Somewhere Only We Know

Chapter 11: The Delicious Gifts

While he was awake in his bed, Hiccup had been hoping that Rapunzel was very satisfied right now with the answers that he'd given for each of her eleven questions from her last letter, considering that most of the answers he'd written were long and detailed, and now he was thinking of doing something different. He was delighted to hear from Gobber last night that there wouldn't be any Dragon Training in the morning, because of today being a certain holiday, and Hiccup didn't even bother to remember the name of it, so he decided to use the free time in making something delicious for Rapunzel. Since Rapunzel obviously didn't sound like the name of another teenage Viking from a faraway island, because Vikings were usually given a scary and hideous name and Hiccup believed that he just couldn't let this girl down, so it needed to be something which was both soft and tasteful.

Hiccup concluded that he should whip up a sweet dessert, even though they were normally made for birthdays and holidays, so he carefully searched the kitchen until he found his late mother's cookbook of recipes, and looked through the section before stopping at a certain delicacy. Hiccup checked the pantry and cupboards to get all of the ingredients that were required to make the recipe that he'd chose, and set all of them down on the table, but before he got started on doing anything, Hiccup rolled both of his sleeves up and put on an apron his mother had made and used to wear before she passed away.

Hiccup was glad that whether he succeeded or failed in his new baking mission, there wouldn't be any long lecture afterwards from his father about messing things up in the house and not using the kitchen when he's not around, and he would also get to enjoy the silence in the house. A fresh batch of lemon bars were the savory sweets that Hiccup was going to be making for Rapunzel and Pascal, at least if her chameleon would be allowed or interested in eating some of them too, and there were two parts for the lemon bars, which was the crust and filling, but they needed to be done separately.

"Here goes nothing," Hiccup said softly, just as he read the very first step of the instructions to the recipe, which was to preheat the oven with wood, and get a fire started, so once that was done, Hiccup began mixing a few of the ingredients together in a bowl with a spatula.

Hiccup blended the butter, flour, and sugar in the bowl until they created a light substance, and then he added the salt into it, going back to mixing until the combination of the ingredients became dough, which he dumped onto a well-floured board and gathered into a ball. After that, he flattened the dough with his floured hands, pressed it into a nine by thirteen by two-inch baking sheet, building up a half-inch edge on all sides, and while using his late mother's embroidered flower pattern gloves, Hiccup slid the baking sheet onto a shelf in the oven. He did a quick check at the recipe, which told him that in order for the crust had to be baked, it must stay in the oven for fifteen to twenty minutes before it gets taken out, so Hiccup decided on counting to sixty seconds for about seventeen times as a personal timer for the oven. Slowly, while using the gloves, when he pulled the baking sheet off the shelf and out of the oven, he was glad to see the crust was lightly brown, and laid the baking sheet down on the table to cool off, but Hiccup wasn't finished yet, because he still had to make the lemon filling too.

Using the spatula again, he whisked together the remaining sugar, flour, and eggs, as well as the grated lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice, before pouring the mixture over the baked crust and putting it back on the shelf in the oven to be baked for half an hour. Hiccup took out the baking sheet with one of the gloves, placed it down on the table, and he put out the fire in the oven with a few buckets of water, while he let the crust cool down to room temperature, then using a knife to cut into uniform two inch squares, and arrange in a checker board fashion. Finally, Hiccup dusted all of the square-shaped lemon bars with confectioners' sugar, and was about to take them out of the baking sheet when he started thinking of what he should put them into, so Hiccup searched the house until he found a brown paper bag which was big enough to carry them all. He first got himself cleaned up, with washing the flour off his hands, taking off his apron and gloves, rolling his sleeves down, and then tidied up the kitchen by putting the rest of the remaining ingredients, as well as the kitchen tools back to their places in the pantry and cupboards.