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It was an unusual sort of day in the TARDIS, in that no one had actually had to run for their lives anytime recently. Amy announced that she was bored, and she was going to bake something. She also added that her boys better come and help, if they knew what was good for them.
Of course, they followed her to the kitchen.
“Cookbook?” Amy asked, her eyes scanning the rather lopsided shelves on the walls. Sometimes she pondered the theory that the Doctor got his internal decorating sense from the Mad Hatter. It wouldn’t surprise her.
“Of course,” the Doctor said, opening the refrigerator door and tugging out a thick book with a cracked binding. “Here you are.”
“Why do you keep it in the refrigerator?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Amy rolled her eyes, laying the book down on the kitchen island and tugging over a stool so she could sit down and flip through the pages. Rory and the Doctor pulled up a seat on either side of her.
“Ooh, that’s a good one,” the Doctor said, excitedly pointing to an entry.
“New Earth Paella?” Amy read, “What’s the difference between that and paella from our time?”
“Well,” the Doctor answered, “Of course we’d need to hunt down some Macra first. They’re these huge crab-like--”
“No. Not happening,” Rory interrupted, motioning for Amy to turn to the next page. He was actually enjoying the peacefulness of the last couple days, even with the fact that the Doctor and Amy were both prone to cabin fever.
“How about that one?” Rory suggested, pointing to a different entry, “I don’t see what’s wrong with meatloaf.”
“Ugh, read the ingredients list,” Amy said, “I’m not making anything with something called Beetle Wax.”
“But that’s the best part!” the Doctor insisted. He made a little whining noise when Amy turned to the next page.
“Sponge cake?” Amy said, scanning the list of ingredients. “Made with real sponges?”
“It’s the only true way to make a sponge cake,” the Doctor pointed out.
Amy continued to flip pages.
“Mollusk wafers?”
“No, thanks.”
“Alzarian Seaweed wraps?”
“Nope.”
“Jellied Space Eel?”
“I think I’m losing my appetite,” Rory complained, moving his head to lay on Amy’s shoulder in mock exasperation.
“Aw,” Amy said, kissing his forehead, “Poor baby. But, you’re right. This cookbook was not meant for us.”
“Sure it is,” the Doctor said, moving his head onto Amy’s other shoulder, if only because he didn’t want to be left out, “You need to try new things, have a sense of adventure.”
“Excuse me,” Amy said, shoving him away playfully, “My sense of adventure is not lacking. I just don’t want to eat your strange alien dishes, Mr. Fish Custard.”
“That’s Doctor Fish Custard to you,” the Doctor said, sticking out his tongue.
“Do you know what I’m in the mood for?” Amy asked suddenly.
Both the Doctor’s and Rory’s eyebrows went up in a surprised, hopeful expression.
“No, not that,” Amy said, “Fairy cakes. Home-baked fairy cakes.”
Both of their expressions continued to be hopeful, causing Amy to laugh.
“What, it’s been that long since anyone baked you anything?” she said, “All right, let me see if I can write down the list of ingredients from memory, since I doubt you have a nice 21st century Earth cookbook anywhere nearby. Or wait, don‘t tell me--you had one, but you threw it into a black hole because you disagreed with it.”
The Doctor started trying to explain that he didn’t do that sort of thing all the time, but Amy only rolled her eyes while Rory tugged on his sleeve to divert his attention to helping him locate the baking items in the kitchen.
Amy set to work writing down the ingredients and measurements while Rory and the Doctor went through the cupboards to find things for her.
“I’ve got flour,” Rory called out, holding up a bag.
“Oh, no, sorry,” the Doctor said, taking the bag away from him before saying cryptically, “Wrong flour, absolutely wrong. Bad, bad flour. Dangerous, even.”
“Okay…how about this one?” he said, holding up another bag.
“That’s the one!” the Doctor said, clapping him on the shoulder. After a few minutes of concentrated effort, a time during which Rory almost opened a jar of actual live worms, they had the ingredients sprawled out on the counter.
They both watched, fascinated, as Amy began to stir the ingredients together in a large red mixing bowl.
“It’s not rocket science,” Amy laughed.
“No, rocket science is--” the Doctor started, but Amy quickly interrupted him by shoving a spoonful of mixture into his mouth.
“Mmph,” the Doctor said, licking his lips. “Needs more ketchup.”
“No,” Rory and Amy said simultaneously.
It took all of thirty-four nanoseconds to bake the fairy cakes once they were ready to go in the oven, thanks to the superior technology in the TARDIS kitchen. Amy and Rory were sufficiently impressed, causing the Doctor to look very smug indeed.
Icing the cakes was more of an ordeal, when Amy opened the first can the Doctor handed her only to discover a family of lunar moths that was living inside it. “You really should start labeling things, don’t you think?" Rory suggested as he and the Doctor stumbled around the kitchen to catch them as Amy finished decorating the cakes with a can of actual icing.
“And now for the best part,” the Doctor said, as he finally sat down and took a bottle of ketchup from the refrigerator and proceeded to pour it into a bowl.
Rory and Amy watched as the Doctor dunked a large chunk of a fairy cake in and then proceeded to eat it in one bite.
“Ew,” Amy said, scrunching up her nose, “That’s disgusting. Don’t expect us to kiss you after you’ve eaten that.”
“Primitive human taste buds,” the Doctor protested, “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“No, but you know what you’re missing,” Amy said, pulling Rory over for a regular, ketchup-less, fairy cake-flavored kiss.
The Doctor pouted.
“I’m going to go brush my teeth,” he announced, grabbing the bowl of ketchup and a couple more cakes and practically bounding out of the kitchen to go do precisely that.
The end.