Dorothy Dunnett lovers will appreciate the nod at the end
Orange blossom water was the most important ingredient. And she was aiming for perfection. She placed the little blue bottle next to the flour, the butter, the sugar, the eggs, and the yeast, all carefully measured and poured into bowls she had methodically laid out over the kitchen counter, as she was a particularly organized baker and person, not a professional baker, but certainly a skilled one, small, round, in her late thirties, unequivocally satisfied with the arrangement before her, but also realizing she had missed the orange zest, “Orange zest!” she said with a smile, moving her arms upwards as if someone could hear her, silly you, she thought with a grin while moving an orange up and down, up and down, up and down, enjoying some of the aromas that escaped from the fresh zest and invaded her nose, then her brain, and it smelled of summer days at the beach, of a bright yellow sun dancing on the water, and the water seducing the sun with whirls of turquoises, and coral greens, and warm oranges, like in a Soroya painting, where everyone was beaming in happyiness, and so she cleaned the zester under cold water, and she mixed all the ingredients, and she started kneading, meticulously, attentively, as she was aiming for perfection, and she pressed, then she massaged, she pressed, she massaged, and her oily palms and fingers gained intimacy with the warm dough, and the warm dough surrendered to the expertise and tenderness of her touch, and she day-dreamed that her guest would feel the warmth, too, when eating the cake, and succumb to the secret seduction magically instilled into the sweet mixture of sugar and devotion, silly you, she thought again, while shaping the dough into a giant doughnut, then she painted it with egg, and sprinkled some sugar over it, and put it in the oven, waiting in anticipation for the cake to react to the warmer warmth, and so she realized she was day-dreaming again, so she started whipping cream for the filling, manually, of course, because she knew all good things in life required effort and dedication, and soon the arm that was frantically commandeering the whisk started to hurt but she didn’t care because it was good excercise, and she could smell the fresh cream turning into cotton mixed with the warm sugary batter in the oven, already obeying the laws of nature, and then she waited, because she also knew patience is a virtue, and when the cake was finally full, and round, and brown and bright as coffee with a cloud of milk, she filled it with the whipped cream, and it looked as fresh and perfect as a new blossom in the morning, and so it happened that when her guest arrived, and she offered a piece of her soul and a spoon to carve into it, her guest accepted with joy.
