Chapter 45: Episode 22 - Day of the Grand Prix (2)
Finally, we made it to the gymnasium and stood around. Chairman Moriyama stood at the front on a podium and with a microphone.
The room was still noisy as everyone settled in. Once everyone entered, the chairman spoke.
"Settle down, everyone. Please gather in the center," the chairman instructed through the microphone and the crowd of students followed.
"We will now hold a meeting for the 47th St. Marie Academy Cake Grand Prix. I'd just like to say that, as always, I'd like to think of it as a chance to freely display a patissier's skills. I'm delighted that there are so many people participating this year. However, in order to limit the number of people, we'll be performing a small test right here and now!" Chairman Moriyama said with a smile and a commotion started around the room.
"A test?"
"I didn't hear anything about this!"
'This school and their hidden tests… As I presumed, it's only because there are so many teams that are participating this year…'
I remembered my entrance exam for the school and how everything had been planned out beforehand. I'd at least suspected that something was going to happen eventually.
"Wow, Michiko. You were right," the Sweets Princes acknowledged in unison, but this news didn't startle them since I'd given a warning beforehand.
"Everyone, please take a look at the box over there," Chairman Moriyama pointed to two small boxed rooms with doors on them. Our cooking class teacher stood at one of the doors and waved our attention over to her.
"Inside is the subject of the first round including 4 ingredients for pound cake. Several kinds of ingredients have been prepared," our teacher explained as I took note.
'Okay, so the first subject is pound cake.'
"One person will enter, and you'll have to fill out a sheet with alphabet letters of the ingredients you think were used in the making. You cannot break the eggs though you can use some other method and it's okay to touch the ingredients. If you get one question wrong, you're out! If one person is wrong, the whole team fails and you're disqualified from continuing," the teacher explained and everybody's eyes widened in shock.
"EH?!"
"No way, if we get one wrong, we're out?"
"I thought this was going to be simpler!"
'As I thought, this school isn't simple-minded when it comes to these tests…'
I glanced over at the sweets princes who had a nervous look on their faces.
"Don't lose faith in yourselves now. We've practiced a lot during these past two weeks. Don't let it all be for nothing," I lectured them and they nodded their heads in agreement.
"You're right. I'm not giving up now." Hanabusa put on a confident smile.
"All those hours we put into practicing better not fail us now," Kashino smirked.
"I'll make sure that I pass this test," Andou said assuredly.
We all nodded our heads in agreement to do our best. The nervousness that appeared on their faces turned into confident looks.
'Great, let's go.'
A smirk appeared on my face as well and we turned our attention back to our teacher.
"You will have three minutes total for the entire test. When you hand in the filled-out answer sheet, go to where you're instructed. There's a surveillance camera in the box. Dishonesty will result in an instant fail! Now, let's start!"
As people were walking into the testing room, most middle schoolers had nervous looks on their faces while the high schoolers couldn't be less bothered.
~
Inside some testing rooms…
"Eh? Which sugar should I choose?"
"These eggs are all the same so how could they be different?"
"I'm so nervous…"
As one boy was finished in the room, he walked out with a nervous face, holding his answer sheet as he made his way over to the teacher that would direct them to either the failing room on the passing room
"I'm so done for—I mean, I'm done!" The boy handed over his sheet to one of the teachers at a counter. As the teacher read through the boy's answers, he pointed to one of the two doors.
"Enter through that door," the male teacher said seriously and the boy trembled in fear as he entered through the door.
A sign that said: "Wrong Answers" was plastered in big bold letters to know that they failed.
~
"WAH-HAH! I'M SORRY!!!!" One boy's voice wailed through one of the rooms and this caused everyone to tremble in fear though the sweets princes and I remained indifferent.
"Geez, I don't get how the Sweets Princes and the Ice Princess can remain calm in all of this…"
"They're in a different league than us, we can't even compare…"
"Even a slight bit of nervousness from them would make me feel better about myself."
A commotion started among those who hadn't tested yet as we stood in the back, observing everybody else.
"Even Michiko Keiko's new here but she doesn't seem to feel the least bit affected by the sudden test. She's either really amazing or really good at putting up a face."
'Why am I being talked about again?'
As I heard the chattering going around, a voice on the microphone went on.
"Next, #21 Hanabusa Satsuki," the voice on the microphone announced as Hanabusa walked towards the door. He kept his calm smile on and waved back at us.
"Okay, I'm off," Hanabusa said calmly before entering the testing room.
The intercom ringed again.
"Next, #22 Kashino Makoto."
Kashino made his way over to the testing room, his indifferent face remained the same.
Andou and I stood calmly, waiting for our names to be called.
"Michiko, it's a good thing that you warned us beforehand that there was something more to this. If you didn't, we'd probably be a bit nervous, but we're glad that you were here to tell us," Andou looked at me and shot a smile.
"Well, it'd only make sense if I told my teammates than keep it to myself. We just can't fail here, not now, not ever." I shot him a confident look and he nodded his head in agreement.
The intercom ringed again.
"Next is #23 Andou Sennosuke and #24 Michiko Keiko. Enter the doors on the right and left respectively," the voice instructed and we walked toward the testing rooms separately.
I turned the handle of the door and opened it, closing it right behind me.
'That's right. I can't fail here.'
A smile formed on my face as I looked at the table set up for me. On it was eggs, kinds of butter, flours, and sugars all labeled with the letters A, B, and C.
'Pound cake is made with sugar, butter, eggs, and flour.'
I looked over at the 3 different kinds of butter laid out in front of me.
'Pound cakes use unsalted butter but usually, it's fermented butter.'
I observed each butter and I could tell that A and B were too pale for fermented butter, so I could omit these two choices because they were either unsalted or salted. Instead of tasting A or B, I immediately went to C since it was more of yellower color.
'This is it.'
I quickly wrote down the letter C on my paper.
I glanced over at the two sugars and I could see the different consistencies.
'A is granulated sugar while B is more fine and moist, meaning that it's caster sugar. I remember talking with Andou about pound cake before. He'd said that if pound cake was made 2-3 days later, it would still be moist and good to eat since he used caster sugar for its absorbency. Though, Kashino said that granulated sugar would be used more with fruits or cocoa powder since there's a large percentage of fats.'
Keeping Kashino's idea in mind, I put down "A" for granulated sugar on my sheet.
Next, I looked at 3 eggs labeled with A, B, and C.
'Although they look the same, I have to check the buoyancy of each egg to determine which is the freshest. Whichever one sinks to the bottom and lies on their side is the freshest egg.'
I placed the three eggs in a container filled with water and I noticed that the egg labeled "A" sank to the bottom on its side while B and C floated.
I put down "A" for the freshest egg and finally moved onto the last one—flour.
Each type of flour was labeled just like the other ingredients.
'Just like sugar, there's no difference in appearance since all of them are white. Out of the 3 choices, it could either be bread flour, cake flour, or all-purpose flour…'
I figured that observing it wouldn't do me any good, so I grabbed a handful of each flour and separately added water, and began kneading them until I could check which flour was which.
Once I checked the consistency of the flour, I could tell which was which since A had elasticity like bread flour, B was so-so like all-purpose, and C is the softest, meaning that it was cake flour.
'Okay, so A is bread flour, B is all-purpose, and C… is cake flour.'
Cake flour has less elasticity, which was what I was looking for.
When I figured it out, I quickly wrote down C and exited the room.
A male teacher with black hair, brown eyes, glasses, and a stern expression noticed my sudden exit.
"Hm… You completed this in 1 minute… That would have to be the record holder for today," he said as I handed him my answer sheet.
"Is that so…" I said faintly.
"I noticed on the footage that you didn't even touch the butter to tell what it was," the teacher said, observing my answers on the form.
"Yes, I could already tell which was which," I answered him assuredly. A smirk appeared on his stern face before he said anything.
"Hmm… interesting," he said as he read my answer sheet. "Continue through that door." He pointed to one of the doors to the far right and I followed his instruction.
I entered through the door and saw plenty of people staring right at me.
'Did I pass…?'