humour, and he thought that he would miss Emma most of all, the first real friend that he had made in the breakroom on that first morning, and one whom he had remained close to throughout the competition. If he could pick the finalists, apart from himself of course, then he would go with Jefferson and Emma as his ideal company on the tent during that last day. Jefferson could always be relied upon as a source of entertainment, and he and Emma would support each other no matter what might happen. Still, their fortunes could all change entirely over the next couple of weeks - over the next couple of hours if he was being brutally honest. That was something that he had really noticed over the course of the bake-off. It didn’t take much to go from having a good week to having a very bad one, and someone who did well one week was not necessarily guaranteed to do well the next. Star baker curse and all that. Well, that hadn’t happened so much this year, apart from poor Elsa who’d won the crown in dessert week and then gone home the next weekend after some pretty disastrous pastry. Gold felt that he owed it to her to get through to the final now, since it had been so close between them that week. Still, it was in the past and there was not really a lot that could be done to change it. The competitive streak in him that he had discovered during his time in the tent had just started to raise its head, and whilst before he had generally been content with his participation, and was looking to succeed entirely for Bae and Elvira’s sake rather than his own, now he wanted to win in his own right. He was feeling a little bit proud of himself for the way he had managed to triumph this morning in spite of everything else that had been going on in his life. Hopefully his good bake this morning would provide him with the impetus and confidence that he would need going into the afternoon’s blind challenge, whatever it might be.

They did not have to wait long to find out what the technical bake would be; soon enough the runners were taking them back down to the tent where the gingham tea towels of doom were spread out over the workbenches, covering all the ingredients and the recipes. Ursula shooed Belle and Granny out of the tent so that the presenters could announce the challenge.

“Quarter-finalists, this afternoon you will be working to one of Belle’s recipes, and since Belle doesn’t do a lot of dough work, we’re expecting extra special things from you today,” Ursula began.

“Belle and Granny would like you to make a povitica,” Ella continued. “This is a traditional sweet bread from eastern Europe containing chocolate and nuts and baked in a standard loaf tin, but as soon as you read the recipe, you will see that this is a dough with a difference. You have two and a half hours on the clock, so on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold was not sure if he was the only one to notice that they had been given exactly the same amount of time to make the povitica as they had been given to make the sweet fruit loaves that were their signature bakes, and he took a look at the recipe with a little smile on his face, as he thought he might know exactly what Granny and Belle would be looking for. As expected, the recipe did not give any baking or proving times, allowing the bakers to use their own judgement as to how long the dough should sit and how long it should bake for. Given that the povitica used an enriched dough as their loaves had done, Gold thought it highly likely that Granny and Belle were expecting them to apply the same timing to their technicals as they had done to their signature bakes, within reason. Naturally things were a bit different for those who had made loaves in small pieces that had baked together into a large whole, like Emma and Regina. But Gold had made a single, rather solid loaf, and using a baking tin meant that the loaf would likely be more tightly packed in place and would take longer to bake.

He read through the recipe more carefully and began to measure out ingredients. He could see exactly what Ursula and Ella meant when they said that it was a dough with a difference. Once risen, it had to be knocked back and then rolled out to an almost paper thinness, spread with filling and rolled up into a long sausage. This would then be arranged in the tin and create a beautiful swirling pattern when the loaf was cut. It seemed like it would be easy enough to achieve, but after the hour’s rise once the dough was rolled out to the required length and breadth, it was clear that it was going to be easier said than done. Being so thin, the dough was incredibly delicate and the filling was thick and sticky, and would not spread easily. It was very difficult to work with the two such vastly different textures, and as a result, it was taking a lot longer to assemble the finished product than Gold would have liked, as he was trying not to tear the wafer thin sheet of dough by working with the filling mixture too roughly. It was incredibly frustrating. He wanted to be able to have the maximum amount of time for the second prove once the mixture was in the tin, and still leave a good forty-five minutes for baking to ensure that the dough was cooked through. On top of that, he needed to make sure that he left enough time at the end of the bake to drizzle the finished loaf with icing as the final touch, so it would not be a case of taking it out of the oven on the last minute. He resolved to cut short the second prove; he ran the risk of the dough being underproved when the judges cut into it but at the same time, he wasn’t prepared to risk presenting a loaf that was not fully cooked all the way through. Giving them something not perfect but edible was better than giving them something well-risen but that they weren’t actually able to eat and comment on the flavour. He would have taken a look around the tent to see what the others appeared to be doing in terms of timing, but he was far too caught up in his own filling difficulties, and he couldn’t help thinking to himself that if he didn’t get a move on and think up some way of speeding up this painstaking process, then it wouldn’t get the amount of time it would need in the oven whether he had a second prove or not.

Glancing around the tent for inspiration he saw that Regina and Emma were both resorting to rolling pins in order to get the best finish on their fillings, albeit in different ways, and he thought that was probably going to be the best solution. He compromised by spreading lumps of mixture onto his dough as evenly as he could and then rolling them to try and make as evenly spread a layer as possible. It wasn’t going to be the neatest creation in the tent by any manner or means, but he was doing his best in the time available. With the filling in place, it was time to roll up the dough sausage, which was once again easier said than done given the delicacy of the dough. He was afraid that he would put his finger through the layers at any moment, and again it took rather longer than he was expecting. At this rate he would only have fifteen minutes for a second prove, but he stuck to his original idea. Shorter prove, longer bake was the way forward, and he was very glad when he finally put the thing in the oven as it meant that he could forget about it. There was nothing that could be changed anymore and his decision was final. No more second guessing himself.

Seeing him sitting at his bench staring down at the oven, Ella came over, leaning on the bench.

“Yours is already in?” she asked. “Most people are still proving. Oh no, Jeff’s just put his in as well. You don’t think it might be too early?”

Gold shook his head.

“No. With something so rich and heavy like this, it really needs time to cook through. If it starts looking like it’s getting too brown I’ll cover it with foil, but just because it’s looking very brown on the outside doesn’t mean that it’ll be the same on the inside.”

Ella nodded sagely. “I don’t know why I’m acting like I know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I just eat the stuff, I don’t have any clue how it’s made. You know, I think it would be interesting if when they do the celebrity specials, they have me and Ursula on as contestants one week. Quite frankly it’s appalling how little we know about baking considering we’ve been hosting this show for years. Some, of course, might say that it’s all the alcohol that I consume whilst in the tent, although I would have to disagree. I think it’s because the bakers are always so good that there’s really no need for Ursula and myself to learn how to bake because we’re always guaranteed a good supply of cakes and pastries for these few months.”

Gold had to laugh at Ella’s antics; he knew that most of her chatter was for the contestants’ benefit when the cameras were around, making them feel at ease and drawing the attention back to the presenters rather than the nervous members of the public who, even after seven previous weeks in the tent with the cameramen following their almost every move, still weren’t quite used to their presence yet.

Emma looked up from her proving drawer where her loaf was performing its second rise, and on realising that Jefferson and Gold already had their bakes in the oven, her eyes went comically wide.

“You’re already baking?” she exclaimed. “Oh good lord. There’s definitely going to be some variation between these ones and no mistake. Belle and Granny are always suspicious of quality when there’s a lot of variation.”

“It’ll be all right, Emma.” Ella left Gold and made her way across the tent to the younger woman. Emma was not really the type to get flustered during baking; she didn’t tend to panic visibly like some of the rest of them did, but it was clear to see when she was frustrated or angry with herself because she’d made a mistake.

“I think I’m just going to change my tune and put it in now,” she said, quickly taking the loaf out of her proving drawer and shoving it in the oven, then removing it a couple of seconds later because she’d forgotten to glaze it. It looked like it had a good rise on it and Gold hoped that it would be baked in time. His own dough had been in for a good fifteen minutes longer and it was browning nicely. He was going to have to cover it before the baking time was over. This bake seemed to have made everyone far more nervous than usual. Perhaps it was just because this was the quarter final and there was no real room for error anymore, but the recipe without its timings gave them a huge margin of error to work with. This, perhaps more than any other challenge, relied on instinct and good judgement in addition to being able to follow a recipe, and Gold could see that even Jefferson and Regina, who were generally relaxed and confident during technicals, were looking distinctly worried now.

Ella called out the five minute mark and Gold pulled his loaf out of the oven, giving it a couple of moments to cool down before he took it out of the tin and rapped the bottom with his knuckles. It sounded well-baked, but he couldn’t tell if it could be better. With the icing drizzled on top of all the cakes in various different patterns, Ursula called time on the challenge and the bakes were brought forth to the front of the tent and the clean-up began. The moment of truth was almost upon them.

X

Belle had said that Granny was evil for the princesstarta and kouign-amann, but she did have to concede that the povitica was probably the most difficult dough-based challenge that they’d ever had on the bake-off during the entirety of its existence. Perhaps she had been a little mean in choosing it for the advanced dough week technical, but she really wanted to test the bakers’ innate sense of timing, and whether they could tell how long an enriched loaf needed in the oven in order to be properly baked. As she and Granny entered the tent to begin the judging, she could see that there was very little variation between the loaves from the outside - some were darker than others having been in the oven a little longer and naturally they all had different patterns in the icing, but they all looked good. The moment of truth would come when they cut into them.

The first loaf was obviously underbaked. The dough wasn’t raw, but if it had come out of the oven just a minute or so earlier, it would have been. The second was the same. It was clear that these bakers had spent too long on the second prove and had not allowed enough time for the povitica to bake fully. The third one was fully baked all the way through, and it was showing excellent definition in the swirled pattern of chocolate spirals on the inside of the bread. So far, that was the clear winner. The fourth loaf was actually raw on the inside, the dough still wet and somewhat runny where the heat had got through to it but not enough to get it cooked; Belle and Granny decided that it would probably be best not to taste it for fear of getting food poisoning from the uncooked flour. The final one was fully baked and showed a good spiral pattern, but the filling was rather uneven and hadn’t been spread out over the thin dough very well.

“Well, I think that timing was a problem for people here,” Belle said once all the loaves had been sampled and she and Granny had ranked them. “The povitica is a bread with a long bake time because it’s so rich and dense. Ideally it should have an hour in the oven, but at least forty-five minutes in order to be fully baked throughout. It rises up in the oven as it’s baking, so you need a short second prove and a long bake. Fifth place is this one - we couldn’t eat it.”

Surprisingly the raw loaf belonged to Regina.

“Yes, I was a bit pushed for time at the end,” she admitted. “I think I spent too much time trying to get the spiralling and the filling perfect.”

“It does have a very neat spiral to it,” Granny said. “If it was fully cooked then it would probably be the most beautiful and precise there, but in this case it was your precision and attention to detail that let you down in the end.”

Lance and Emma tied for fourth place, there really wasn’t all that much to decide between the two almost raw loaves and it seemed unfair to rank one above the other. Gold was second, fully baked but not as neat on the inside having run out of time and patience with the filling and starting it to bake before he’d got it smooth and even inside, and Jefferson’s loaf came out on top. The tent began to wind down for the day and the presenters and judges left to go and do their final piece to camera before the showstopper began, when they would talk about who was doing well and who was likely to be going home - the part of the filming process that Belle always hated the most. Still, it was a necessary evil, and she settled herself in the little pagoda with Granny, Ella and Ursula, and waited for the cameras to roll. She couldn’t help glancing over at the main tent where the bakers were celebrating and commiserating their performance in the technical. She really wanted to get the chance to speak to Gold tonight before the hectic bustle of the final day’s filming began; even if it was only to reassure him that he was doing well in spite of the upset at the beginning of the day.

“That was a surprising result from Regina in the technical,” Ella said. “Do you think she might be in danger of going home tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure. Her signature bake was very strong, so if she has a good day tomorrow then she should be safe. I’m more worried about Emma and Lance, they were down at the bottom end in both of the challenges, they’ll really need to pull their socks up tomorrow if they’re going to stay in. Although, Regina could have a bad day too.”

“And at the other end of the scale, Jefferson and Raymond?”

“They’ve both done really well today, it’s pretty close between them. If they carry on this streak tomorrow then I don’t think that either of them will have anything to worry about, but it’s going to come down to the detail in the end to see which one of them will be the star baker.”

The cameras stopped and Belle could relax and let go of her mental script. As soon as they were released, she sped back down towards the tent to check that the bakers were still there. Thankfully, they were, and she was able to make her way over to Gold.

“Well done,” she said earnestly. “Considering everything that happened before you got started this morning, you’ve done really well and you should be proud of yourself.”

“Thank you.” Gold smiled before leaning heavily against his workbench and letting out a long breath that blew his hair out of his face. “I’m honestly amazed at how well I did, all things considered. Apparently I have more innate baking talent than I thought I had.”

“Definitely.” Belle paused. “Is everything all right? You looked so harried when you came in this morning I thought something was terribly wrong.”

“It was,” Gold said, “but it’s sorted now. One of my sheep has been ill this past week so I haven’t had any time to practice at all because I’ve been nursing her back to health. I nearly quit the competition about five times but something in the back of my mind kept telling me to wait and see, just in case. It got to last night and the last vet’s visit before I could make my mind up. Unfortunately last night the vet told me he’d be back first thing this morning to give his final decision. I was pretty sure that everything would be all right and I could release her back into the flock, but there was no way I was taking that risk without the vet’s say so. So I had to wait until the vet came this morning, and by the time that was all sorted out I’d missed my train, so I had to hitch a lift with one of my neighbours. It’s a pretty long drive, especially in a farm landrover. But the ewe is fine and here I am.”

“Well, considering all the stress this past week I’m even more impressed.”

“Yes. I’m impressed with myself, actually. But mainly, honestly, I’m just tired. I haven’t been getting all that much sleep lately what with everything going on, and all the caffeine’s wearing off now.”

Belle laughed. “I won’t suggest that we have another little proto-date then.”

“I might be half-asleep during it,” Gold said. “But I wouldn’t be averse. I think that after the day I’ve had it would be something nice to crown off what’s been a pretty rubbish week all told.”

“Well, I won’t keep you out too late. Take the weight off your feet and I’ll make us some tea.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she waited for the kettle to boil. Although he no longer looked as drawn and pale as he had done when he had first come into the house that morning, he still looked incredibly exhausted, and she just wanted to wrap him up in a hug and protect him from all the perils that the world had to offer. Maybe not yet. Maybe the hug could come later, after tomorrow’s showstopper. Ella and Ursula always went around hugging everyone when people left the show; it wouldn’t look too odd.

She shook her head to try and get the hugging thoughts out of it and brought the mugs of tea over to the workbench.

“I’m glad that everything turned out for the best in the end,” she said. “It would have been such a shame to see you leave thanks to circumstances beyond your control. It’s happened before, of course, but it’s always sad when a baker has to leave for reasons unrelated to their baking.”

“I know. I was determined that I was going to stay if I possibly could, but my sheep are my life, and they always have been. Well, and Bae of course, and Aunt Elvira, even if I do want to shove her in a cupboard sometimes.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Do I even want to ask?”

“She’s incredibly excited about coming down for the finale and meeting you,” Gold said. “Well, meeting everyone, but definitely meeting you. Possibly because I talk about you a lot and she wants to do the whole sizing up your potential thing, but I don’t think so.”

Belle laughed. “I can’t wait to meet your Aunt Elvira; I want to learn all the family recipes that you keep making that she can pass on to me.”

“Well, that makes one of us that’s excited at the prospect of the two of you meeting.”

“Oh, she can’t be that bad.”

Gold shook his head. “No, she’s not. She raised me after all, and even though she’s always been Aunt Elvira, she and Miriam were practically my mothers. It’s all good-natured, I assure you.”

“I know you mean well. Everyone’s always a bit embarrassed of their relations. I know I’d cringe if my dad ever made it here to come to a bake-off final.”

They talked about their families for a little longer; Belle didn’t press the point but she found out that Gold’s mother had died young and she got the impression that his father had been absent for the best part of his childhood. He, Bae and Elvira sounded like such a tight, happy little unit and she really couldn’t wait to meet them when the time came in two weeks’ time.

And maybe, she thought, before then, if Gold made it to the final and she got to go and see him at his home in Scotland. She really hoped that she’d get that chance, and a smile spread over her face when she realised that, all being well, she’d get the chance to see him at his home anyway, whether he made it to the final or not. It was a nice, warming thought, and one that she squirrelled away in happy anticipation.

Soon enough, though, it was time to cut the proto-date short and let Gold get back to his hotel and get some rest. After the week he’d had, he definitely deserved it. Once again, Belle drove him into the town, and she watched him up the steps into the hotel.

Everything was definitely coming together nicely.

X

“Good morning bakers! I hope that you’re all rested and refreshed after yesterday’s dough adventures and you’re all ready to tackle your showstopper challenge!”

Ella’s enthusiasm was infectious, and even though Gold was not entirely confident concerning his ability to produce baked goods that involved a deep fat fryer, his success in the face of adversity the previous day had bolstered his resolve and he knew that he would have to do absolutely awfully in the day’s challenge if he was going to get sent home at this stage. He was not intending to do absolutely awfully, and he was almost looking forward to the day’s baking. Almost. He’d had marginally more sleep last night than he’d had throughout the week, even if it was in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar bed, and he had the memory of his little chat with Belle and the feeling of her warm hands around his and her soft lips on his cheek to see him through.

“Today, Granny and Belle would like you to make doughnuts,” Ella continued. “There must be two different flavours of doughnut and there must be eighteen of each to make a total of thirty-six doughnuts each. We’re going to have a tent filled with doughnuts. Of course, if you want to make any more, Ursula and I are always happy to take any spares off your hands.”

“You have four hours for this challenge,” Ursula added. “On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The fact that he was baking something that didn’t actually require an oven was something of a foreign concept to Gold, but nevertheless, he started to get his dough ready. He was playing it safe and using the same basic dough for both doughnuts, although he could overhear Jefferson chattering happily to the cameras about his intention to make two different doughs. Gold liked to think that he was good at dough, but that seemed to be inviting disaster, and he had resolved to get enough variation out of his fillings and toppings. Doughnuts were not something that he’d practised much. He’d made a couple of batches right at the beginning of his practice time once they had got their lists telling them what they needed to bake each week, and his attempts had turned out rather mixed, but since then he had simply not had the time to devote to them. He was mixing up the dough and getting it ready to prove when Belle, Granny and Ursula came over to him.

“Good morning Raymond,” Belle said brightly. “Tell us about your doughnuts.”

“These will be lemon and white chocolate doughnuts, and raspberry cream doughnuts.”

“They sound lovely,” Granny said. “What shape are you making them?”

“Just a classic round. I’m hoping that the taste will make up for them not looking very fancy.”

“I’m sure it will. The best of luck to you, and we’ll let you get on with your dough. Timing’s going to be crucial in this challenge.”

Ursula raised an eyebrow. “Way to make him feel confident, Granny.”

“I’m simply stating the facts!” Granny protested as they moved away from the bench. She did have a point; four hours was not long to make quite as many doughnuts as they had been tasked with, as only a few could be made in the fryer at a time. With thirty-six doughnuts frying in batches of four for up to five minutes, that was a good forty-five minutes of the baking time devoted to just frying - Gold’s most hated task. And the frying could not be left too late, as the doughnuts would need time to cool enough to handle so that they could be filled and decorated. Since Gold was using a cream based filling in one of the doughnuts it was even more essential to be cold so that it wouldn’t melt inside and seep into the dough, leaving him with empty doughnuts. No matter how well he had done the previous day, he was not going to impress the judges if that happened.

They continued to make their way around the room. Regina was making fairground inspired doughnuts with toffee apple and marshmallows. Jefferson was making a couple of variations on the orange theme, with Cointreau custard and chocolate orange. Emma was attempting to make smiley face ring doughnuts, and Lance’s combination of dark chocolate and salted caramel sounded wonderfully decadent. There really wasn’t time for him to think about the other bakers’ creations though - even whilst his dough was proving there were fillings and decorations to be thinking about, because there was no long baking time later that could be used for those things. There was cream to be whipped and stiffened and chilled, glazes to prepare, lemon curd to make. Time was really against him and he tried to get everything as prepared as possible before he started frying, as that was where it had all the potential to go wrong and he wanted to put all his focus onto it. Somewhere in the tent he heard Lance lamenting the fact that his ring doughnuts didn’t seem to have risen in their second prove, and Emma was muttering at her fryer, although whether she was chastising it for poor performance or trying to cast some kind of good luck charm over it, Gold couldn’t tell.

Still, there was nothing for it now. It was time to start frying. He put the first batch of doughnuts into the bubbling oil, flinching away from it even though it didn’t splash, and he poked them gingerly with a spatula, trying to work out when they were done. He knew that they didn’t take long, and he didn’t want them to end up too crispy on the outside, but he’d had so little practice that he was flying blind. He thought that they needed a pale line around the edge, so he flipped them over, trying to make sure that they were the same even brown on both sides. God, he didn’t think he’d ever done anything so nerve-wracking. Dealing with labouring ewes and inexplicably sick sheep was easier than this. At least he didn’t have to focus on anything else, and he tried to drown out all the other sounds of the tent and reduce it all down to just him and his fryer.

The first batch came out all right, although perhaps a bit paler than the judges were probably looking for, but at least it gave him a proper sense of timing - it would be better to have all the doughnuts looking identical than having some darker than the others. Four down, thirty-two to go. Not a hard task at all. In and out, in and out, check the temperature of the fryer, drain the doughnuts to get the fat off them… By the time he was finishing the last batch, the first ones would be ready for decoration and filling, which was of course a whole different kettle of fish. It wouldn’t do to have some of them filled better than others, but being a completely enclosed doughnut he really didn’t know how he was going to measure it.

He glanced over at Regina for inspiration; precision was her hallmark so if she had a way of doing it then it would probably be the right way. To his immense relief, she was weighing the doughnuts as she filled them. It wouldn’t be the most accurate of measurements but at least it could prevent huge margins of error, and he started the rather painstaking process of piping lemon curd inside the still-warm balls. Filling doughnuts took a lot more work than filling eclairs, he realised, since the mixture was so dense and not hollow, and he began to wonder with rising panic if he was going to get them done on time. The judges were on the prowl again around the edge of the tent, looking critically at all the doughnuts as they were being made, but as Belle passed him, she gave him an encouraging smile and thumbs up, so all was not lost. Concentration was key and there was no time to pause for breath. When Ursula called ten minutes on the challenge and half his doughnuts were still unglazed, Gold had to take a step back and close his eyes to try and calm down. He was certain that he had done enough to stay in the competition, but at the same time, he couldn’t afford to make a very stupid mistake at this late stage and ruin all the hard work that he’d put in over the past two days.

The raspberry glaze was put onto the last doughnut with two minutes left to spare, and it was all he could do not to just collapse on the floor then and there with relief. At least he could say without a shadow of a doubt that he was never going to use a deep fat fryer again. Ever. Doughnuts would be bought from a shop from here on in.

Ella called time and the clean-up began around him; Gold just sat perched on his stool looking at the doughnuts and trying to calm his racing pulse. The other bakers looked as strung out as he did, so at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not the only one who’d found it to be a difficult challenge, and that the rest of them were going to be just as nervous when the judging began.

Jefferson was up first, and it was clear that he’d done a good job even if his dough had been rather complicated. Granny criticised the alcohol and chocolate flavours as being too strong and overpowering the orange, but the doughnuts had been well cooked and were neatly presented. Emma’s were on the pale side, but she’d also done well and was hopefully safely through to the next round after her poorer performance on the Saturday.

Gold came next, and his heart was beating painfully in his mouth as he carried his basket of doughnuts up to the front of the tent and offered it to the judges.

“Well, like Emma, they’re looking a little bit pale,” Granny said. “But they’re nice and even, you’ve got the pale line around the edge, and they look uniform, which is good. They’re well risen as well.”

“The flavours are good,” Belle added. “The sharp lemon curd goes well with the chocolate. You could have been a bit bolder with the raspberries in the glaze, but the taste does come through, and the cream’s a good consistency in there as well, it hasn’t melted. Well done.”

Gold let out a sigh of relief. He was safe. Well, he would not be one hundred per cent safe until the person who was leaving had been announced, but he hadn’t had a complete disaster and he liked to think he was safe. Optimism wasn’t something he practiced often but Belle was such a naturally bright and positive person that it was hard not to be the same when she was complimenting his work.

Regina was up next, and she’d managed to turn things around from her disastrous technical the previous day, with the appearance and taste of her doughnuts being praised. They certainly looked to be the most tempting of the offerings in the tent and Gold couldn’t wait to try them when the filming was over and they had some time to themselves before they all had to go their separate ways and go home.

Lance was up last, and unfortunately, he had not been able to salvage the rather flat ring doughnuts.

“They’re just a bit underproved,” Belle said. “They’ve turned out looking a bit more like churros than doughnuts, and because they’re small, they’ve absorbed a lot more grease from the fryer than your round doughnuts have done and it’s made them a bit crunchy. It’s a real shame because they taste absolutely amazing. Salted caramel is tricky to get right but you’ve got the perfect balance in that glaze.”

“They do look a bit like frisbees,” Lance mused as the tent was being reset and they were gathered around one of the workbenches whilst Granny, Belle and the presenters were ensconced elsewhere doing their piece to camera. “Or quoits. We could use them as a party game at the grand finale in a couple of weeks. Edible games for the kids, it would keep them occupied for hours.” He threw one experimentally towards the tent window, much to the chagrin of the runner who was sweeping up, and he went to retrieve it abashed.

“I think it worked rather well,” Jefferson said. “Patent the idea, you could make a mint.”

They continued to discuss edible games until the judges returned, and they all made their way back to the centre of the tent. At least now that there were fewer of them, it looked less like they were lining up for the firing squad and more like a friendly gathering.

“Well, bakers, I think it’s fair to say that as the weeks count down towards the final and the bakes get ever more complicated, so the competition becomes closer and closer,” Ursula began. “But it wouldn’t be bake-off if we didn’t have a star baker, and this week, that title falls to Raymond. Well done!”

Gold blinked. Had they really just said his name? He who had not practiced at all in the run up to this weekend? He was certain that Jefferson would have got it.

“Unfortunately we can’t take everyone with us, and one baker must leave the tent,” Ella said with a sad and completely genuine sigh. “This week that baker is Lance. We’re very sorry to see you go.”

Lance shrugged, after his poor performance in the technical and then the frisbee doughnuts, it wasn’t really too much of a surprise, but it was still a shame to be losing him after he’d been the stoic support in the tent for so long, providing a calming foil to Jefferson’s madness and defusing all manner of situations when Killian and Zelena had still been around and causing trouble. The goodbyes and congratulations began, but Gold wasn’t really taking all of it in, still having a bit of trouble processing what had just happened.

The first thing to do, obviously, was tell Bae and Aunt Elvira, and to that end he moved away from the rest of the group and called home.

“Gold Farm, Elvira Gold speaking.”

“Afternoon, Aunt Elvira. Is Bae there?”

“He’s just this minute got in, do you want to speak to him?”

“I want to speak with both of you.”

“Hang on a minute I’ll get him. Hold up, Rum, the last time you called us straight after filming was bread week. Have you…”

“Just get Bae, Aunt Elvira.”

“All right, he’s here.”

“Hi Dad.”

Gold took a deep breath, aware that a goofy grin was spreading over his face and that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“I got star baker.”

The reaction on the other end of the phone could have brought the roof of the farmhouse down, and Gold had to hold his mobile away from his ear to avoid being deafened, and Astrid took an alarmed step back where she was coming to get him to do a piece to camera about his feelings on getting the coveted award for the second time. He was still not quite sure that it was real, but he wasn’t going to question the judges’ decision, and when he came back into the tent to gather his things together and make ready to leave, he found Belle waiting for him.

“Well done,” she said. “You deserve it.”

“Are you sure?” Gold asked. “I mean, Jefferson did pretty well these last couple of days and I don’t want to have got the sympathy vote because I turned up so frazzled yesterday and hadn’t had any practicing time.”

Belle rolled her eyes. “Granny, Ella and Ursula all agreed with me that you were the one who had performed the most consistently across the two days, and in the end, your doughnuts tasted better than Jefferson’s did.” She nodded across the tent to where the other man was standing, laughing with Lance. “Jefferson certainly doesn’t seem upset with the result. I think that maybe you’re too hard on yourself sometimes Rum. You need to have faith. You’re a good baker, and like you said last night, you’ve got more innate ability than you think. Just keep it up, I know you can. You’ve made it this far and you’ve got the talent and the determination to make it to the final. Keep calm and carry on baking.”

If Gold was surprised when Belle hugged him tightly, then he didn’t show it, and he just enjoyed the feeling of her warm arms around him, and her whisper of congratulations in his ear. He was into the semi-finals, and it was all to play for now - including the beautiful woman who was holding him.

=====

Next time: The bakers tackle patisserie, Gold can’t count, and Jefferson channels his inner unicorn.

=====

Chocolate and cherry plait recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolate_and_cherry_39721

Povitica recipe here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/povitica_92623

Chapter Text

“You know, this room looks incredibly big with only the four of us in it.”

Gold had to agree with Jefferson’s statement as the four semi-finalists clustered around the refreshment table ready for the day’s filming to begin. It was hard to believe that they’d lost eight other contestants since they’d started, when the room had been full of people who were only just getting to know each other. Now they were all good friends, and Gold really wished that they could all make it through to the final. Not that they wouldn’t see whoever didn’t make it at the big party on the final day, but it would have been nice to have them all there till the end.

“It really makes you think, doesn’t it?” Regina said. “Because there’s always a week between each session, you get used to being away and so you don’t really notice when there are less people than there were before, but when you get down to there being so few, you can tell. The room really does look huge now, and you’d think that it would still look so huge even with so many more of us in it.”

“I suppose that there were some larger than life personalities in there too,” Jefferson said, a trace of irony in his voice. Jefferson himself was definitely one of those personalities, and Gold found that although the younger man had not mellowed in any way since he had started the competition, always as bright and effervescent as ever, Gold was getting used to him. Of all the people he could be spending his weekends with, he could certainly think of worse.

“Hello darlings!” Ella made her usual grand entrance into the room, sunglasses on, and she proceeded to hug them all in turn, much to Gold’s alarm. He had never been the most tactile of people and being enveloped in a cloud of expensive perfume and cigarette smoke was somewhat overwhelming. “You’ve all done so well to get this far and no matter what happens today, we’re all incredibly proud of you. This is it, nearly the end. You can all breathe a sigh of relief soon.”

“Anyone would think that they weren’t enjoying themselves, Ella.” Ursula followed her partner into the room and began pouring coffee for them both. “You’re making it sound like this is some kind of torturous adventure we’ve put them in”

“Well, for some of them I believe it is a torturous adventure.” Ella winked at Gold, who did not even attempt to hope that no-one else had picked up on it. Although he was used to the cameras following them around by now, he still wasn’t completely comfortable with them and he for one would be incredibly happy when the entire thing was over. He couldn’t regret his time here though, not when it had brought him and Belle to the edge of something wonderful. That was another reason for the end of the competition to come as soon as possible. Once they were no longer judge and contestant, the something that had been building up between them could blossom into something more. Their little proto-dates could finally become actual dates.

Over Ella’s shoulder he could see Belle and Granny milling about outside the little ante-room that they remained ensconced away in during the pre-production time, and presently she caught his eye, smiling and waving. Gold couldn’t help but smile back; there was something in Belle’s expression that was utterly infectious. He wondered if they would be able to have another little talk tonight after filming had finished. The snide voice at the back of his mind that had started sounding very much like his ex-wife kept telling him that it would never work, and that as soon as the competition was over, they would go their separate ways and he would go back to being a nobody in the middle of nowhere on his sheep farm, and Belle would continue into the heights of her television fame. No-one could expect her to really give him a chance when there was so much vast difference between their two lives. Gold sighed and tried to tamp that voice down as best he could. There was definitely something there, a little spark. They both felt it, they had both discussed it, and they both knew that they wanted to fan that spark into a flame as soon as it was possible to do so. They were taking things slowly, doing it properly and getting to know each other. Lord knew that Gold was well aware of the dangers of rushing into things. And after all, everyone else seemed to be encouraging them. Aunt Elvira was already looking for new hats for the wedding, and it had become almost impossible to hide his attraction from Jefferson and the others.

Belle disappeared into her room with Granny and Astrid came in to get their mics fitted. The process didn’t take anywhere near as long now that there were so few of them and they were all used to having the wires attached, and Astrid chattered on happily throughout, telling them all about the various delights that Leroy had been baking since he left the tent two weeks ago. In fact, everyone’s relationships seemed to be on the table that morning. It was as if there was a sense of excitement in the air about the forthcoming finale and they were taking the opportunity to gush about it now, rather than waiting till the next week, when they would all be too stressed at the prospect of actually being in the finale to talk about anything but baking and what weird and wonderful tasks they’d be set in the ultimate test of their baking ability. Regina and Mal seemed to still be going strong weeks after Mal’s exit from the tent; Emma was already trying to fix it for her son and Jefferson’s daughter to meet and hopefully become friends, and Jefferson’s wife was willing to reorganise flight paths in order to be there for the party next Sunday. Gold was rather perturbed by this until it was explained that she was an air stewardess and scheduled to be flying to France at the time of the event.

Soon, though, it was time for the day’s filming to begin, and all excitement about next week had to be put aside in favour of concentrating on this week. It was going to be a tough weekend; the week before the final was always one of the most tricky, and considering the things that they were going to have to make, this particular season was no different. Gold found his place at the back of the tent, although since there were so few of them and the work benches had been respaced, this was actually much nearer the middle than it had been at the start of the show. He glanced down at the ingredients stacked neatly on the bench in front of him, checking that he had everything he needed. The production team were very good, and so far there had never been an instance where anybody had been missing any of their requested ingredients.

“Good morning bakers!” Ursula began brightly, bringing his attention back to the front of the tent. “Welcome to the first day of one of the more challenging weeks in the bake off: patisserie.”

“For your signature challenge this morning, Granny and Belle would like you to make twenty-four cream horns, twelve each of two different flavours,” Ella continued, and Ursula raised an eyebrow.

“You know, I’m amazed that you didn’t use that opportunity to sneak in a terrifically inappropriate joke there,” she said.

“The morning is still young, Ursula. There will be plenty of time for horny innuendo later.” Ella winked and turned her attention back to the bakers. “You can use full puff, rough puff or flaky pastry, and you have three and a half hours on the clock. So, on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

At the bench beside him, Emma was cursing having to make pastry yet again, but Gold didn’t pay her any mind. He’d chosen to make a rough puff pastry for his cream horns and he needed to get on with it quickly in order for it to have the maximum turning and chilling time, so that hopefully the finished product would be light, puffy and golden. This particular bake was not something that he had ever made before the bake-off and his attempts at home had ended up with mixed results. As Emma always said, there were some things that it was just easier to buy from a shop, and cream horns were one of them. Puff pastry desserts weren’t exactly a staple in the Gold household, and there’d never been any need to practise. The problem he had always found came when he had to wrap strips of pastry around the moulds to create the classic shape. He’d never been able to get them very even, and occasionally there were a few gaping holes, which wouldn’t be good for putting any filling in. At least in the tent he had the advantage of having enough moulds for all his bakes and not having to think about anything else at the same time as he was making them.

Well, he corrected mentally as Belle, Granny and Ella came over with the camera crew for the first of the weekend’s usual interrogations. He didn’t have to think about anything else, but knowing his brain, he was probably going to end up thinking about Belle for at least part of the time that he ought to be concentrating.

“Good morning Raymond,” Belle said.

“Good morning.” He liked to think that he was getting better at speaking on camera, but he couldn’t help glancing over at Walter every few seconds when he was supposed to be looking at the judges.

“So, tell us all about your cream horns,” Granny said, pulling his attention back to her.

“I’m making half mocha and hazelnut, and half lemon and ginger.”

“Interesting flavours,” Ella said. “I have to say it, lemon and ginger is a combination I’ve always associated with cold and flu remedies, but I’m sure that yours will be delicious.”

Belle rolled her eyes. “Ella, you know how you and Ursula are always ticking me and Granny off for saying things that dent the bakers’ confidence? Well, comparing someone’s cream horns to cough mixture is probably along those same lines.”

“I said that I was sure that they’d taste delicious!” Ella protested. “Ok, ok. I’ll go and stand in the corner.”

Ella left them then in a mock sulk, but Granny and Belle took it all in their stride, and Gold was happy to tell them more about the bake. The mocha and hazelnut pastries were dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with nuts, and filled with a coffee cream, whilst the lemon and ginger were filled with lemon curd and cream and studded with candied ginger pieces. Now that he thought about it, Ella did have a point about the flu remedies, but with any luck, the end result wouldn’t be too medicinal. The judges left him to it, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as Belle went to collect Ella from her sulking corner. He suspected that the two presenters would be playing up for the cameras more than ever this week, with it being such an important week for all the bakers, and he couldn’t say that he minded in the slightest. As long as he was able to get on and concentrate, then he didn’t really care what happened in the rest of the tent. That wasn’t entirely true, naturally he didn’t want anyone to have an absolutely terrible disaster in the penultimate week, but he wasn’t paying all that much attention to the other bakers. It was only once the pastry was in the oven that he really had any leisure to investigate the competition. He’d tried to wrap the horns as tightly as he could to prevent any leakage, but he’d have to wait until he was actually filling them for the moment of truth.

Jefferson’s bench immediately garnered his attention. It resembled an explosion in a greetings card factory, with pink and purple glitter everywhere. Regina and Emma seemed to be similarly perplexed.

“Unicorn horns!” Jefferson said, as if that explained everything. On receiving blank looks, he rolled his eyes. “If you’re going to make a cream horn, you need to at least try and play on the whole ‘horn’ thing,” he continued. “And since this is a family friendly TV show, I decided to take a leaf out of my daughter’s book and create some unicorn horns. Pink and glitter are the way forward.”

“Right.” Regina didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Are you sure they’ll be edible?”

“Of course. You’ll get high as a kite from all the sugar and e-numbers, but I’m hoping that in spite of the buzzing between your ears, they will actually taste nice.”

“That is a problem with using a lot of artificial colours in baking,” Granny pointed out. “A lot of the time you can just taste the artificialness rather than any other kind of flavour.”

To that end, Jefferson scooped up a fingerful of edible glitter and licked it, making a face.

“Yeah… I think I’ll stick with the light dusting I’ve been giving them in practice.”

His reaction had stirred Ella and Ursula’s morbid curiosity and they gathered around his bench to sample the uncut glitter for themselves. Gold left them to it; it was time for his pastries to come out of the oven and hopefully cool in time for them to be decorated and filled. The waiting game was beginning again. It felt like the stakes were far higher in this challenge than they had been in any other, and Gold supposed that they were in a way. The tension in the tent, apart from the distractions going on around Jefferson’s bench, was almost unbearable, with all the bakers almost afraid to look each other in the eye for fear of either putting each other off or getting distracted and having a disaster at the last minute. Gold tried to focus his attention entirely on the pastry in front of him and not get caught up in the completely unintentional mind games that were going on in the tent. The pastries had baked to a nice golden brown and they seemed to be crisp enough, so it was time to fill them. His hands were shaking, and he clenched them into fists to try and regain some control.

“Are you all right?” The voice was low but obviously directed at him, and he glanced up to see Emma looking over at him with a concerned expression. He held up one shaking hand and she grimaced. “Well, better today than tomorrow when we have to make something even more fiddly. Let me know if you need a slightly steadier hand.”

Gold was grateful for her offer of help and nodded his thanks as she went back to piping dark chocolate cream into her own pastries; he didn’t want to distract her from her own work if possible, and he knew that he just had to get on with it. That was the general consensus in the tent, and it had fallen into silence once more, with Ella and Ursula leaving Jeff to his filling and decorating and just patrolling the tent in case of any last-minute breakdowns. Gold couldn’t rule anything out just yet, and kept his head down, trying to lose himself in the process, tasting the fillings to make sure that they were perfect. The lemon and ginger didn’t taste too medicinal, so he thought that he would be all right in spite of Ella’s misgivings. There were a few places where the cream inside could be spotted through tiny gaps in the pastry, but all in all they didn’t look too messy.

“Oh damn!”

He glanced over at Emma, who had decided to display her horns vertically like ice-cream cones, drizzling chocolate sauce down inside some of them, but a few of the cones were not entirely sealed up at the bottom and the sauce and cream was dripping out.

“Well, at least they still look vaguely clean on the outside; all the mess is on the workbench,” she said, salvaging the cones and arranging them on a plate instead as she stuck pieces of chocolate flake into the top of each one.

“It’s almost like Elsa’s returned to the tent in spirit,” Regina mused. “This is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to her.”

“Yes, well, I’d appreciate it if she hadn’t chosen me to pass her clumsiness on to,” Emma muttered, wiping chocolate off the bench and eyeing up the finished cream horns critically, swiping at them with kitchen paper to try and get the stray splashes off the pastry. Gold couldn’t help but give a snort of laughter; this little exchange had lightened the mood in the tent a little and by the time Ursula was calling an end to the challenge and he was arranging his pastries at the end of his workbench, he was actually able to smile again.

With so few of them in the tent this week, the clean-up did not take anywhere near as long as normal.

“I suppose I should be grateful that the terror of the judging isn’t hanging over us for as long, but at the same time, it is nice having a bit of breathing space,” Jefferson said. The man appeared to be covered in glitter from head to toe, perhaps it was not just Emma who was being affected by Elsa’s influence today. All too soon the cameras had finished doing their fancy photography, and it was time for Belle and Granny to go to work. Jefferson’s offerings received universal praise, having come out looking remarkably polished in spite of all the glitter and sprinkles, and Regina’s salted caramel confections also received compliments. Then came Gold’s turn.

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the lemon and ginger ones don’t taste at all of Lemsip,” Granny said. Gold gave a nervous laugh; he hadn’t entirely scared that they would taste that way, but ever since Ella had mentioned it, it had been nagging at the back of his mind.

“Yes, the flavours are very good,” Belle agreed, “and you have a nice bake and a nice crispness to the pastry. I would have liked to have seen a few more layers, but you have definition and lamination in there, so your method was good, just pushed for time.”

“My only real criticism is that they look a bit messy,” Granny said, pointing out the places where the strips of pastry had been wrapped around their moulds unevenly in the bid to stop any splits and holes. “But they taste lovely, so very well done.”

Emma was the last to face the judge’s scrutiny; they enjoyed the inventiveness that she had brought to the table with her ice-cream inspired cream horns, but they had ended up rather soggy on the inside thanks to her efforts with the melted chocolate. When the cameras were off and the contestants left to their own devices whilst the tent was reset ready for the technical in the afternoon, Gold chanced to breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn’t his best performance, but it wasn’t his worst. All things considered, he thought that he and Emma had come out of that one pretty evenly matched.

“It’s always unnerving when it’s this close, so close to the end,” Emma was muttering as they made their way back up to the break room for lunch. “I mean, I know it’s a good thing because we’re all on a par with each other and we’re all in with a chance of winning, but the closer we are going into the showstopper tomorrow, the tighter it’s going to be. It’s much more nerve-wracking than if there’s definitely someone at the head of the pack or if there’s someone lagging behind.”

Gold could only nod his agreement, but thankfully he was distracted from any more melancholy strains of thought by Jefferson and Regina’s antics. The two of them were taking selfies with Jefferson’s leftover unicorn horns. It was quite heartwarming to watch really, as Gold had never really seen Regina’s fun side all that much during their time in the tent together. She had always been the most serious and most focussed, and it was good to see her let her hair down and act like just as much of a dork as the rest of them were. Emma just gave a good-natured sigh and settled down to eat her lunch, and Gold thought back to her words. Perhaps the technical this afternoon would thin them out a little. His only hope was that he was not at the bottom end of the spectrum.

X

The weather had turned by the time the contestants were being ushered back down into the tent for their second challenge, with the murky clouds that had been rolling in from the horizon now closing in fully and the first drops of rain pattering down on the roof of the tent. In a way, Gold felt that it reflected his mood perfectly. The morning challenge had not been a complete disaster, in fact he thought that he’d managed to acquit himself quite well considering his inexperience in the field, but unlike Jefferson and Regina, he could never bring himself to be at all enthusiastic or excited about the technical, and the grim weather was an excellent companion for his current pessimistic feelings. Patisserie was always a difficult technical challenge, usually something incredibly specific and delicate that could go terribly wrong at any of its many stages, and the sparseness of the recipes that they were given never helped at all.

“Good afternoon, bakers,” Ella began, before peering out of the tent window. “Not that it’s looking particularly good out there today, but that’s beside the point. Welcome to your technical challenge, which today has been set by Granny. Any sage words of advice for us, Granny?”

“Be precise,” Granny said, and there was a warning tone in her voice that Gold felt honour-bound to take notice of.

“Well, that was very helpful.” Ursula shepherded the two judges out of the tent, handing them an umbrella as they went. “Never let it be said that Granny is not cryptic in her assistance. Nevertheless, let’s push on. This afternoon, Granny and Belle would like you to make a schichttorte.”

Ella spluttered. “A what?”

“A schichttorte,” Ursula enunciated clearly. “It’s a light German sponge cake made up of several layers: Schichte in the German, hence the name, get your head out of the gutter, Ella. Don’t worry, we’ve never heard of it either. All we know is that you’ve got two hours on the clock, so on your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold pulled the familiar checked tea towel off the ingredients on his bench and looked down at the recipe. On the face of it, it seemed to be a fairly simple sponge cake mixture covered with a chocolate glaze. Nothing too difficult about that. Then he read the method, the first stage being ‘pre-heat the grill’. Gold blinked. The grill? Surely that was a misprint. No-one grilled cakes. Or did they? No, reading through the rest of the recipe it seemed that they would definitely be grilling the cakes, cooking very thin layers of batter to different levels of golden brown to create a striped, layered cake. Timing the bake - well, grill - of each layer was going to be crucial in order to make sure that the alternate layers were all the same colour, and the recipe stated that there had to be twenty layers. The majority of his time limit would be taken up with cooking the thing, so it would probably be a good idea to get a move on. Looking around the tent, he could see that the others were having similar trouble coming to terms with the idea of grilling a cake.

Still, there was nothing for it but to get on with it.

“It’s looking a bit like a stack of pancakes,” Jefferson mused as he ladled another spoonful of batter onto his previously grilled layer, shaking the cake tin vigorously to try and make it spread evenly without working the mixture too much. “I wonder what it’ll look like on the outside when it’s finished and we take it out of the tin.”

For his part, Gold wasn’t all that enthusiastic about finding out. The entire thing had just entered the realms of weirdness in his mind.

“You know, I think this is similar to the baumkuchen that Lance was talking about,” Emma said; unseen where she was kneeling on the floor in front of her grill, trying to tell by eye how brown the layers were. “The one that they cook over a spit. That would end up with a lot of fine layers like this.”

“Yes. Like the age rings on a tree,” Gold mused. “Hence the name, I suppose. Tree cake.”

“Yeah, I don’t suppose your Aunt Miriam had a recipe for this stashed away in her cupboards, did she?”

Gold shook his head; if there was such a thing then he hadn’t found it in his forays a few weeks ago when he had been looking for kugelhupf recipes. “It would be a bit late to pull it out now,” he pointed out. “I don’t think I can get to Scotland and back in two hours.”

“One hour, actually,” Ella said casually. “Half time, folks! You have one hour remaining!”

Gold cursed under his breath at their short schedule. He still wasn’t even half done with his layer baking, and he still had to make the glaze. Perhaps it would be best to forgo watching the grill and leave it to timers so that he could get on with other things whilst the layers continued to cook. At the same time, though, he really didn’t trust the grill and he wanted to make sure that nothing burned to a crisp the moment his back was turned.

In the end he decided to take a leap of faith, he was going to have to if he was going to get finished in time. The ovens in the tent were top of the range and brand new, and they had never let him down yet, but inevitably, today would be the day.

Time continued to tick down, and Gold just kept building up the layers in his cake, wishing he knew how the others were doing, from a sense of timing perspective rather than any desire to know who was doing the best. Everyone seemed to be at roughly the same stage, and it was going to be very tight to time. Even Ella and Ursula had decided to take a back seat again, not engaging in any of their usual antics as the bakers raced against the clock. The cake was still baking hot on the top when he pulled it out having cooked the final layer, and the thick glaze was very obviously melting on the sides.

Jefferson was right though. It did look like a stack of pancakes.

Gold crossed his fingers and winged up a prayer as the judges called time on the challenge. The four cakes were placed in prime positions on the judging table, and the four bakers finally had the chance to breathe again as they waited for the results. Gold certainly wasn’t going to be sorry to see the back of the technical challenges when he did leave the tent for good; it seemed that the more complicated they were, the less time they got, and the more down to the wire everything became. The cups of tea that Ursula handed around to the contestants during the clean-up were well-deserved.

The judges re-entered the tent and began to get to work. Gold was rather alarmed when Granny cut into the first one and proceeded to crouch down till she was eye level with it and start poking it viciously with the sharp knife.

“Oh good lord,” Emma murmured beside him. “Is she really going to count all the layers in each cake?”

As it turned out, yes, Granny was going to count all the layers in each cake. Regina was on twenty, but that could be expected of her. She excelled in all things precision, and Gold knew that something would have been very wrong with her if she hadn’t hit the exact number of layers that the recipe stated. Emma was on eighteen having run out of time. Jefferson was on nineteen having had similar issues. Gold was startled when Granny announced that his cake had twenty-one layers. He thought that he’d been counting up pretty well, and he’d tried not to get too distracted throughout the process.

“No, definitely twenty-one,” Granny said. “Is it better to have too many or too few, do you think?”

Belle spread her hands. “It’s your recipe, Granny, so I think that’s up to you to decide.”

“Hmm.” The question was evidently a trickier one than appeared, as Granny continued to frown, lost in thought, until it was time to rank the cakes.

Emma was last, without enough layers. Gold just pipped Jefferson to second, having got a better consistency of glaze on the top. Naturally, Regina won, having been the only one to actually get the right number of layers. All things considered, though, they hadn’t really spread out as much as they might have done in terms of their standing for star baker and leaving the tent. It was really all going to come down to the wire. Any one of them might have a bad day tomorrow and any one of them might pull something out of the bag at the last minute and steal the crown.

“Hey.”

Gold was so lost in thought that he almost missed Belle waiting for him outside the tent as he left to get a taxi back to his hotel, hoping that he would get a good night’s sleep in anticipation of the nerve-wracking events of the next day, but not anticipating one. He smiled.

“Hey yourself.”

“Well done in there today,” she continued. “I know how tense it gets towards the end, when everyone’s made friends with everyone else and you know that the slightest hiccup could prove fatal. It’s good to see you holding it together. Sorry, that gives the impression that I didn’t think you would hold it together. I’ve got complete faith in you. I guess I’m just glad that you don’t look like you’re about to collapse from nervous exhaustion, because I really wouldn’t wish that on you…” Belle tailed off. “I’m gabbling, aren’t I?”

“Just a little bit. But thank you, anyway. For your concern.”

Belle smiled. “I’ve found that I quite like being concerned about you, Rum. Although I’m glad you no longer look like you’re about to jump into the nearest freezer whenever the cameras come up to you.”

“Oh, I still want to do that,” Gold said. “I think I’m just too stressed to show it at this point.”

They both laughed at that, and in that moment, Gold received the impression of something more hovering on the horizon, something unspoken and intense that was just out of reach, something that was reassuring him that whatever it was, it was just a couple of weeks until it could come to fruition and reveal itself. It was tempting to give into it now, but Gold knew that here, just outside the tent with the rest of the crew and the other bakers milling around, was not the best time or place.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Belle finished. He wondered if she was feeling that unspoken temptation as well, and he nodded.

“Till tomorrow.”

In spite of the stresses of the competition and the no doubt sleepless night awaiting him, Gold could not help but smile. It was a reaction that Belle just automatically brought out in him; her own smile could always make him see the best in life. No matter what happened tomorrow, there was an unspoken something with Belle, and that was enough for him for now.

X

The atmosphere in the break room on the second morning was far more subdued than it had been the day before. This was the final challenge before the grand finale, and it was weighing heavily on everyone’s minds that soon, one of them would be the last to leave the tent and would have missed out on their place in the finale by such a small margin. Gold would certainly be peeved if he was sent home at this late stage, but at the same time he really didn’t want any of his newly-made friends to go either. At least he could rest easy in the knowledge that whoever did make it through to the final week definitely deserved to be there. The judging had been incredibly close the previous day, there was barely anything in it, so it was all coming down to the next six or so hours. In a way, that made it even worse. At least if one of them had done a bad job coming in to this last challenge, it would have been easier to pick a winner and loser, but there were no standouts at either end of the spectrum.

“Anyone would think that we were all about to be shot,” Jefferson remarked, dunking the end of a croissant into his cup of coffee absentmindedly, then cringing when he realised that doing so was really not to be recommended. “I know that it’s the final countdown so to speak, but whatever happens, none of us are going to expire at the end of it.”

Gold snorted. “That’s all right for you to say. I’ve been on the verge of a heart attack for the last eight weeks.”

“If you do have a heart attack, we can safely say that this has been the most dramatic season of the bake-off there’s ever been,” Jefferson mused. “Pork pie proposals, the tent nearly getting set on fire, contestants being disqualified… You know, it’s almost a shame that we had to sign a gag order to keep quiet until the show airs, because I’d give very good money to see what Zelena would say in interviews to some trashy gossip magazine about her experiences in the tent.”

Regina made a face. “Really? I wouldn’t give any kind of money to read about that witch. You’d have to be paying me.”

“You can’t deny that she provided us with a lot of entertainment whilst she was here,” Jefferson said. “We haven’t had nearly as many bets about green foodstuffs since she’s been gone. Don’t worry, I’m not going to say that I miss her because I definitely don’t. I miss her comedy value more than anything.”

Regina just raised an eyebrow, not entirely convinced. At least it had got the conversation in the room started again and they weren’t all sitting around like depressed and stressed lemons, waiting for the final judgement. The morbid humour continued until Ella and Ursula entered the room and the contestants all tried to hide the fact that they were secretly terrified. The presenters weren’t buying it at all.

“It’s always like this on the penultimate week,” Ella said airily. “Everyone’s hoping that they get through, but they’ve made such good friends with everyone else that they really don’t want to hope that someone else goes home in their stead. Sometimes I think that Belle and Granny would do better to just pick a name out of a hat.”

“Patisserie’s always the hardest week, I think,” Ursula mused. “That’s probably why it almost always comes at the end. By the time we get to this stage, we’re left with the crème de la crème and the offerings are always amazing.”

Gold could only hope that his own offerings would be up to the standard that the judges were looking for. There was no room for error at all in this challenge; the slightest mistake could be enough to send him home. Unfortunately, this was just the sort of bake in which everything had the potential to go wrong all at the same time.

It was a long final challenge this week so they were ushered down into the tent slightly earlier than usual to make sure that they would finish on time. All of the workbenches were virtually covered in ingredients and equipment, and Gold was very glad that the spare workbenches had been reinstalled in the back of the tent to be used as overflow. They were going to need it, what with everything that was going on.

Belle and Granny entered the tent with the two presenters, looking as inscrutable as ever. As always, Gold found himself praying that he would not do anything that would get a disappointed expression from Belle. As pretty as her little pout was when something wasn’t up to her standard, he really didn’t want it to be directed at him or his baking.

“Welcome bakers, to the second day of patisserie week and your final challenge before the final,” Ursula began. “For your showstopper challenge this week, Granny and Belle would like you to make twenty-four entremets. These are small, fine cakes found in the window of French patisserie shops, usually containing several layered elements of sponge and mousse.”

“We’re looking for neatness and precision,” Granny added. “As well as tasting good, these cakes ought to be of display quality. We want to see things of beauty.”

Gold had feared hearing something like that. Whilst he wasn’t as messy as some of the other bakers had been in their time in the tent – Elsa in particular – he and Emma were definitely more inclined towards the more rustic style of baking, whilst Regina and Jefferson were far neater. If anyone was going to get star baker based off this challenge, then it was likely to be one of those two.

“We would like you to make two different types of entremets, twelve of each type. You can use any flavours and components that you wish, and you have five hours on the clock,” Ella concluded. “On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

The challenge began, and Gold looked down at the little action plan that Aunt Elvira had made him write. She made him write one every week, but thus far he had never been able to stick to one, as inevitably everything always took longer to make and chill than it ought to. This week he might actually try and adhere to it a little more. It didn’t help that he had not had chance to practice this particular challenge very much, only having one full practice run that he had completely forgotten to time. All the different elements that made up the entremets had been practised a few times, but actually having them all put together was another matter entirely.

The first things to make would be the jellies that were going inside half of the cakes, so that they had the maximum amount of time to chill before assembly, and then the sponges that would form the bases and collars. As long as he didn’t get distracted, then everything would be all right. There wasn’t a whole lot to distract him in the tent other than the other bakers, and whilst Jefferson might be a spectacle in and of himself, he could be trusted not to do anything that might unintentionally sabotage the other bakers at this late stage of the game. He was as serious as any of the others about his chances to get into the final, and a quick glance over at his bench showed that he definitely meant business. The tent was remarkably quiet; you could have heard a pin drop, so the slightest loud sound, like the beaters of a hand mixer clanging against a bowl, sounded far too loud. The presenters and judges were talking in hushed tones, not wanting to disturb the tense concentration at work in the tent, and even the camera operators seemed reluctant to get too close in to the workbenches for fear of putting the bakers off their stride.

Still, it was inevitable that the judges would make their rounds at some point, and there was never going to be a point in the challenge where they would not be interrupting something crucial. Gold had been keeping half an eye out for them ever since he started working, not wanting to have an embarrassing squawking reaction to being caught out of the blue and having to waste time refilming.

“So, Raymond, tell us all about your entremets,” Granny said.

“These will be double chocolate entremets,” he said, carefully piping out stripes of chocolate sponge mixture over the baking tray. Having seen the patterned effect that Jefferson had done on his Swiss roll in the first week, he had been tempted to do the same thing on the entremets to give them a little bit more pizazz. “Chocolate and vanilla sponge around the outsides and on the base, and they’ll be filled with dark chocolate and white chocolate mousses and finished off with tempered chocolate decorations.”

“They sound lovely,” Belle said. “What about your others?”

“Those will be raspberry and almond, with layers of almond sponge, raspberry mousse and a raspberry and elderflower jelly, finished with an almond cream.”

It was going to be a difficult undertaking, he already knew that, so he had opted to keep the flavours as simple and hard to mess up as he could so that he could devote as much time as possible to the assembly. If he had to worry about exotic flavours as well, then he might as well throw in the towel there and then. True, that might turn out to be his downfall when the time came, as other bakers tended to get more and more adventurous with their flavours as time went on, but in this challenge, execution was the key to it all, and something that looked immaculate was essential.

The judges made a few more generic remarks in order to fill the time but quickly left him alone. Ella continued to hover for a little while. Normally when the presenters did that, it was because they were angling for a taste of something, but none of Gold’s elements were anywhere near ready for tasting yet. Gold glanced up at her as he stood from putting the sponges into the oven, and his brow furrowed.

“Am I missing something?” he asked. Ella shook her head with a smile.

“No, no. Just the longing looks that were being exchanged between you and Belle.”

Gold cringed as he started measuring out ingredients for the next batch of sponge, the work at least giving him an excuse not to meet Ella’s eyes.

“Is it really that obvious?”

“With clever camera editing no-one watching at home will know,” she assured him. “But to us, yes, it’s incredibly obvious. Don’t worry, you’ve got our blessing, both of you. I probably shouldn’t be distracting you by chatting about it now, but honestly – keep going for it. Those feelings are definitely returned.”

In spite of the pressures of the tent weighing down on him, Gold managed a small smile. He had no doubt that Belle felt the same way about him; their little proto-dates and the promise that they could become something more once the competition was over had told him that much, but to hear it from Ella, someone who knew Belle comparatively well and was considered one of her friends, was heartening, especially when his own feelings towards Belle had been there in the back of his mind and heart for so long before he had even met her. The fact that he might be chasing an unreachable crush had always been a fear present in the back of his mind, and every indication that he got to the contrary served to bolster his confidence. He could make something of this little flirtation with Belle; people wanted him to make something of it and they thought that he deserved to make something of it.

He shook the thoughts away. No use in getting distracted in a daydream romantic future and completely scuppering his chances to get to the final. For the first time since arriving at the tent back in cake week, he had the overwhelming desire to win the thing, rather than just wanting to make it through to the next week. For the first time, he thought that perhaps he was in with a chance of winning the whole thing. He checked the timers and pulled out the first batch of sponge, putting the second one in and getting started on making the chocolate mousses. Timing was going to be the kicker here, as everything needed to chill as it was being assembled to make sure that when the moulds were removed, there would be no unfortunate collapses. The strong smells of chocolate and coffee and coconut were filling the tent, and Gold wondered what the other three were making. Time would tell. There was far too much at stake to get involved in conversations at this stage.

X

Belle didn’t think that she had ever known the tent to be so quiet. It always got quieter as the weeks went on simply by dint of there being less people in it, but even then, by the time the semi-final came around, the contestants usually knew each other well enough to conduct conversations across the tent. It was clear that this particular task needed a hell of a lot more concentration than any of the others had, and she was loath to do anything that might put them off their stride. Normally she and Granny would sit at the front of the tent and chat to pass the time whilst the bakers were working, or they would wander around the tent and see what was happening. Today, though, they sat in silence, watching from a distance and hoping that there would be no last-minute disasters. Belle looked over at Gold at the front of the tent, his long fingers working deftly to assemble his raspberry and almond confections. The jellies had set well, which she was extremely pleased about. Jelly was always a minefield to work with. Now she just had to hope that his mousses would hold together as well. The chocolate ones were already in the freezer firming up, and now he just needed to make the tempered chocolate decorations. On the other side of the tent, Regina was carefully coating her squares in a buttercream crumb mixture that would provide a perfectly smooth surface for a shiny chocolate glaze to be poured over the top. Glazed cakes did look lovely when they were done well, but the glaze shouldn’t be too runny, or else they would just look a mess. Beside her, Emma was attempting to unmould her orange entremets to find that her mousse was not yet set, and they were rushed back into the fridge for another ten minutes. Jefferson was making salted caramel sauce, but Belle still couldn’t work out how he was going to introduce a liquid component into something that was incredibly soft and porous and that needed to spend a lot of time in the fridge in order for it to be perfect. Still, Jefferson was the master of pulling extravagant and unbelievable creations out of the bag, so he was probably the one that she ought to be the least worried about.

Time continued to tick on; Belle never really noticed its passing whilst she was observing in the tent because there was always something going on to keep her attention. The bakers often said that they didn’t know where the time went on challenges like these, and that five hours always sounded like a lot but was never as much time as you thought it was. That was certainly the case now. Ella was calling ten minutes on the challenge, and almost as soon as the words left her mouth, the amount of activity in the tent increased exponentially. Considering that there were only four bakers, they seemed to be making enough hustle and bustle to make up for all the ones that they had lost over the past couple of weeks. Everyone was rushing from fridges to freezers to workbenches and back again, and Jefferson alarmed them all by doing a lap of the tent waving his arms around.

“Are you all right?” Belle asked as he passed her on his way back to his own station.

He nodded. “Yes, just trying not to panic at the last minute. I thought that by pre-emptively panicking, I’d get it all out of my system. Right, time to unmould the entremets.”

Belle wasn’t entirely convinced, but she had been around Jefferson long enough to know that whilst eccentric, the man was completely benign and she shouldn’t worry about him too much. He returned to his bench with the utmost composure, and apart from a few baffled looks exchanged between the others, his little performance went swiftly under the radar.

“Bakers, your time is up!” Ursula called. “Please move your entremets to the end of your benches and step away from your baking equipment.”

The tent gave a collective sigh of relief as the challenge came to a close. Belle didn’t think that it had been any more nerve-wracking than any other showstopper, but then again, it was patisserie and whilst she was a professional baker and pastry chef, the rest of them were not. The runners raced around the tent doing clean-up in record time, and before long, Belle and Granny were standing at the front waiting to pass judgement on all the creations.

It was going to be a tough call, Belle could already tell that just from looking at the plates of delicate mousse cakes on the end of each workbench. There wasn’t really anything that looked obviously out of place that put someone out of the running from the start; from a distance they all looked very neat and well-made. Once they started coming up and the judges could get a closer look at them, then the rougher edges started to show, but no-one had done disgracefully. Regina and Jefferson were the strongest contenders: Jefferson’s salted caramel sauce had managed to remain liquid and remain completely contained within the mousse encasing it, which Belle considered to be a massive achievement. Emma’s orange mousses were still a bit runny in the middle and Gold had similar neatness issues with his raspberry and almond cakes; as they had no collar of sponge around them to cover up any mistakes it made any irregularities very obvious. In terms of taste, though, no-one could really be faulted; their flavours were all spot on.  

“This is probably the most difficult decision we’ve ever had in the history of bake off,” Granny said mournfully, stirring her tea as she gazed over the select offerings on the table in front of her. Belle couldn’t disagree. They were filming their piece to camera whilst the tent got cleaned up ready for the final announcement, and so far all they could do was bemoan how agonising it was to actually come to a decision. All of the bakers had shown incredible skill over the weekend’s three challenges and it was certainly one of the closest semi-finals that she’d ever known. By the time they got to this stage, the contestants were all fairly evenly matched in terms of talent, and the patisserie week usually included challenges that tested all of the main baking skill sets. Usually though, someone would slip up somewhere and give them an out.

“Jefferson’s safe,” Granny said. “If nothing else then for sheer novelty value with the unicorn horns.”

Belle nodded. “Yes, his signature was the best and his showstopper was good too.”

“Emma was last in the technical but she really pulled it back today, and Regina and Raymond have both held their own throughout.”

“You’ve got to pick someone,” Ursula pointed out. “I know we love them all, but we’d get complaints from previous years’ contestants if we let all four of them through to the final.”

“I know, I know. We will pick someone but we’re probably going to have to have another cup of tea before we actually make up our minds.”

“Well, as long as we don’t have to break out the boxing gloves again,” Ella said brightly. Belle rolled her eyes.

“Granny and I have never physically fought over this decision, you know that.”

“Of course I know that, but that doesn’t stop me wondering what it would be like if you did. Our viewership would skyrocket overnight.”

“And we’d probably have to move to a different channel,” Granny observed. “All right, I think we’d better get down to it. I’m sure that you two can keep the bakers entertained whilst we hash out what we’re doing.”

“We’ll be sure to do just that,” Ella said, with a twinkle in her eye that usually meant trouble. “We can play charades.”

The camera had cut by this point, with Walter leaving them alone whilst he went to liaise with the other cameramen, and Granny gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Ella, the last time you played charades with the contestants, we ended up with jam on the ceiling of the break room. The production company has been trying to get it cleaned out of there for the last two years and they’ve now decided that it should just stay there as an artistic feature.”

“People are going to come to this manor house in the off season as tourists and wonder if any grisly murders took place here to leave strange blood stains on the ceiling,” Ella mused. “Still, we shall leave you to your deliberations and go and entertain the troops.” She saluted, and then Ursula and Ella left the little pavilion. Granny sighed, but Belle could only giggle.

“Come on, I think we need a bit of light-heartedness before we have to get down to business,” she said. “This is always the worst decision we have to make.”

“Yes,” Granny said. “So let’s just get on and make it, shall we?”

X

The judges seemed to be taking far longer to make their decision this time than they usually did, and Gold wondered if he was the only one getting paranoid. He looked around. Regina and Emma were looking just as worried as he felt, and even Jefferson was subdued, a far cry from the eccentricity that had come to the fore earlier. Ella and Ursula had given up trying to talk them all down from their respective cliffs, and they now just awaited the judges’ decision with the same trepidation.

Finally Belle and Granny came out of their smaller tent and the presenters went over to confer with them before all four made their way back into the tent for the final bit of filming. Ella began.

“Ladies, Gentlemen, all and sundry, it’s been a fantastic semi-final week and Belle and Granny almost had to resort to drawing straws to work out who was going to be star baker and who was going to be leaving us. The quality that we’ve seen has been absolutely exceptional. So, it’s with great pleasure that I can finally announce that this week’s star baker is Jefferson.”

Jefferson was safe, through to the final, and the relief in his face was almost palpable.

“Unfortunately, there are only three places in the final so we must say goodbye to one of our number,” Ursula continued. “The baker who will not be joining us next week is Emma.”

Emma shrugged, but it was clear that she was devastated not to have made it to the final. The presenters and judges all gathered around her to wish her well, and Gold felt a delayed gut punch. True, this did mean that he was in the final, but it also meant that Emma, the first friend that he had made in the tent, wouldn’t be there, and that saddened him.

It took quite a while for the implications of being in the final to sink in. Strangely enough, the first thing that went through his head was the realisation that this meant Belle would be coming to the filming at the farm next week, and that she would undoubtedly meet Aunt Elvira. This was some cause for concern, but it was soon pushed to the back of his mind as Jefferson came over to congratulate him on making it through to the final week. He’d done it. He’d got through to the final. No matter what happened now, he was in no danger of being sent home. Despite everything that had happened during the last few weeks, both inside the tent and outside it, he had triumphed against all the odds and he was in the last stretch. A giddy grin began to spread over his face, and he considered calling Elvira and Bae to tell them immediately, but ultimately decided to leave them hanging for a while. After all their teasing, it was the least he could do to get back at them.

“Well done.” Belle was grinning too as she came over to congratulate him. “You made it. You can stop worrying now.”

“Who said I was worried?”

Belle just gave him a look, one that he knew that he was going to be seeing more of over the coming weeks. “It was written all over your face. But you did really well this weekend, and now you’re safe. Just the finale left to go.”

Gold didn’t want to make any comments that might remotely affect the outcome of next week’s competition in the eyes of luck, fate and justice, so he just smiled.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you next week,” Belle continued. “I always love these little visits to everyone’s houses. I can’t wait.”

Gold could, but he didn’t say that. There was something altogether nerve-wracking about the thought of Belle in his home. True, it was his place and he had control over it, but anticipating her reaction to the place he had lived in all his life wasn’t something he wanted to contemplate. He shook himself crossly. He was proud of his farm and always had been, and there was no reason to think that it was not good enough for Belle. He worked hard there, and he liked to think that it showed. As he gave himself this mental pep talk, a little spark of excitement began to ignite at the thought of Belle visiting the farm and seeing his life’s work for herself. Of course, meeting Aunt Elvira was another matter entirely, and the thought of locking her in a cupboard for the duration of the filming crew’s visit pushed its way to the front of his mind once more.

“I’m looking forward to it too.”

At that point Belle was accosted by one of the camera crew to do some final filming, and Gold was left alone with his thoughts. Regina and Emma were still talking to the presenters, and so he found himself gravitating towards Jefferson.

“Congratulations!” he exclaimed as Gold approached. “Once more unto the breach, dear friend.”

Gold just raised an eyebrow. “Right.”

“Well, you can’t deny it,” Jefferson said. “There really is just one more time to go.”

“I’m well aware of that, but I didn’t really need the Shakespeare to go with it.”

Jefferson just laughed. “In all seriousness, although seriousness is vastly overrated in my opinion, well done. This is pretty much the end now and you don’t need to worry about anything anymore. No matter what happens next week, you’re in the final and you’re not going home. Neither am I or Regina. We’re in it to the end, and the best person on the day will win.”

Gold nodded. “Time will tell.” It was a shame that Emma would not be there with them, but that was the nature of the competition, and he would see her on the Sunday anyway, along with all the other friends that he had made that he’d had to say goodbye to over the course of the production. The thought buoyed him up a little, and when he finally managed to get over to talk to Emma, it seemed that she was thinking along similar lines.

“I’m gutted, obviously,” she said. “I wanted to get through to the final just as much as anyone else, but I did my best, and I got this far, and it’s not like I’m not going to be coming back this time next week for the party anyway.” A sly smile spread over her face. “You know, in a way, this might be better, because I’ll be out there enjoying myself in the sunshine without a care in the world whilst the rest of you are in here having meltdowns over creating croquembouches or whatever sadistic sugarwork torture Granny and Belle have thought up for you this year.” Gold didn’t particularly want to think about the challenges that would face them the next week, knowing that the ultimate showstopper was going to be incredibly intricate and time-consuming and that he wouldn’t have anywhere near as much time to practice it as he would like. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

“I’ll miss you,” he said to Emma. “In the tent and in the breakroom. You’ve been the one to keep me sane for these past few weeks and I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown without you there next week.”

Emma chuckled. “You’ll be fine. At least I know that I won’t have to rescue you from Zelena.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’ve been half-convinced that she’s going to show up again ever since she left. I wouldn’t put it past her to try and crash the party and cause mayhem.”

“Well, in that case we shall keep her entertained outside the tent and you can get on with whatever it is that you’re doing in there, blissfully unaware of the carnage until you get out there with your masterworks and find a swarm of police vans and ambulances and me with Zelena in a headlock.”

“You’d have to fight my Aunt Elvira for headlocking rights,” Gold muttered. Whilst he had not gone into too many details when describing Zelena’s antics, her attempt to sabotage him during dessert week had had his aunt practically frothing at the mouth and swearing sweet and cold revenge on the woman.

“I’m looking forward to meeting your Aunt Elvira,” Emma said. “She sounds amazing.”

“A lot of people have said that. I’m really not so sure.”

“What, that she’s amazing?”

“No, I know that she’s amazing. I’m just not sure that everyone should be so enthusiastic about meeting her.”

“Are you embarrassed of your relatives, Gold?” Emma teased.

“Who isn’t?”

The production team were beginning to clear up around them and Gold knew that it was time to get going back to the farm; the journey between the filming location and his home never got any shorter or easier. He would have liked to have been able to exchange a few more words with Belle, but she was deep in conversation with Ella, and he would see her during the week when she came to the farm anyway. Part of him still couldn’t believe that it would be happening, and he was convinced that it was all a very good dream. Nevertheless, she caught his eye as he passed her to leave the tent, and her smile left him feeling warm all the way home.

X

Belle knew that she was an emotional person and she wore her heart on her sleeve, experiencing life to the full and enjoying every moment of it, but even she felt that she had not been quite as excited as she was now for a long time. Driving along the winding roads in the heart of Scotland’s countryside, she tapped her fingers against the steering wheel to try and get out some of the pent-up nervous energy before she met Rum in his natural environment. There was going to be something very different about this next meeting with him, because it would be the first time that she saw him in his own domain. All their previous interactions had been within the tent, and therefore by default it had been her place, and Rum had perhaps never been as fully relaxed with her as he would be in his own home. She had long since been looking forward to this day and to finding out what kind of hidden depths there might be, watching the farmer at work. After the tales that he’d told her of his family, she was looking forward to meeting Aunt Elvira and Bae almost as much as remeeting Rum. She glanced in her mirrors; the production team van was still trundling along behind her, although why she was leading the little convoy when she had just as little idea of where they were going as the rest of them was beyond her.

Belle wasn’t quite sure how many times they got lost on the way to Gold’s farm, and with there being so few people about, there weren’t all that many opportunities to ask for directions. Not that Walter in the crew van would have asked for directions anyway, being of the mindset that giving in and admitting that they were lost was a sign of weakness. Belle had pointed out to him on a couple of occasions that they were on a limited time schedule and at this rate they’d be lucky to get to the farm before midnight, but finally they were following a narrow, winding track with signs to Gold’s farm all along it. As they approached the squat farmhouse, Belle could see several white specks in the fields beyond, so she thought that they were definitely on the right track.

Someone was watching out of an upstairs window for their arrival as they parked up in the driveway; Belle caught the flicker of a curtain, and a few moments later, the front door was thrown wide open and a small, birdlike woman rushed outside to greet the newcomers. This must be Aunt Elvira. She was quite happily ushering all the crew into the house for tea and cake, much to Walter’s protests that they had to get on, but Belle could already tell that it was going to be a losing battle. She knew from her conversations with Rum that Aunt Elvira was not a character to be trifled with, and Walter glanced at her for help as she got out of her car.

Thankfully, Gold arrived on the scene at that moment, and whilst it wouldn’t be exactly right to say that he brought some calm and normality to the proceedings, he could certainly control his aunt slightly better than the camera crew could. The fact that he already looked completely mortified before they’d even started perhaps wouldn’t help matters, but Belle hoped that he’d calm down enough before they started filming. He smiled, and having extricated Walter from Aunt Elvira’s grip and told the crew to make themselves at home, he came over to her, two collie dogs trotting along by his heels.

“Welcome to Scotland,” he said. “You picked a good day to come, the weather’s never normally this nice.” The sun was climbing high in the sky, and Belle wondered if Walter would want to get some pretty landscape shots of the countryside before they left. Despite his embarrassment at his aunt’s antics, Gold was obviously much more relaxed here in his own home, and it made Belle happy to know that there was another side to him that was not as perpetually nervous as he was in the tent.

“It’s very nice to be here. Thank you for hosting us.” She looked down at the dogs, who were sniffing around her car tyres. “Am I allowed to pet them or are they...” she fumbled for the right phrase, “on duty?”

“No, you can pet them. They adore any and all attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up being the stars of whatever gets filmed today. This is Chip, and Imp. They’re both girls.”

Belle bent down, offering her hands to the dogs to sniff. Chip was a classic brown and white, whilst Imp had patches of grey, with big pale blue eyes giving her a very sombre air. She was still giving them ear scratches as Walter came over, having finally managed to turn down the many offers of refreshments.

“We’re just going to get the equipment set up and then we’re ready whenever you are,” he said. “The light should be perfect for outdoor shots in about an hour.”

Belle nodded, and turned back to Gold as the crew began unloading the van and setting up. “So, we’ve got an hour to kill,” she said. “I think it would probably be a good idea to go over what we’re actually going to do today so that we don’t catch you off guard. This is meant to be you at your most relaxed, not worrying about baking in the competition and we don’t want to scare you off too much.”

Gold gave a huff of laughter. “If there are cameras anywhere about, then I’m not going to be at my most relaxed,” he said pointedly. “But as long as there aren’t any time limits and you’re not going to be judging whatever I end up making, then it should be a far cry from the tent. So, what is the plan?”

“Well, Walter will want to get his outside establishing shots first while the light’s still good, and then we’ll move inside to see you baking in your home kitchen. And interview Bae and Aunt Elvira.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gold said. “I mean, Bae’s at school so you can’t really interview him, which just leaves Aunt Elvira, and well, you’ve seen her.”

In a classic example of speaking of the devil, Aunt Elvira came back out of the house carrying a large tray laden down with a teapot, several cups, and a huge pile of buttered scones. Despite their protests at not requiring any refreshments earlier, the camera crew took a sudden interest in the tray, leaving Aunt Elvira free to come over to Belle and Gold. Gold groaned.

“I was honestly hoping that she wouldn’t have noticed you were here,” he muttered.

“She knew I was coming.” Belle had to suppress a little smile. “I don’t think there was any way you could have hidden me.”

“You never know. I can be extremely crafty when I need to be, especially concerning Aunt Elvira.”

The thought of Gold being crafty was so completely out of character for his usual mild-mannered self that Belle burst out laughing just as Elvira reached them with the depleted tray.

“I’m not going to ask,” the older woman said. “You must be Belle. It’s so nice to meet you. Rum’s told us all about you, and you’re every bit as lovely in real life as you are on the TV. And you’re nowhere near as short as everyone makes you out to be.”

Gold sighed. “Aunt Elvira, if that was meant to be a compliment then I think you failed miserably.”

“No, no, it’s all right. I’ll take it as a compliment,” Belle said. “It’s very nice to meet you too, Elvira. Rum’s told me a lot about you, too.”

Aunt Elvira’s eyes shifted between Gold and Belle and she grinned conspiratorially. “I like her,” she said to Gold, her tone heavy with implication. “You want to keep her around for as long as possible.”

“Aunt Elvira!”

“I won’t always be here to give you advice, Errant Nephew. I guess I’ll leave you two to discuss whatever important baking things that you’re talking about.” She gave Gold an extremely obvious wink as she left, and he buried his face in his hands.

“I apologise profusely,” he said, muffled.

“At least you can’t say she’s not direct about it,” Belle mused, and she patted Gold’s shoulder. “Come on, it’ll all come right in the wash. From what you’ve told me about her, that seemed remarkably benign.”

“I think she was attempting to be polite.” Gold finally looked up at her again. “Well, there’s no use in just standing around out here whilst the crew get set up. Would you like a tour of the farm?”

Belle nodded eagerly. “I would love that. I even wore wellies just in case you offered.” Of course, her wellies were bright pink, but they were still better than her usual footwear. As attached as she was to her stilettos, much to Granny’s chagrin, she had to accept that they were really not practical for today’s adventure. Gold offered her his arm as they walked away from the car, the dogs at his heels, and Belle took it, venturing to lean into his side a little. When he made no comment, she smiled to herself. Soon, very soon.

They made meaningless small talk as they meandered down into the farm proper, talking about the show and what Belle had been making for the masterclasses this week, what kind of thing she would be doing after filming finished, but soon they lapsed into a companionable silence. It was one that they had shared a few times over the course of the series, with no need to say anything, just enjoying one another’s company. Belle noticed that Gold was walking with a shepherd’s crook rather than the usual cane that was found hooked over his workbench, and he seemed to move so much more naturally and easily with it. He was at home here in the fields, there was no other way to describe it. On their way down to the barns they met Mr Dove, Gold’s loyal farmhand, who despite his giant and rather scary physique, turned out to be as sweet and affable an acquaintance as Belle could hope for, and she could well see why he was a necessary ally in Gold’s life with his exuberant aunt. He pointed out the sheep in the fields as Gold explained how much of the land belonged to the farm, and for a long while, all Belle could do was take in the sheer, raw beauty of the countryside.

Finally they made their way around to the barns where the sheep and feed were kept. The sweet smell of hay was strong in entrance to the dimly-lit barn, and out of view of cameramen and well-meaning farmhands – not that she suspected that Dove would say anything to anyone – she found Gold’s free hand and squeezed. He glanced over at her, returning the pressure, and Belle licked her lips. She knew that she really shouldn’t want any more than this, that she only had to wait another few days and then they could make this official properly, but there was something about the atmosphere that made her want to throw caution to the wind. At her feet, Chip gave a soft little yip, almost as if to encourage her.

“What are you thinking?” Gold asked softly.

“Cheesy romance novels,” Belle admitted. “Especially the historical romances. The hero and heroine meeting for illicit trysts in haylofts. The milkmaid and the stable hand, or something like that.”

Gold chuckled, but there was nothing mocking in it.

“Well, I don’t think that the dogs are going to tell on us,” he said. The two collies were looking up at them expectantly, tails wagging.

“Are you sure?”

“They’re very intelligent but speech is still beyond them.”

“Not the dogs.” Belle paused. “This. Us.”

Gold nodded. “If there’s one thing that this competition has taught me, it’s that sometimes there’s a lot to be gained from throwing caution to the wind once in a while.”

Belle smiled, and for a moment cursed the fact that she was wearing sensible shoes before going up on her tiptoes to steal a kiss. Gold’s lips were warm and eager against hers, and Belle could feel the rough scrape of stubble beginning to come through as she touched his cheek. It was a chaste kiss, a nervous first kiss, but it still seemed to have gone on for far longer than it actually had once she broke away. There was something bright in Gold’s eyes that she had not seen there before, and she knew that she was probably wearing the same slightly dumbfounded expression.

“We should probably get back to the house before Walter comes looking for us,” she said, however much she wanted to stay here in the dark barn, kissing Gold. He nodded his agreement and they stepped out into the sunshine again.

It really was an absolutely beautiful day.

====

Next time: Belle has fun with Aunt Elvira as her trip to the farm continues, Gold has fun with meringues as the bakers face their final challenges, and the winner is revealed...

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Hazelnut Mocha cream horns recipe here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mocha_hazelnut_cream_95152

Double chocolate entremets recipe here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/double_chocolate_mousse_23581

Chapter Text

It did not take them long to get back to the main farmyard and find Walter ready and waiting to get his camera set up and take his establishing shots, and if he had any suspicions about what they had been doing, then he didn’t voice them. For the most part, Belle and Gold didn’t actually have to do much whilst Walter was filming the farm itself, just standing out of the way and making small talk that mainly consisted of Belle asking about the farm and Gold’s life there, and Gold answering her. As Gold had predicted, Chip and Imp were absolutely loving the limelight and tried to get in as many of Walter’s shots as they could.

“I can’t believe you’ve lived here all your life,” Belle said, looking around at the picturesque surroundings. “I’ve lived in so many places in my time that the idea of staying in one place is just totally foreign to me. Although I have to say, if I was going to spend my entire life in one place, then this is certainly a place that I would want to live it in.”

Gold laughed. “I’m very glad you like it.”

“It’s a beautiful place. Would I be forward in asking for a tour of the inside?”

“Not at all. I guess that now that Walter’s finished being artistic, we’ll have to go inside to film baking now anyway. And Aunt Elvira. Oh dear.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. At least baking in your own environment you know where everything is and how it all fits together,” Belle said brightly.

“It’s not the baking that I’m worried about, it’s Aunt Elvira. She might be behaving herself now, but I’m telling you, as soon as we get in there, she’ll have all the family photo albums out and you’ll be seeing all the embarrassing pictures of me attempting to ride a sheep when I was three.”

“Ok, I have to see these pictures now.”

Gold just shook his head in despair and led the way into the farmhouse. The kitchen was well-lit and roomy, and Belle remembered what Gold had said a few weeks ago, about the kitchen being the heart of the house where everyone congregated. Although there were modern appliances in it, it was clear that this was a very old and well-used room, and it looked like it still had the original flagstones on the floor. Aunt Elvira was already in there, and she ushered Belle and the camera crew inside with an exuberant wave of her tea towel.

“Come in, come in, do make yourselves at home, we have plenty of chairs. Rum, did Bae get the spare chairs out of the attic for us? Oh, never mind, I’m sure that you can all sit on each others’ laps if needs be. Scone, anyone?”

“Aunt Elvira.” Gold cut off his aunt’s excited patter firmly and she huffed, putting her hands on her hips and scowling at him.

“We very rarely get visitors, Raymond, and I want to make sure that they feel welcome.”

“Thank you, Miss Gold,” Walter said hastily, “but we should probably just get on with filming. We’re on a bit of a tight schedule here.”

“Well, if you’re sure that I can’t tempt you to another scone. I bet that we could all use another cup of tea though, I’ll put the kettle on.”

Gold didn’t even attempt to stop her, just sighing with the air of one who had long-suffered his relatives’ foibles and was used to them, and he set about getting mixing bowls and ingredients out of the cupboards and setting them on kitchen table. Belle decided that the best idea would be just to make herself at home and engage Aunt Elvira in conversation, so that Gold could concentrate on baking and wouldn’t feel the need to constantly try and police his aunt. Taking on the formidable little Scottish lady alone was not necessarily her brightest idea, but she thought that she could handle it.

“So, did you teach Raymond to bake?” she asked, accepting the mug of tea that Aunt Elvira brought over.

“A lot of what he knows, yes, that came from me and Miriam. She was in charge of all the obscure stuff like that thing you made the other week, what was it again Rum? That one with all the booze in.”

“Kugelhopf,” Gold said without looking up from the bowl. The heavy scents of rye flour and dried yeast were filling the room, and Belle thought it fitting that Gold would go back to what had won him his first star baker crown, here in his own home.

“That’s the one. I liked that one.”

Gold snorted. “I wonder why.”

“I happen to like a little tipple, there’s nothing wrong with that. When you get to my age, you’ll be using all the excuses you can get to have a drink because you know that your days are numbered. Just think of all that gin that would go undrunk.”

“You should meet Ella,” Belle said. “I think the two of you would get on like a house on fire.”

“They’d probably set the house on fire,” Gold grumbled. He was mixing the dough with a practised hand now, preferring to do it manually rather than using a dough hook since there was no need to work to a time limit. It was truly mesmerising to watch him work. Although Belle spent most of her time in the tent observing the bakers, her attention had always been divided between them whilst also keeping an eye out for anything untoward that might put them off. To be able to watch Gold create something from start to finish was really a perfect way to get to know him. She looked closely at his hands as he kneaded the dough, taking in the roughness and callouses from all his outdoor work. For a moment, unbidden, she wondered what they would feel like against her skin, and she choked on her tea.

“Are you all right?” Aunt Elvira asked, alarmed. “I don’t think I’ve said anything that shocking yet.”

“Oh god, that fateful word yet,” Gold muttered. “In all seriousness though, are you all right?”

Belle nodded, and took another sip of tea to calm herself. It was nice to watch the interplay between Gold and his aunt, as it was quite clear that there was no animosity or one-upmanship between them, and however much it was obvious that Aunt Elvira was the head of the household, Gold could certainly hold his own against her in any verbal battle. Considering how tongue-tied she had seen him get and how awkward he had been in his pieces to camera during the first few weeks, it was lovely to know that they would finally be seeing the real Rum Gold on camera at long last.

He set the dough aside for its first prove and set about clearing up, but before any more serious interviewing could be done, there was a pounding of footsteps and a voice shouting through the house.

“Dad! Dad! Are you in here? I saw the vans outside! Is Belle here? Have you locked Aunt Elvira in the broom cupboard like you were threatening?”

A boy in his early teens skidded into the kitchen, an excited expression on his face, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw Belle.

“Oh wow, you’re actually here! This is so cool. Has Aunt Elvira told you the story of Dad’s altercation with the pitchfork yet?”

“Bae!” Gold’s voice was tight and strangled, and he pointed over at Walter with the camera with sharp, jerky little movements.

“Oh.” Bae backed up towards the door again. “Are you recording?”

Belle nodded, trying to hide her laughter.

“It’s all right, we can edit it out,” Walter said, as ever good-natured. “If you want to go back out and start again, we don’t mind. Or you can just stay here and we’ll say that you were here all the time and we just never noticed you.”

Bae weighed up his options before giving a heavy sigh that made him seem older than his teenage years and taking a seat at the table beside Aunt Elvira, who gave him a hug.

“It’s not life until you’ve made a fool of yourself on camera at least once,” she said jovially. “Now come, you can make up for it by telling Belle all kinds of embarrassing stories about your father’s baking exploits gone wrong.”

“You know, this really isn’t fair,” Gold complained. Whilst the bread was proving he’d got to work on some shortbread, and if it was the same recipe that he’d made during biscuit week then Belle was very much looking forward to sampling the results. “There’s two of you and only one of me. I’m being ganged up on here.” He looked to Belle for assistance, pleading with his eyes, but she was just giggling behind her hand and trying, but failing, to maintain a professional facade.

“Well, Dad’s never really had any huge disasters. He’s never set the kitchen on fire or anything like that. That was Mum. I’m not really sure how you can set the kitchen on fire whilst making a cup of tea, but she managed it.”

“I’ve never got to the bottom of that,” Gold said. He was cutting out the shortbread dough into little dog shapes, and Belle glanced over at the two collies in the corner of the kitchen. She wondered if he’d ever made dog friendly baked treats.

“And anyway, I think we’re supposed to be bigging up Dad’s baking talents here, not trying to bring him down. We want everyone to know that he’s a fantastic baker and he deserves to be in the final.”

“Thank you,” Gold said emphatically. “You see, Aunt Elvira, you’ve been going about this all wrong.”

“I just tell it like I see it, Rum,” Aunt Elvira said sagely. “And I can see very clearly that you’re cutting out imaginary shapes because you’ve run out of dough and you’re too busy making moon eyes at the judge sitting in at the table to realise.”

Gold coughed hastily and tried to cover up his mistake, slipping the shortbread terriers onto baking sheets and putting them in the oven. Having captured enough of the family banter, Walter was ready to move on, but Belle shook her head.

“Can’t we at least stay to sample the baking?” she asked. She knew that she had to leave the farm eventually, but she was going to take every opportunity she could to extend her stay here. There was something so warm and loving in Gold’s kitchen, and she wanted to remain there for as long as she could, soaking in the atmosphere. She knew that it was premature to hope that she could become a more permanent part of it in her own right, but her feelings were definitely wending towards that way now. On second thoughts, maybe it would be a good idea to leave sooner rather than later before she became too attached and did or said something that left her making an utter fool of herself.

“It won’t take too long, shortbread’s very quick to cook,” Gold said. He seemed to be in no hurry for her to leave either, and as they caught each other’s eyes once more, Belle was reminded again of the kiss that they had shared in the cool privacy of the barn, away from the cameras and the well-meaning family members looking to interfere. There would be no hope of another shared moment like that until after the show had finished filming, and she wanted to remember it for as long as possible.

“All right.” Walter was an affable sort and as long as he got food at the end of it he was generally willing to wait. The camera crew always complained that they put on about ten pounds each during this final week of filming when they went around to people’s houses, but Belle knew that they enjoyed the visits just as much as she did, as the production team never got quite as many leftovers as the judges and presenters did when the bakes themselves were happening in the tent.

All too soon, the shortbread was out of the oven and cooling, and the crew were tucking in. It was the same recipe that Gold had made all those months ago, and Belle sighed happily as it melted on her tongue.

“I understand it’s a family recipe,” she said to Aunt Elvira.

“Oh yes. A secret family recipe,” she stressed.

“Are you sure I can’t persuade you to share it?”

“Very sure. You might have more luck persuading Rum to share it though.” Aunt Elvira winked and Belle felt herself going a little bit pink. Looking up at Gold, she could see that he was also blushing. She really couldn’t spin it out any longer once the biscuits were eaten, and it was with some reluctance that she and the camera crew filed out of Gold’s kitchen. He came out to see them off, leaving Bae and Elvira eating the rest of the biscuits and keeping an eye on the still-proving rye loaf.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I know it’s all part of the job really, but still. Thank you.”

“It’s been a pleasure, honestly.” Belle reached out and took the hand that was not curled around his crook. “You have a really beautiful place here.” She paused. “I’d like to come back in the future, if I may.”

“You’d be very welcome.”

She got back into her car then, waving goodbye as she wound her way back down the long driveway to the main road, the memory of Gold’s kiss as fresh on her lips as the taste of his shortbread was.

X

“This really is a huge room,” Jefferson remarked as he poured himself a cup of coffee in the break room. With only the three of them and the two presenters, it felt a little bit like renting out a football stadium for a tiddlywinks match. Still, given the amount of nervous pacing that Regina was doing, perhaps it was a good thing that they had the extra space. Gold had never been a pacer, and was sitting in the corner wishing that the waiting could be over and they could just start already. Jefferson came over and sat down next to him, holding out a croissant. “Breakfast?”

Gold shook his head. He didn’t think that he’d be able to eat even if he wanted to, the butterflies in his stomach that he always felt coming into the competition on a Saturday morning had increased tenfold overnight and it felt like they were having a party in there. At least once they started baking, he would have something else to concentrate on other than his mounting nausea.

“No, you’re right,” Jefferson said, before taking a bite of the croissant himself. “We’re going to be making enough of them later, and we wouldn’t want to overdo it now. You can have too much of a good thing.”

Ursula, watching him scarf down the croissant, just raised an eyebrow.

“When it comes to you, Jefferson, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Jefferson was prevented from making a witty retort by the arrival of Astrid with the mic packs. She seemed in jovial spirits as always, and Gold guessed that despite the contestants’ increased nerves, there was nothing particularly different about the final week than any other week to the production staff. The main change would come tomorrow, when the families and friends began arriving and they would have to shepherd two lots of people at once whilst the final challenge was going on.

The small number of remaining competitors meant that preparation was much quicker than usual, and to Gold’s immense relief, they were soon making their way back down to the tent. It felt strange knowing that he wouldn’t see it again after this weekend. It had come to be such a familiar point in his life over the last couple of months.

He found his workbench easily since he was out on his own on the left hand side, Regina and Jefferson on his right. The place seemed so empty with no-one in front of and behind him, and he realised with a jolt that meant that he really had nowhere to hide when it came to the judges and the cameras. Still, there was nothing to be done about it now, he would just have to grin and bear it.

“Welcome bakers, to the grand finale and your last ever signature challenge,” Ella began.

“This morning, Belle and Granny would like you to make viennoiserie. Croissants, pain au chocolats, danish pastries, all kinds of good things that you eat for breakfast. Or at any other time of the day if you’re Ella,” Ursula continued. “They would like to see twenty-four pieces, twelve each of two different types. You may use whatever dough or pastry you like, and you have three and a half hours on the clock. On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Croissants and their other, fancier cousins were something that Gold had always adhered to Emma’s notion of ‘shop-bought is easier’. He had never even contemplated making his own croissants before two weeks ago when he had begun practising. It was a difficult dough to master, because it was enriched and yeasted but also laminated, meaning that it required proving and folding and turning in order to build up its layers. He could well see why this challenge, deceptive on the face of it, had been reserved for the final week. He had made the executive decision to use the same type of dough for both his pastries, and glancing across at Regina and Jefferson it looked like they were doing the same. There was no need to complicate matters too much when they had so little time in which to impress. He was giving the pastry its first turn when the judges came over.

“Good morning Raymond,” Granny said, with a brightness that was unusual on her this early on in the weekend. “Well done for making it to the final, first of all.”

“Thank you. I’m very pleased and scared to be here.”

“There’s no need to be scared, they aren’t going to eat you if the croissants aren’t up to scratch,” Ella said. Belle just sighed.

“Tell us about your viennoiserie,” she said.

“I’m making double chocolate croissants, with white and dark chocolate, and peach melba kites, with fresh peaches and strawberry jam, and an apricot glaze.”

“They sound delicious,” Belle said. “I’m looking forward to sampling them. We’d best let you get on with it.”

They moved off to go and talk to Regina, and Gold got back to his dough. He could see why some people found the process of making it to be therapeutic, but right now it was more likely to give him a coronary than it was to calm him down. At least he didn’t have to do a lot of preparation to make the fillings; everything came down to the pastry and how it rose and layered. Across the tent he could see that Jefferson was also going down the chocolate croissant route, and Regina had once more returned to her signature apples. She shrugged as she deftly cut them in to paper thin slices and dipped them into a cinnamon syrup.

“Go with what you know,” she said. “I’m not going to have any more opportunities to live up to the Queen of Apples title anymore, so I need to make the most of it this morning.”

After the initial discussions with the bakers, the tent fell unusually quiet. Even the camera crew seemed not to be coming around as much, preferring to watch the proceedings from afar rather than getting too involved. With the presenters and judges up at the front and the cameras around the sides of the tent, it felt more than ever like they were partaking in some kind of strange social experiment and there were scientists watching them and taking notes. Gold just kept his head down, working on the dough but trying not to overwork it. One thing was for sure, once he was done with this competition, he was never making pastry ever again. Especially not anything that had yeast in it and needed folding and turning. Shortcrust pies were the way to go, and even then he was seriously considering pre-chilled pastry rolls.

The dough had risen well and was showing its layers, so he got to work rolling it out and filling it. His only concern at this point was that the fruit pastry would end up too soggy, with the addition of soft and juicy peach and unset jam. Still, once it was in the oven, there wasn’t really a lot he could do about it, and he settled down to watch his creations.

“A watched croissant never bakes, you know.”

He looked up to find Ella leaning over his bench.

“These had better,” he grumbled. “They’ve always managed to work when I’ve been practising, so it’ll be bad luck if they don’t behave themselves now.”

Ella grinned. “I could make so many kinds of inappropriate jokes about badly-behaved breakfast pastries, but I will refrain. Good luck. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

The problem was, Gold thought darkly, resuming his oven watching, that just ‘fine’ wouldn’t cut it. At this stage of the competition, the judges were looking for nothing less than perfection.

Thankfully, Ella’s predictions did not come true and the croissants baked nicely even with his hawk-eyed glare on them for the entire time, and to his immense relief, the peach melba kites had not leaked, just baking to shiny perfection. All in all, he was rather proud of his creations as he set them out on his serving plate, and when Ursula called time on the challenge, he knew that he had done his best and couldn’t have done more.

Everyone seemed to have brought their A game today, with all the viennoiserie being praised for texture and flavour.

“I think it’s a testament to how people’s skills improve over the course of the competition,” Belle said once the cameras had finished and they were making their way back up to the break room. “We’ve done these enriched doughs and laminated pastries in previous weeks, and you’ve all definitely made strides since then.”

Gold could only nod. Of course, with them all being so close going into the afternoon’s challenge, everything was resting on the technical. He already knew that it was going to be hard to choose a winner tomorrow.

X

Lunch was mainly taken up with the three of them exchanging stories from the camera crew’s home visits. Gold was fastidiously careful to avoid talking about the barn, not for fear that he would let slip what had happened in there between himself and Belle, but because he was very aware of Jefferson, Ella and Ursula’s capacity for innuendo and any allusions that they might make to rolling in the hay might very well ruin him for the rest of the afternoon.

“Everything went off without a hitch really,” Jefferson was saying. “I was actually quite disappointed, I was hoping we’d get some kind of a blooper reel, but everyone was on their best behaviour.”

“Apart from you, it sounds like,” Regina said. “I guess mine was fairly boring. I live on my own so it was just me and Belle chatting for a couple of hours. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s lovely and I was quite happy to chat to her for a couple of hours, but I just don’t think that my segment’s going to be quite as vibrant as the rest of yours. Although, that said, they did go and interview a couple of my colleagues at the town hall and I wasn’t there for that, so I don’t know what they might have said about me. With any luck I managed to win them all over with the sheer amount of baked goods I’ve been providing them every day whilst I’ve been practising.”

“Speaking of practising though…” Jefferson glanced towards the break room door. “They’ll be calling us out for the technical soon and I have to say, this is really not one that I’m looking forward to. Considering the weird and wonderful things that we’ve had to tackle in the last few weeks, I dread to think what kind of obscure concoction the judges will have dreamed up for us today.”

“Oh, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Ella said. “Well,” she amended a moment later. “Perhaps not pleasantly.”

“Can you give us any hints?” Jefferson asked eagerly. “I mean, it’s the last week and we’re all in here, so you wouldn’t be giving any of us an unfair advantage.”

Ursula shook her head. “No. It’s more than my job’s worth and I like this gig, I want to keep doing it until the production company’s too broke to keep us in sugar-filled eatables any longer. Still, you’ll find out soon enough.” Astrid had appeared in the doorway and was ushering them all down to the tent again. This time Gold was on the other side, behind Jefferson, and Regina was the one out on her own.

“Good afternoon bakers, and welcome to your final technical challenge,” Ella said. “As always this will be judged blind, so Granny, Belle, please spirit yourselves away and go to your extreme yoga class, or whatever it is that you do when you’re not in here putting the fear into the bakers. Off you trot.”

Granny and Belle left them, and Ella turned back to the bakers.

“Now, having taken you all over the world and forced you to make all kinds of delicious things that you’ve never heard of over the past few weeks, Granny and Belle decided that they wanted to be kind this week and give you a challenge that you’ve all heard of. Victoria sponge. Should be simple enough, they reckon, but then again, they always have something up their sleeve. At any rate, you’re going back to basics for this technical, so best of luck.”

 “You have an hour and a half to make your cakes,” Ursula said. “On your marks.”

“Get set.”

“Bake!”

Gold pulled the cover off his bench full of ingredients - rather too many ingredients for a classic Victoria sponge, he thought - and turned over the recipe card.

It was blank, apart from a single instruction.

Make a Victoria sponge.

No ingredients were given, no method beyond those four words. That was it. When Ella had said that Granny and Belle wanted them to make a Victoria sponge, she had meant it in its most literal sense of the words.

Gold could already feel panic settling into his veins. Cake was not his forte and it never had been, and whilst he could guess at quantities for biscuits and he had been making so much bread for so long that he didn’t need to measure, cake was something entirely different. He had to take a look at Regina and Jefferson, just to make sure that they too had blank sheets. Thankfully, they were expressing similar shock at the sparseness of the recipe, but unlike Gold, neither of them seemed to be panicking about it. He closed his eyes, trying to remember an ordinary sponge cake recipe, but he’d spent so long making complicated things that the simple methods flew completely out of the window. This was such a short challenge in terms of time, and every second that he spent staring at his work bench in terror and not moving a muscle was a second not spent trying to make this blasted cake. Come on, it couldn’t be that difficult. Although it wasn’t his favourite thing to make, it was still one of the very first things he’d ever learned and the knowledge had to be in there somewhere, buried deep down inside. He knew that the quantities were all the same, but everything else was a blank.

Jefferson was already cracking eggs, and then it hit him.

Eggs.

It was a known fact from previous bake-offs that the WI’s guidelines for a perfect Victoria sponge started with the eggs. Weigh the eggs, and use that quantity for the rest of the ingredients. The average egg weighed about two ounces, and a Victoria sponge needed four eggs.

Having solved the mystery, Gold was galvanised into action, aware that he had to make up for lost time. Eggs weighed first, then butter, sugar and flour, all in one. It was a big job lot of mixture and difficult to handle, but it was going to be the quickest way to get the cake into the oven as soon as possible, or else it would never cool in time for him to put jam and cream in the middle without them melting and running down the sides of the cake.

“Are you all right?” Ella had arrived next to him without him noticing, he had been so caught up in his own personal crisis and trying to make up for it. “We were beginning to think that you’d had some kind of seizure and were paralysed.”

“Only paralysed by indecision,” Gold muttered, adding a couple of teaspoons of water to the mix to try and loosen it up and make it into a much more sponge like consistency. “The lack of instructions threw me a bit.”

“Well, I’ll let you get on with it,” Ella said. “Just as long as we’re not going to have to call an ambulance or anything. I know we’ve had a very dramatic run this year, but I was hoping that we’d managed to put all that behind us these past couple of weeks.”

In spite of himself, Gold had to laugh as Ella left him to spoon the mixture into the sandwich tins and level it off. Into the oven they went, and Gold made a start on the jam. No rest for the wicked, at least not today. Ninety minutes was a criminally short amount of time when one stopped and thought about it. Not that Gold had any time to stop and think about it. Before he knew it, Ursula was already calling fifteen minutes remaining. He hastened to whip up the cream and spread the jam between the two halves of the cake. It was in no way going to be his neatest production, and he knew that he should probably try and pipe the cream artistically rather than just slopping it on, but he didn’t have enough time for finesse and he’d rather present something that was finished and had all its necessary components than something that looked good but was only half complete.

Ella called time and Gold looked down at his cake critically. It looked like a fairly passable Victoria sponge. He wasn’t going to be winning any awards for presentation any time soon, but at least it looked like what he was meant to be making. Taking it up to the judging table felt a little bit like walking to the scaffold, especially as he could now compare it to the others. Jefferson and Regina, having not been quite as non-plussed by the lack of recipe, had managed to get a much neater finish on their cakes, but hopefully he wouldn’t be judged too harshly on that alone, and it would taste all right when Belle and Granny came to sample it.

Now that there were only three of them, judging the challenge didn’t take anywhere near as long as it had done in previous weeks, but it was still longer than Gold could stand. He just wanted it all to be over with so that he could finally put these nerve-wracking technicals behind him forever.

Jefferson and Regina’s cakes were both praised; there was very little difference between them in the end, but Regina’s had ended up with a lighter, airier mixture. Like Gold, Jefferson had used the all in one method, but Regina had beaten her sugar and butter together into a fluffy mixture before adding flour. When they came to Gold’s offering, it was clear that they weren’t impressed by the jam that was leaking down the sides a bit.

“Timing was an issue here, I think,” Belle said. “It tastes good, but like the other one, it’s a bit too heavy. And it’s a bit messy.”

Gold really wasn’t surprised when they ranked him last, with Jefferson second and Regina taking the top place. Although he knew that he’d done well in the morning, he couldn’t help but be annoyed with himself that he’d managed to panic and screw it up this afternoon.

Belle gave him a smile as they left the tent, and he tried to smile back, knowing that it was probably looking more akin to a grimace. Having been so close in the morning, the technical had once more spread them out, and it was all going to come down to the final challenge…

X

Aunt Elvira and Bae were waiting for him in the hotel restaurant when Gold entered and sank down into a seat at the table. They had travelled down during the day, having set the farm to rights and left Dove and his wife with a list of instructions for whilst they were house-sitting. Gold knew that Dove would have received the list with good grace and then proceeded to completely ignore it and follow his own better judgement when it came to the day to day running of the farm, but he knew that the larger man would not do anything that would hurt Aunt Elvira’s feelings. They were as much a part of each other’s extended family as Gold and Bae were, and it took a great weight off Gold’s mind to know that he could leave the farm in safe hands with no doubts that it might not still be standing and working to its usual perfection when he got back to it tomorrow night. Since it was a special occasion and they did not have the opportunity to leave the farm often, and since it was such a comparatively long distance to travel, Bae and Elvira had chosen to come the day before and do some sight-seeing the next morning before coming to the finale party in the afternoon.

“So, how did it go?” Bae asked eagerly. “You know, it’s really weird having this conversation in person. I can grill you more now. Normally you just send an update and then when we try to probe further you clam up and don’t reply.”

Gold scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m in the middle of one of the most stressful weekends of my life, and that includes your birth,” he grumbled to his son. “Did it occur to you that I might get on a bit better if you didn’t give me the third degree?”

Bae considered this for a moment then shook his head. “No. You can’t be bottling all your feelings up and stewing over them. That’s what you keep telling me at least.”

“Yes, well, I’m an adult and it’s my prerogative not to take my own advice. Besides, I’m not bottling up anything.”

“Not even the fact you want to kiss Belle behind the fridges?”

“It’s hardly bottled up if everyone knows about it,” Gold pointed out. “No. It wasn’t a great day, but it wasn’t terrible. The morning was all right, but I came last on the technical. I suppose when there’s only three of you it’s not quite as bad as coming last out of twelve, but all the same, it’s a bit of a blow going in to tomorrow.”

“Well, you know that you can only do your best,” Aunt Elvira said, reaching across the table and patting his hand. For all the family antagonism and the teasing she had done whilst the cameras were there in the kitchen, Aunt Elvira had always known when to put that manner aside because her nephew needed her genuine support. “Whatever happens tomorrow, the worst that you can do is not win. Nothing bad is going to happen, there aren’t going to be any repercussions for a bad performance. And at the end of the day, wherever you end up ranking, it won’t change your feelings for Belle, or hers for you, and you’ll finally be able to act on them properly.” She winked. “Don’t think I don’t know you snuck a kiss when you were showing her the barns on Wednesday.”

“Elvira!” Gold spluttered. “What… How… You were in the house! How the hell did you know? Did the dogs tell you?”

Aunt Elvira shook her head, a wicked grin on her face. “No, no, I didn’t know at all, but you certainly just confirmed it.”

Gold closed his eyes, resting his forehead on the table much to the alarm of the waitress who had come over to take their order.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he muttered to the table.

“Sadly dear, you didn’t get all that much choice in the matter. Now chin up, you’re making a spectacle of yourself and there aren’t even any television cameras around. Don’t worry about the technical. Just go in there and knock them away tomorrow. The more you sit around stewing about what’s past, the less you’ll be focussing on what’s to come.”

She did have a point, and Gold tried to put the afternoon’s mishaps to the back of his mind. All the same, he knew that he wasn’t destined for much sleep that night.

X

The mood in the break room was the tensest that Gold had ever known it, despite the fact that there were only three of them in there. Whether through chance or design, Ella and Ursula had left them alone in there, and Gold found himself wishing that they were there just to lighten the mood a little with their sense of humour. Although, that being said, perhaps they were at the stage where any attempts at humour would fall on bleak and unhearing ears. It wasn’t that there was any great rivalry between the three bakers that remained, and they each knew that whoever took home the crown at the end of the day would be thoroughly deserving of their accolade. It was more the grim realisation that this was it, and there would be no further chances to prove themselves or pull things back from the brink if anything went wrong. There would be nowhere to hide.

As if she had been reading Gold’s thoughts, Ursula poked her head around the door.

“My word, you all look as if you’re about to be shot,” she said. “Cheer up, it’s almost over. I’ve been sent to come and get you. All the runners are too busy running around trying to make the place fit for the general public to come later this afternoon. You know the drill. Health and safety and all that. They have to be sure that the tent won’t blow over onto an unsuspecting great-uncle. We’d be tied up in court cases for months and we’ll have to do next year’s season on a shoe string budget.”

She didn’t manage to raise much of a laugh, but it was enough to break the tension, and the three remaining competitors followed her out of the house and down towards the marquee. They were starting filming quite a bit earlier than usual in order for there to be enough time for proper relaxation afterwards. Once inside the tent, the nervous thrum in the air seemed to calm down a little. The tent was common ground, and now that they were in there and ready to begin, everything could return to its usual formula.

“Good morning bakers, and welcome to your final challenge of the weekend and the series,” Ursula began.

“Do you think we ought to have a moment of solemn silence to let the gravity of the situation sink in?” Ella suggested. Ursula just looked at her.

“Ella, I don’t think that you have the capacity to be solemnly silent for any length of time.”

“I can be very solemn and very silent, I’ll have you know!” Ella sounded remarkably offended, but since neither the bakers nor the judges had ever known her to be able to hold her tongue when there were ribald comments to be made or jokes to be told, they were all siding with Ursula on this one.

“Let’s just get on with the challenge, shall we? We’ve already got them out of bed earlier than usual in order to have time to get through the thing.” Ursula cleared her throat and turned back to the contestants. “For your final showstopper, Granny and Belle would like you to make a pièce montée, a spectacular showpiece dessert that would be the centrepiece of a dinner table and that all the guests would think looked too amazing to eat.”

“Nothing looks too amazing to eat,” Ella said. “That’s why you have cameras to take pictures for posterity.”

Ursula rolled her eyes. “You know what I was saying about being solemn and silent?”

“Yes, well, that’s by the by. The pièce montée should include the following elements: biscuit, sugarwork, choux pastry of some form or another and some kind of petits fours, on a cake base. The entire structure should stand at no less than twenty centimetres high, and the piece should have a central theme to it that’s vaguely recognisable as something other than a piece of edible abstract art. You have five hours on the clock to complete this showstopper, and what a showstopper it will be. On your marks!”

“Get set!”

“Bake!”

It was by far the most ambitious bake that Gold had ever attempted, and in true showstopper style, he had not had the chance to practise the entire thing to time. All the elements separately had turned out all right, and thankfully his construction was not going to end up being too much of a precarious balancing act. He had already assumed that his hands would be shaking too much for him to do anything intricate and had decided to stick for making something fairly solid that would hopefully be well-presented enough to impress the judges, rather than going for something overly complicated that had so much more potential to go wrong. Of course, this being the last challenge it was expected that they would all pull the stops out as much as possible, especially since there was no fear of any of them being sent home. At the same time though, Gold really didn’t want to let himself down at the final hurdle.

He got going on the cake that would form the base of his piece, a rich two-tiered chocolate cake filled with Irish cream buttercream and decorated with green and chocolate fondant. Being so large, it would require a long baking time and since he couldn’t assemble anything until it was complete, it needed to be finished as soon as possible. He was too focussed on what he was doing to really pay much attention to the other bakers, but he could hear them talking to the camera crew and the presenters and judges, and he quickly garnered an idea of what they were making. He glanced over at Jefferson, who was spooning vast amounts of sponge cake mixture into four separate bowls; Gold didn’t even want to think about what that might turn out to be. His own cake mixture was thick and gloopy, the melted chocolate in the batter giving it an extra smooth taste. Aunt Elvira had given it her seal of approval on all the occasions that he had made it in the past, figuring that since she had false teeth anyway, it couldn’t hurt for her to be ingesting so much sugar. Gold wasn’t quite sure that he agreed with that philosophy, but as she had said to Belle earlier in the week, at her age, life was there to be enjoyed. At the bench behind him, Regina was humming softly to herself as she mixed up the ingredients for what was obviously going to be a red velvet cake, considering the colour. He supposed that she was looking forward to seeing Mal again, and he took a moment away from focussing on his work to glance out of the window, where the production team were already setting up ready for the series finale picnic party. Aunt Elvira had been all for coming to help them set up and getting a sneak peek at the action going on inside the tent, but Bae had promised to keep her under control. The grey clouds were beginning to disperse, and it looked like it would be a lovely sunny afternoon by the time they actually made it out of the tent to join their family and friends. It seemed like a long time away, but with so much to get done and only one oven, it really wasn’t.

The judges were over with Jefferson, and Gold couldn’t help listening in on what the other man was making. Considering his exuberant arm gestures, almost to the point of coating Granny in bright blue cake mix, it was hard to miss him.

“It’s going to an Alice in Wonderland scene,” Jefferson was explaining. “It’s my daughter’s favourite book and my wife’s named Alice, so it fits. We have a wild and wacky rainbow marble cake base, topped with a biscuit and sugarwork tree in which there will be a profiterole Cheshire Cat, and some meringue mushrooms, one of which will play host to a fondant caterpillar smoking a hookah.”

“Are you sure about the hookah?” Ella said. “We are on primetime TV before the watershed, let’s not be encouraging the small young things to try experimental drugs.”

Ursula just sighed and shook her head in despair, and Gold had to smother a laugh. At least the contestants got a respite from Ella’s remarks; Ursula had to live with them all the time.

“Ignore her,” Granny said sagely. “Well, it all sounds very ambitious and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out, but be very careful with your rainbow colours, you don’t want them to end up being too muddled and looking like a mess, rather than having clearly defined primary colours in there.”

“Marbling with more than one colour is difficult,” Belle agreed, “but if anyone can do it, you can.”

They left Jefferson marbling his eye-wateringly bright cake and came over to Gold.

“Good morning!” Ella said brightly. “Are you also going to be making a hallucination-inducing cake?”

Gold shook his head. “Well, only if I get the quantities of food colouring in the icing completely wrong.”

“Psychadelic green is always a good choice,” Ursula said, picking up the tub of colouring paste and looking at it critically, perhaps wondering just how much would be necessary to create the desired tripping effect.

“Tell us about your pièce montée, Raymond,” Granny said, doing her best to ignore Ursula and Ella’s antics.

“This is a piece inspired by my farm,” Gold began, and he couldn’t help but give a glance at Belle as he spoke, knowing as he did that she had seen that farm first hand. “My base is a chocolate cake covered with green and chocolate fondant representing the fields, and then there’ll be a gingerbread farmhouse on the top, surrounding by choux sheep. I’m rolling them in coconut to make them look white and fluffy. And some mini meringue sheep as well. I’m also making my sheepdogs out of chocolate chip shortbread.”

“Are you going to give Imp her grey eyebrows?” Belle asked.

Gold gave a huff of laughter. “If I have time.”

“Pardon?” Granny looked at Belle, utterly confused. “What about whose eyebrows?”

“Imp!” Belle said. “One of his sheepdogs is called Imp and she has grey eyebrows!”

“Right…” Granny didn’t really know what to make of that information, so she just shook it off and returned her attention to Gold. “What sugarwork are you using? I know you’ve expressed your dislike of caramel and sugarwork in the past.”

“I’m making peanut brittle for the fences,” Gold said. “I figured that had the least potential to go wrong.”

Granny laughed. “Well, good luck with it all. You’re playing to your strengths, using the best of the things that you’ve made before all in one big masterpiece. Just make sure that where you’re using tried and tested skills, you really make them perfect.”

Gold nodded, that was certainly the image that he was hoping to go for.

“I’m sure you’ll do well,” Belle added as they left. “And I mean it about the eyebrows. How are we meant to tell the two of them apart without?”

Gold shook his head. “I’ll think about it.”

“Did they travel down here with Bae and Aunt Elvira?”

“No, they’re still in Scotland. Dove is taking care of them.”

“You know,” Ella said, pulling Belle away from Gold’s workbench so that they could go and talk to Regina, “I think you’re more enamoured by his dogs than the man himself.”

“They’re really sweet dogs!” Belle protested, but she let herself be led away nonetheless. “I always like meeting people’s pets!”

Gold glanced over at Jefferson, wondering what he made of the scene at Gold’s bench. There were not usually scenes at Gold’s bench; Jefferson was the more dramatic one.

The other man shrugged. “I know that Regina and I don’t have any household pets, so I can’t help you there. But you know what they say, if your prospective partner doesn’t like your dogs or vice versa, then you need to rethink the relationship.”

Gold turned his attention back to his work and the gingerbread that he was mixing in the vague hope that Jefferson didn’t notice the rising colour in his face. At least Belle and Chip and Imp had all got on very well together and he didn’t need to worry about that. That was an encouraging sign, he thought. Perhaps this really could go the distance.

The chocolate cakes came out of the oven and were put on the side to cool, and Gold shoved the gingerbread in before starting work on the choux. Since the meringues would need a lower temperature in order not burn, he was determined to get everything else baked beforehand so that he could turn the oven right down and leave the meringues in there until the last moment. As he cooked the flour out of the pastry, he could overhear the judges and presenters behind him talking to Regina about her piece.

“It’s inspired by the Moulin Rouge,” Regina said. “Red velvet cake base with red icing, and a miniature caramel croquembouche forming the body of the windmill, with red-iced chocolate biscuit sails, and florentine petits four around the base.”

“That sounds…” Ursula tailed off, unable to form words that did the challenging idea justice.

“Impressive,” Belle finished for her. “It really does. The only thing I would be worried about is the sails falling off or breaking, not being able to take their own weight if they’re just free hanging from the croquembouche.”

“They are very delicate,” Regina admitted, “but I’ve made the windmill in its entirety before and it’s held its own. I just wouldn’t like to take it in a car down any bumpy roads.”

“Well, you only have to take it to the front of the tent, so you should be fine,” Ella said. “And knowing you, with your attention to detail, the sails will probably spin as well.”

“No. My level of technical expertise does not stretch that far. Leroy could probably make you something that actually spins; he’s got construction experience.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Gold saw Ursula go over to the tent window and peer out.

“Well, I don’t see him out there yet,” she said. “But if I do, would you like me to haul him in here to get the technical specs of a windmill for you?”

The suggestion was met with laughter and no seriousness, and the judges and presenters finished up with Regina and made their way back to the front of the tent. Belle and Granny were sitting at what would be the judging table, discussing the day’s bakes in hushed tones over a cup of tea. Well, that was what Gold assumed that they were doing, given that they were looking out over the bakers and making various gestures towards the different workbenches. He started piping out his choux bun sheep, trying to make each one look uniform. The farmer in him knew that this was a pointless endeavour since no two sheep looked alike, and when one had spent as much time around them as he had, you could learn to identify them. But baking skills did not bend to the realities of agricultural life, and there could be no lopsided choux buns today. He glanced back at Granny and Belle, and wished that he had enough time to stop for a cup of tea.

Gingerbread out, choux in, start on the meringues. With any luck the cakes would be cool enough to split, fill and ice now, and then the more intricate work could begin. Half the time had gone already, and Gold glanced out at the gardens beyond the tent. Family and friends were beginning to arrive now, staking claims at the picnic benches and trestle tables that had been set out, and he wondered whether Bae and Aunt Elvira were out there. It wasn’t like they’d had to travel all that far and given how eager his aunt had been, he would have been surprised if she was not one of the first to arrive. Still, there was no time to be thinking about what the people outside the tent were getting up to, when there was so much to be done inside the tent. Gold tightened the strings of his apron and continued to go about his work, praying for time to somehow go slower until he was finished.

X

Emma would admit that it did feel a little bit strange to be back in the Bake Off’s filming location so soon after having left it, but there was a great weight lifted off her shoulders this Sunday, knowing that she didn’t have to worry about anything and could just enjoy herself. She and Henry had managed to bag the picnic bench nearest to the tent and Graham had been holding the fort there whilst Henry went off to introduce himself to the other kids and Emma had gone around saying hello to all the people who she had met during the course of the bake-off itself. Everyone was back, with the notable exception of Zelena, and no-one seemed to be missing her. Even Killian was on his best behaviour, although if Emma was not very much mistaken then he appeared to have smuggled some beer in. Probably best to keep an eye on him just in case. Archie had brought his nephew, who had the same shock of bright red hair as his uncle and was about Henry’s age. Jefferson’s wife and daughter were there, and Mal with an older teen whom Emma guessed was her daughter, Lily.

At the opposite table to them was someone who could only have been Gold’s Aunt Elvira. Luckily, Graham was happy enough to be left alone again whilst Emma went over to introduce herself.

It was indeed Aunt Elvira, and she seemed very happy to have someone to talk to. Maybe it was the fact she was probably one of the oldest people there, or maybe it was the fact that the production runners were so preoccupied with running around doing other things that she had not really been introduced to anyone and had been wondering who everyone was. Emma was glad to oblige.

“Gold’s told me a lot about you,” she said by way of trying to segue into an innocent conversation, but the wicked little glint in Elvira’s eyes told her that might not be as good an idea as she had first thought.

“All bad, I hope,” she replied.

“No, mainly just the recipes he’s got from you.”

“Honestly, I’m disappointed. I was certain he’d be telling you all how terrible I am. I am very pleased to meet you, though. Rum’s been very grateful for all your moral support, I can assure you. You’ll have to vouch for the veracity of some of the things he’s told me about things going on in the tent though, did you really have a proposal?”

Emma would have continued to listen to Aunt Elvira, but something had caught the corner of her eye and she immediately turned to look at it. As a police officer, she had been trained to be observant and keep an eye out for people who were acting in a manner that could arouse suspicion, and there was someone doing that just now.

“Sorry, Elvira, bear with me a minute.”

“Of course, dear.” Aunt Elvira fell silent and Emma turned to fully observe the tell-tale movement. Her heart sank. Just as she had thought that they had managed to be free of Zelena’s influence for the remainder of the run, she had managed to weasel her way into the party. Emma really didn’t know how she’d managed it, but given the furtive manner in which she was moving, she had probably snuck past the security staff. Either that, or managed to sweet talk one who didn’t know her as well. She sighed.

“Is everything all right?” Aunt Elvira asked. “You look about ready to murder someone, no offence.”

“I am about ready to murder someone,” Emma muttered. “We’ve got a gatecrasher.”

She nodded in Zelena’s direction and Elvira looked over her shoulder.

“I see. Should I be worried?”

“I’m not sure. That’s Zelena. Did Gold tell you about her?”

Aunt Elvira took a sharp breath, the air whistling through her teeth. “Oh yes, I know all about Zelena.”

The two women continued to watch her progress across the lawn towards the gathered guests, and then Elvira spoke again.

“So, what are we going to do? We can’t have her turning up and ruining everything. Rum will probably jump into the nearest oven if he sees her and I really don’t want him burning to a crisp when he’s almost at the end and hasn’t had a nervous breakdown yet.”

Emma loved the fact that Elvira was totally on board with whatever chaos they were about to create to get rid of Zelena, and suddenly all Gold’s tales of his formidable aunt made perfect sense. She certainly wouldn’t like to get on her bad side.

A plan began to form in Emma’s mind. If there was one thing that Zelena had always got off on when she had been in the tent, it was causing a scene, and seeing that she’d gone to all the trouble to gatecrash a party where her invitation had been revoked, it was likely that she wanted to cause one hell of a scene now.

If Emma and Elvira could pre-empt her and cause their own scene, however, that might take the wind out of her sails a bit. She turned to the older woman and grinned.

“Well, since she’s turned up, I really think that we ought to go and say hello, you know. Give her the welcome back to the bake-off that she deserves.”

A wide smile spread over Aunt Elvira’s features.

“I think that would be perfect,” she said, clambering out of the picnic bench and picking up her umbrella. It was a beautiful day and Emma doubted that it would be needed for its traditional function, but if they ended up having to chase Zelena out of the gardens whilst poking her with long implements, then so be it.

“Aunt Elvira, what are you doing?” Bae had come back to the table and was looking on with a pained expression as Elvira made ready to do battle with the witch.

“Nothing, dear, nothing. Well, nothing you need to worry about at least. I’ve made a new friend and we’re going to have a little adventure. Bae, this is Emma. Emma, this is my nephew Bae. Well, my great-nephew.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Bae said. “You were definitely Dad’s best friend in the tent and he was gutted when you left last week.”

Emma had to smile at this glowing praise.

“Just don’t do anything embarrassing,” Bae pleaded with his great-aunt. “My friends watch this show and I already have to worry about Dad doing something stupid.”

“You should have more faith in your elders,” Aunt Elvira said sternly.

“I think you’ll be ok,” Emma added. “What we’re going to do probably isn’t broadcastable.”

Bae just looked alarmed, and sat down at the picnic table that they had just vacated. “I’m going to pretend I’m not with you,” he muttered.

“Yes, you do that dear. We’ll be back in a minute. I don’t think it’ll take too long.”

Elvira trotted along happily after Emma, and it wasn’t long before they intercepted Zelena. She did admirably to try and avoid them, but Emma’s law enforcement instincts and Elvira’s sheer Highland tenacity were no match for her.

“Hello Zelena,” Emma said brightly as they caught up to the red-head. “Long time no see. I’m actually quite surprised that you’re here, all things considered. You know, given the little cloud that you left the tent under.”

“I was a contestant for five weeks.” Zelena sniffed. “I have as much right to be here as anyone.”

“I’m sure,” Elvira snapped. “Since you do have every right to be here, I suppose there’s a very good reason why you’re sneaking about trying to stay out of sight?”

“Who are you?” Zelena asked.

“Elvira Gold.” Her voice could have cut glass and Emma wondered if Aunt Elvira would consider a secondary career as a detective. Suspects would quake in front of that voice. Indeed, Zelena was looking rather discomfitted herself.

“So, Zelena, if I were to casually yell HEY! STEVE! LOOK WHO’S HERE! You’d be perfectly ok with that?” Emma asked. On hearing his name hollered across the garden, Steve, the head of security for the day, looked over from where he was talking to the rest of the team and saw what was going on, heaving the huge sigh of someone who has already tried to stop an uninvited guest getting into a party at least twice, and making his way across the lawn.

Zelena, seeing the burly security man coming towards her, decided to give up whatever plans she had as a bad job, and took to her heels in the other direction. Emma turned to Elvira and smiled.

“A job very well done, I feel,” she said. “Shall we go back and rejoin the fun?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

They made their way back towards the tent. In the distance, Emma could see that Steve was closing in on Zelena, who had taken a wrong turning on her way back to the carpark and was now heading towards the duckpond.

“Please…” Aunt Elvira dropped her umbrella and crossed her fingers. “Please let her fall in…”

There was a scream and a resounding splash, and Zelena toppled into the murky water of the duck pond.

For a few moments, a collective silence fell over the gathered guests outside the tent. Once Zelena resurfaced, however, and was seen to be, however unfortunately, none too worse for wear after her ordeal, they returned to what they were doing, leaving Steve to stand at the edge of the pond, killing himself laughing. To say that Zelena did not look impressed would be putting it mildly.

“Is everything all right?” Granny and Ursula had come rushing out of the tent, no doubt having heard the splash. Emma, unable to speak for laughing, just pointed out across the pond.

“Oh. Well.” Ursula snorted. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person. Well done, Steve.”

The two of them went back into the tent to reassure the contestants that none of their relatives had drowned, and Emma and Elvira went over to the table where Bae was waiting for them. He was looking impressed, if reluctantly so.

“It’s not a party until someone falls in the duck pond,” Aunt Elvira said without a shadow of irony.

X

It was the moment of truth. Ella had called ten minutes on the challenge and Gold was well aware that he was running out of time. Everything had been assembled to varying degrees, he just had to finish rolling the sheep in coconut and placing them on the cake.

“Erm, Gold.”

He didn’t look up on hearing Ursula’s voice, too focussed on the task at hand. There were several sheep to fluff up and not all that much time to do them in, especially if he wanted to decorate the shortbread dogs as well.

“Gold, have you measured it vertically?” Ursula pressed. “Are you sure it’s going to be tall enough?”

Ah. That was one thing that Gold had not counted on. Wordlessly, Ursula handed him a ruler. He was just a centimetre under, and he cursed under his breath. There wasn’t really anything that he could do to salvage it now, it would just have to do.

“I’ve got an idea.” Ursula took back her ruler and grabbed one of his choux sheep, sticking it on the roof of the farmhouse. Whilst the idea did look a bit ridiculous, it certainly gave him the extra height that he needed, and he just gave her a nod of thanks, too frazzled to try and hold any kind of a conversation as he iced and assembled and finally managed to put the last sheep on the display as Ella called time.

It was over. Finished. Nothing more to be done. Whatever happened now, happened. Gold felt surprisingly at peace as he stepped back from his bake, not even wanting to breathe near it in case the entire thing collapsed. He had done his best, and although he had been down to the wire, he didn’t think that he could have done anything differently. The main thing that he was feeling was an overarching sense of relief. He’d made it to the end, and now he could relax.

“Phew.” Jefferson voiced all of their thoughts, mopping his brow with a tea-towel. “I think we can all give ourselves a pat on the back now. Group hug?”

Gold and Regina, neither of whom were the most tactile of people, just looked at him incredulously as he came towards them with open arms. “No? Ella, Ursula, come on, you hug me instead, these two are too shell-shocked from the end of the competition.”

They did end up with hugs all round at the end of it, standing in the middle of the tent whilst the production runners cleaned up around them, with Granny and Belle watching from the front of the tent with fond smiles.

“It’s always like this,” Ella said. “The end of every season is like a great big love-in. You’d be amazed at how the strongest and most stoic of us can go so mushy.”

For the first time in the tent, Gold felt somewhat claustrophobic as the clean-up continued and the camera crew did their artistic shots. In all the previous weeks they’d at least had the option to leave the tent for a bit and get some fresh air if they wanted, but due to all the people outside, that was out of the question. The guests at the party wouldn’t see the bakers until they emerged triumphant and the winner was announced. Knowing that it was so soon was making all of them antsy, and they still had to get through the judging.

Jefferson was first up, and Gold had to admit that his Wonderland scene was truly amazing. The colours were bright and vibrant, and whilst he wouldn’t want to eat too much of the thing for fear of going into a sugar coma, he couldn’t deny that it had been brilliantly executed, showing off some true talent. The judges were equally floored by it, Granny praising the multicoloured marble effect that he had managed to pull off flawlessly. Regina’s Moulin Rouge was as delicate and neat as her work always was, and all of its elements looked flavoursome and inviting. Finally it was Gold’s turn to be scrutinised for the last time. Ella carried his bake up to the front table with more care than he had ever known her use, and she set it down in front of the judges as if it was the most precious artefact in the world. Gold could only grip his cane with white knuckles. It was quite possibly the only thing keeping him upright at that point in time.

“It looks lovely,” Belle said. “You know your strengths and you play to them. The little coconut choux sheep are so fun. And Imp has her eyebrows, I’m happy about that.”

“It’s very well executed,” Granny agreed. “I would have liked to have seen a little more adventurousness perhaps, but what you’ve done, you’ve done well. The final product is neat for the most part, although I can see a few hurried sheep at the bottom there, and your chocolate cake is wonderfully rich.”

They had all done well, no-one had fallen at the last hurdle, and now all that remained was for the judges to make their final decision. It really was all but over.

“Ready to face the music?” Ursula asked, taking up Gold’s pièce montée as the other bakers carried theirs over to the front of the tent again.

“As I’ll ever be.”

A huge round of applause went up as the three of them came out of the tent, and where once Gold might have been embarrassed by all the cheering in his name, now he just felt a swell of pride. He hadn’t even intended to enter this competition, and now he had reached the end of it and he could say that he had done his family proud. Ursula brought the cake over to the table where Bae and Elvira were sitting and he followed her over, accepting the bone-crushing hug that his son gave him. The others were being congratulated by their families as well, and it was nice to be able to get away from the cameras for a few minutes and celebrate in comparative privacy.

“It looks amazing,” Bae said, eyeing up the pièce montée. “Can I have some?”

“Go ahead, it doesn’t need to stand up to scrutiny anymore.”

Bae stuffed a choux sheep in his mouth and gave two thumbs up. Aunt Elvira just passed a thermos mug of tea across the table to her nephew and winked. Taking a sip, he realised she’d spiked it with brandy, and he did his best not to choke and spit it out over Bae. Nonetheless, the liquor calmed his nerves and by the time the presenters were calling them over to announce the winner, he no longer felt like he was about to faint at any moment.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ursula began. “It is with great pleasure that we can finally reveal the winner of the Great British Bake-Off is… Jefferson!”

Another huge cheer went up from the gathered crowd as Jefferson accepted his trophy and another group hug from the two presenters. In the end, the best baker had won; his Wonderland really couldn’t be topped. Of course Gold was disappointed, a small part of him always would be, but as he looked over Jefferson’s shoulder and saw Belle’s sunny smile directed right at him, he knew that he had won in an entirely different way.

X

The cameras had finally finished rolling. All the interviews had been done, all the final pieces to camera had been made, Ella and Ursula had officially bade the viewers at home farewell and thanks for watching. The latest season of the Great British Bake-Off had come to a close, and now it was time for the presenters, judges and crew to relax and enjoy themselves at the party along with everyone else. A few people who had long journeys ahead of them had already packed up and left, and Belle was surprised and very pleased to find that Gold and his family were still there. She slipped onto the picnic bench beside him, unnoticed where he was watching Bae, Grace and Henry playing with Archie’s enthusiastic Dalmatian. Aunt Elvira was nowhere to be seen; Belle finally tracked her down talking to Ella. It looked like the two of them had broken into Ella’s secret stash of gin and a good time was being had by all, so she decided that Aunt Elvira was more than capable of fending for herself, and she tapped Gold’s arm gently.

He turned to her, giving a soft smile.

“Hey there.”

“Hey yourself.” Belle shifted a little bit closer to him on the bench. “So, it’s all over now.”

“Yes, and not a moment too soon.”

“Come on, it can’t have been that bad, can it?”

“You’d be surprised,” Gold said. “There have been some very hairy moments, believe me. Apparently Zelena snuck in and fell in the pond earlier. I’m quite glad I was still up to my eyeballs in choux pastry sheep at that point.”

Belle laughed, and she looked over at the remains of Gold’s pièce montée on the table beside them. It was looking a little worse for wear now, with most of the decorative pieces having been torn off and eaten, leaving just a hacked up cake and some shards of peanut brittle standing forlornly.

“It looks a little bit sad now,” she said.

“I don’t mind.” Gold reached out and grabbed a couple of pieces of brittle, offering one to her. “I think it looks better like this. Cakes are made to be eaten after all, and I think that the amount of demolition it undergoes in the first hour is usually a good indicator of how tasty it is.”

“I don’t think that anyone’s going to deny that your cake was incredibly tasty.” She crunched the brittle, enjoying the different textures of the caramel and the nuts. In a way she was sad that she wasn’t going to be coming back to the tent to sample any more of Gold’s baking week on week, but she knew that there was the freedom now for her to sample his wares whenever she liked. If he was amenable towards that, of course.

“You know, there’s another reason why I’m glad it’s over,” Gold said, sounding nonchalant but the beginnings of a pink blush rising in his ears and on his cheekbones betrayed that he was still the same adorable and nervous man that he’d always been throughout the competition.

Belle nodded; they were both thinking along exactly the same lines.

“There’s nothing standing in the way now,” she said. “We’re not a contestant and judge any more. Just two people with a mutual love of baking.”

“I think that’s a pretty solid foundation for something to grow out of,” Gold agreed. Belle could only smile, slipping her hands under the curtain of his greying hair and cupping his face, pulling him in for a kiss that no longer needed to be clandestine, like the one that they had shared in the barn when she had visited him earlier in the week. They could really enjoy this one, pouring heart and soul into it. She felt Gold’s hands come down to rest on her waist, and she slipped her arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. Finally he broke away, his expression full of wonder.

“Can we do that again?” he asked.

“We can do it as many times as you like.” Belle laughed, and then made good on matching word to deed, pulling him back in to capture his mouth once more. He was a gentle kisser, tentative, but she thought that once he got used to the idea, she could coax a little more passion out of him. She certainly didn’t mind giving him some remedial training if he thought himself a little out of practice.

A sharp wolf whistle cut through the air and Gold sprang back from her, his eyes darting helplessly around their surroundings as he tried to find the culprit. Belle suspected Jefferson, but he was on the other side of the garden talking to Ursula and oblivious to their current closeness.

The whistle came again, and Belle realised that it was not directed at them at all, but at Regina and Mal, who were also sharing a kiss in the shadow of the tent. Killian was the one to have drawn attention to them, and it looked like the man was well into his smuggled beer. Belle saw Emma roll her eyes, roll up her sleeves, and make her way over to her shortest lived co-star to give him a piece of her mind, and before long Killian found himself surrounded by several unamused guests, who included two off-duty police officers and a former soldier among their number. He threw his hands up in surrender and went off muttering to himself. Thankfully, Regina and Mal seemed completely undisturbed for this intrusion into their relationship.

“It seems like we’re not the only ones who found love on the programme,” Belle said, leaning in to Gold’s side as they continued to survey the party as it wound down. “I’m so happy for them. And of course there was Leroy and Astrid getting engaged as well. It really was a summer of love.”

Gold didn’t reply, but he put his arm around her, and Belle enjoyed the closeness as Emma came over to them.

“Honestly,” she was saying. “I swear that all I’ve done since I’ve got here today is pick fights with former contestants and cause chaos. This isn’t what I’m normally like.”

“It’s all right, we all know that you’re incredibly sweet-natured and docile in real life,” Belle said. “Even when you’re swearing about dropping mixing bowls on your foot.”

“Yes, well… Those mixing bowls are heavy!” She sighed. “At any rate, we’re going to be heading off in a minute; Graham and I have to be at work ridiculously early. I just wanted to come by and say well done, and keep in touch, yeah? It would be a shame if we all got this far and made such good friends and then never spoke to each other again.”

Gold nodded. “I’ll make sure this isn’t the last you hear from me, I promise.”

“Good. I’m holding you to that.” The goodbye felt a little awkward, like the end of an era, but then a soft smile appeared on Emma’s face. “I’m so happy you two are going for it. It’s been a minefield of unresolved romantic tension in that tent for far too long.”

Gold groaned, burying his head in his hands. “Was it really that obvious?”

Emma nodded. “Don’t worry, I think it’s sweet. Anyway, all the best for the future, both of you. Belle, it was an honour to meet you. Thanks for this opportunity.”

“You’re very welcome.”

They said their goodbyes and Emma left them, going over to collect Henry and Graham and leave the venue.

“No-one will notice,” Belle said. “You’d be amazed at the amount of stuff that we manage to hide.”

“I’m counting on it.” He looked over at her. “Not that I’m ashamed of my feelings for you, far from it. But the thought of having everyone in the country watching this unfold…”

Belle just leaned in and kissed him. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “You’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.”

Gold nodded and kissed her again, and she knew, in that moment, that they really would be all right.

It had certainly been the most interesting season of the bake-off to date.