Yumeiro Patissiere

Chapter 23 Strawberry Illusion?

Today was an exciting day for Ichigo; a circus from France had come to Japan, and Ichigo couldn't wait to see it. She was going with the sweets princes, the sweets spirits and Sennosuke's brother Ichita. Ichita was excited about going to the circus too. When they reached the place where the big circus tent was, it was absolutely packed with people.

The circus turned out to be glorious; there were clowns juggling, people doing acrobats, elephants balancing on giant balls and people flying on trapezes, etc. Ichigo had made chocolate chip muffins and she was sharing them with Ichita, who found them delicious. The last circus act was from a girl, the same age as Ichita, named Amelie. She was dancing while spinning hula hoops around her body. Ichita couldn't take his eyes off her; he was having a crush on her. Ichigo saw Ichita blushing while looking at Amelie, and realized that he liked her.

When the performance was over it was time to leave, except Ichigo and Ichita got separated from the sweets princes because of the crowds. "Come on Ichita, let's go and see that girl Amelie," said Ichigo. "What?" stuttered Ichita. "You like that girl right?" asked Ichigo. Ichita blushed from that. "So we shall go and see her" said Ichigo. She phoned Sennosuke on her mobile and told him about Ichita wanting to see Amelie. "I'll bring Ichita home later when we're done". "Okay, so we shall go back to my home now, and wait for you there" said Sennosuke. Then the phone call ended. Sennosuke told the others what was happening and they went onto a bus for home.

At that time, Ichigo and Ichita found Amelie by the circus tent. "Hello, my friend Ichita here wanted to meet you" said Ichigo (in french). "You speak french really well," said Amelie (in Japanese) "but I can speak Japanese as well as french because I learned how to speak Japanese". Amelie showed Ichigo and Ichita all around the circus area; showing them elephants and performers practicing. And then she introduced them to her mum, who was also a performer. Amelie's mum invited Ichigo and Ichita for dinner and they accepted. Dinner was a chicken curry with rice and a bowl of spinach salad with a yogurt dressing. The thing was though Ichita hated spinach and Amelie hated carrots.

Ichigo offered to make a dessert to say thank you for the dinner. "Do you have any oranges, chocolate chips, and icing sugar?" she asked Amelie's mum. "Yes we do," said Amelie's mum "there are three oranges in a fruity bowl and the chocolate chips and icing sugar are in the cupboard". Ichigo found them easily and got out everything else that she needed for a cake. "What are you going to make Ichigo?" whispered Vanilla. "A chocolate chip orange cake" whispered Ichigo. "That sounds delicious" said Vanilla. To make the cake, Ichigo used butter, sugar, three eggs, vanilla essence, plain flour, baking powder, milk and chocolate chips. She also grated half an orange and squeezed the juice out of it with a fruit juicer, and then added the orange juice and orange zest to the batter. After placing the batter into a tin and placing it in the oven, Ichigo started to make orange-flavored icing, with icing sugar, softened butter and the zest and juice from the other half of the orange. When the cake was cooked and cooled Ichigo spread the orange icing onto the cake and soon it was done. "That looks great" said Vanilla, and she sent a recipe card of the orange chocolate chip cake to the queen. Ichita, Amelie and her mum all thought that the cake was delicious and thanked Ichigo for it. Ichigo was happy that they liked it.

After dinner was over with Ichigo and Ichita went back to Sennosuke's house. Ichita told his brother about the fun time he had with Amelie and told him about Ichigo's chocolate chip orange cake. So everyone had a great time.

Ichigo was in thought when she and the others went back to St Marie Academy; the thought of Ichita's hate of spinach and Amelie's hate of carrots was on her mind. "What are you thinking Ichigo?" asked Vanilla. "Well I am thinking of making a cake made with carrots and spinach," said Ichigo "thing is though when it comes to vegetable sweets; those who really hate carrots, spinach, tomatoes or cucumber can be very picky with them. So we need to create a cake that both haters of carrots and spinach would like". "Awe I like that idea," said Vanilla "let's do it".

Ichigo and Vanilla went into the cooking classroom to get started. "What are we going to do first?" asked Vanilla. "Well," said Ichigo, having a think, "some vegetable sweets are made with raw vegetables like carrot cake is made with a grated raw carrot. And some people usually complain about the taste and smell of vegetable cakes, so we need to find a way to hide the tastes and smells of the spinach and carrot". Ichigo boiled the spinach and then strained it into a paste, and turned the carrot into a paste too. Then Vanilla added cinnamon to both the spinach paste and carrot paste to cover up the smell. Once Ichigo baked a normal sponge cake, using the pastes, she and Vanilla tried it out. "Hmm the taste is wrong; it still tastes of spinach and carrot," said Ichigo "and it's like the carrot and spinach is lost in a dark street". "What now?" asked Vanilla. Ichigo decided to separate the pastes into two cakes and tried them together, but that wasn't right either. "This is like the carrot and spinach are trying to work together but all they do is arguing" said Ichigo. "So it's obvious that spinach cake and carrot cake don't mix together" said Vanilla.

At that moment Sennosuke and Caramel came into the room. Ichigo told Sennosuke of her plan to make a vegetable cake for those who hate spinach and carrots. "Parents would like that, especially when they serve it to their children" said Sennosuke. "Problem is Vanilla and I can't seem to get the taste right" said Ichigo. "Well at home we eat spinach in hamburger or stew," said Sennosuke "that way Ichita ends up eating spinach without even noticing it, because he chomps away what he likes". Sennosuke's words made Ichigo remember the yogurt dressing that Amelie's mum put on the spinach dressing. "Does Ichita-Kun like yogurt?" asked Ichigo. "Yes he does" answered Sennosuke. "Then maybe we can use yogurt for the cake" said Ichigo. Sennosuke liked the idea and offered to help.

First Sennosuke placed some yogurt into the cake batter and Ichigo added the carrot paste and cinnamon. While the carrot cake was baking in the oven, Ichigo worked on a spinach cream to go on top of the cake. She used a yogurt cream she learned in her last cooking lesson and added the spinach paste to it. Ichigo thought it needed something to cover the smell and taste of the spinach more and Sennosuke suggested peaches because they were sweet and had a nice smell. So they used a juicer to turn the peaches into juice and then added the peach juice to the spinach cream. After the carrot cake was baked and the spinach cream was spread over it, it was tasting time again. This time the taste of the spinach and carrot was totally covered up thanks to the yogurt, peach and cinnamon, and the smell of the carrot and spinach was covered up too. This meant that the cake for those who hate carrots and spinach was now complete. Ichigo wrote it all down in a notepad so that she wouldn't forget the recipe.

Sennosuke and Ichigo introduced the cake to Ichita and he liked the cake very much. He asked them to make it for Amelie by Sunday; the circus was finishing their tour in Japan this Sunday and they were going somewhere far away next. When Sunday came, Ichigo and Sennosuke made another carrot and spinach cake. Makato and Satsuki helped out too with the decoration. Satsuki made sugar crafts and Makato made a white chocolate plaque. He even made some milk chocolate and Ichigo used the chocolate to pipe a drawing of Ichita and Amelie on top of the plaque. The sweets spirits thought that the cake was wonderful, and Vanilla sent a recipe card of it to the queen.

By evening, Wichita and Ichigo set off for the circus to give Amelie her piece of the cake before the circus left. The traffic was terrible so Ichigo and Ichita had to get off the bus early to run the rest of the way there. By that time the circus was starting to leave, but as luck will have it a red traffic light made the lorry, where Amelie was sitting in, stop. Ichita gave Amelie her cake and they said goodbye to each other and promised to meet up again. Ichita was sad to see Amelie leave, but he knew that he would see Amelie again soon.

Ichigo was happy that things went okay in the end and that she succeeded in making a cake for those who hate carrots and spinach.

The end
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