Evelyn stood at the entrance to the de Claire estate's auxiliary kitchen, hands on her hips. It was a cavernous space, dusty from disuse, with a massive brick oven that hadn't been fired in years and long wooden tables coated in a fine layer of floury ghosts.
To the staff, it was the forgotten kitchen. To Evelyn, it was prime real estate.
"Alright, people, listen up!" she announced to the small, bewildered group of kitchen hands and the head chef she had summoned. "Welcome to the new de Claire Confectionery Research and Development Lab."
Blank stares.
"This," she declared, sweeping her arm across the dusty room, "is where we are going to make history. And a lot of money."
The head chef, a portly man in his fifties with a magnificent, impeccably waxed mustache and a starched-white toque that sat on his head like a crown, stepped forward. This was Chef Antoine, a man who had cooked for the de Claires for thirty years and whose belief in the holy trinity of butter, cream, and tradition was absolute.
"Milady," he began, his voice a low rumble of polite confusion, "forgive me, but what is this… 'Re-search and De-vel-op-ment'?"
"It's where we invent things, Antoine," Evelyn said brightly. She strode over to a table, unrolling several large sheets of parchment she'd brought with her. On them were detailed charcoal sketches.
The kitchen staff crowded around, peering at the strange diagrams. One showed a small, round sphere, sliced open and filled with some kind of cream, with a smaller blob on top. Another showed a rectangle made of strange, stacked layers. A third depicted a tart, but the fruit on top was arranged in a glossy, geometric spiral that looked more like art than food.
"These are our prototypes," Evelyn explained, pointing to the round sphere. "We will call this a 'Cream Puff.' A light, airy pastry shell, filled with a sweet vanilla cream."
Chef Antoine squinted at the drawing, his mustache drooping with skepticism. "Milady, it looks like a hollowed-out bread roll. And how would one make it 'airy'?"
"With science!" Evelyn chirped. "And now this," she tapped the layered rectangle, "is a Tiramisu. Layers of coffee-soaked ladyfingers and a rich, mascarpone cheese cream, dusted with cocoa."
One of the younger kitchen maids gasped. "Coffee? In a cake? And cheese that isn't for a savory pie?"
The very idea was scandalous.
Chef Antoine cleared his throat, a deep, disapproving sound. "Milady, with all due respect, these are… fantasies. I have been a chef for three decades. I can bake a twelve-layer honey cake that would make the Royal Chef weep. I can spin sugar into a golden birdcage. But this… this is nonsense. Soaking biscuits? Hollowing out bread? It is not proper patisserie."
Evelyn had expected this. He was a master of his craft, and she was an amateur noble lady with crazy drawings. The old guard versus the new wave.
Telling him won't work, she realized. I have to show him.
"You're right, Antoine," she said, surprising him. "They're just drawings. So let's make one a reality." She rolled up her sleeves, an entirely unladylike gesture. "We'll start with the Cream Puff. We need water, butter, flour, and eggs. The best you have."
Skeptical but bound by duty, Chef Antoine gave the orders. The ingredients were brought forth—the Duke's ridiculously high-quality ingredients. The air in the kitchen grew tense. The staff watched as Evelyn took command, directing them to melt the butter into the water in a heavy copper pot.
"Now, take it off the heat and dump in all the flour at once," she commanded.
"All at once, Milady?" a sous-chef asked, horrified. "It will be lumpy!"
"Trust the process," Evelyn said with a confident smile. "Stir it. Stir it like you're mad at it."
He did, and to his amazement, the lumpy mess quickly came together into a smooth, thick paste that pulled away from the sides of the pot. A murmur went through the staff.
"Now for the magic part," Evelyn said. She had them transfer the dough to a bowl to cool slightly before adding the eggs, one by one, beating vigorously after each addition until the paste transformed into a glossy, golden, pipeable dough.
Chef Antoine watched every step, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable but his eyes sharp with professional curiosity. This method was completely alien to him.
Evelyn showed them how to pipe small, neat mounds onto a baking sheet. "Okay, into the oven. And whatever you do," she warned, wagging a finger, "do not open the door."
For the next twenty minutes, the kitchen staff was glued to the small glass window of the newly fired brick oven. They watched in silent awe as the small, sad-looking blobs of dough began to puff up. And up. And up. They swelled into impossibly light, golden-brown spheres, three times their original size. It was a miracle of alchemy.
While they baked, Evelyn guided them through making a simple, perfect crème pâtissière—a vanilla bean-flecked custard that was richer and smoother than any filling they had ever made.
When the pastry shells came out of the oven, hollow and crisp, the kitchen was silent. Evelyn took one, poked a small hole in the bottom, and filled it to bursting with the cool vanilla cream. She dusted the top with powdered sugar.
She held out the finished cream puff. Not to the eager young maids, but directly to Chef Antoine.
"The proof, Chef," she said softly, "is in the pudding. Or in this case, the puff."
His professional pride warred with his chef's curiosity. Curiosity won. He took the pastry from her, holding it as if it were a delicate, unknown specimen. He examined it, sniffed it, and then, with the entire kitchen holding its breath, he took a bite.
His eyes, which had been narrowed in skepticism all morning, shot wide open.
There was the delicate, audible crackle of the crisp choux shell. Then, the immediate rush of the cool, velvety, intensely vanilla-flavored cream. It wasn't heavy like the puddings he knew. It was light, airy, and yet deeply satisfying. A perfect contradiction. A masterpiece of texture and flavor.
He chewed slowly, deliberately, his expression shifting from shock to disbelief, and finally, to pure, unadulterated reverence. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the taste.
He opened them and looked at Evelyn, no longer as a flighty noble girl, but as a visionary.
"Milady," he said, his voice thick with emotion as he took another, much larger bite. "Teach me how to make the layered coffee rectangle."