Mira announced her plan, long after Jeff had given up trying to talk her out of being there at all.
"I’ll be making a pastry dish called ensaimada."
She said it with a hint of excitement, the kind that made Jeff pause halfway through tying his apron strings behind his back. He set the strings down and studied her for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to argue again.
"Ensaimada?" Jeff repeated after her as he handed her an apron. "I’ve never heard that one before."
"It’s a traditional Spanish dish. My mom used to make those for us when we were younger. And there was no mistaking the taste everytime. Chef’s kiss material."
Jeff noticed the knowing look on her face and lowered his eyes, already sensing where this was headed.
"Is this where you convince me that my letting you here would be worth it?"
Mira shrugged, arms crossed loosely over the apron she hadn’t finished tying yet.
"I don’t know. Do you wanna add to your skill set or no?"
Jeff didn’t look like he contemplated for too long. Within just a few seconds, he let out a surrendering sigh, shoulders dropping as though the argument had already been lost days ago.
"Fineee. What do you need?"
"Hmm..." Mira pressed a finger on her chin as she thought.
"I’ll need white bread flour, sugar, yeast, flax eggs, since I’m allergic to the normal ones..."
Jeff had already begun running around the kitchen to fetch the ingredients, pulling open cabinets before she’d even finished her sentence. His boots scraped against the stone floor with each turn, a small cloud of flour dust rising behind him.
"...then salt, vanilla extract. And for the shaping, I’ll need lard. No butter. And icing sugar."
Jeff registered the list in his head at once. Within minutes, he’d fetched every last item and laid them out neatly across the kitchen table like a soldier presenting supplies. Even the icing sugar sat perfectly squared with the rest, as if measured by eye alone.
"Perfect."
Mira did a little clap as she stared through the ingredients, pleased with the spread. Then she grabbed a pair of kitchen gloves, put them on, and wiggled her fingers mischievously inside them.
"Just so you know, this could end up bad." She said. "I memorised the recipe long ago, but it’s my first time trying to make it."
Jeff’s face definitely expressed panic and discomfort when she said it. But he quickly twisted it into something almost like encouragement, forcing the corners of his mouth upward.
"I trust you, Lady Mira."
"Alright then, let’s begin."
Mira started by making the dough. She mixed the flour, sugar, and yeast together, then beat the flax eggs into the bowl. Slowly, the dry mix began to shift into something wetter, more alive.
A faint yeasty smell rose from the bowl as she worked, sharp enough that Jeff wrinkled his nose from across the table without saying a word about it.
She added water next, then salt, working the mixture with her hands until it formed an almost perfect dough. It stuck faintly to her fingers before finally pulling free in one smooth piece.
Then she placed it in a lightly oiled bowl and covered it, setting it aside to rest while steam from the earlier kettle still lingered faintly over the counter. She wiped her hands on a cloth and glanced at the clock, mentally counting the minutes.
For the next step, she placed the dough on a flat, oiled surface and began to divide it. Piece by piece, dozens of smaller doughs took shape, each one roughly equal in size.
Jeff watched her hands move with a steadiness that surprised him, given how casually she’d admitted this was her first attempt at the whole recipe.
"What’s next now, Lady Mira?"
Jeff asked, paying keen attention to the process, his eyes tracking every motion of her hands like he was memorizing a spell.
"Next, we stretch each smaller dough with our hands until it’s very thin."
Mira replied and grabbed a piece of dough, placing it on another clean surface before spreading it out with her palms, working slowly outward from the center. Jeff had already grabbed one himself.
He started spreading it when he bothered to mention, almost as an afterthought, "I think a rolling pin would be easier for this."
"There are meals that even simple kitchen equipments can’t make." Mira quoted, not looking up from her work. "That’s what my mom said to me when I asked her that once."
"Your mom must really know her stuff."
"She did."
Mira finished spreading the dough, thin enough now that light nearly passed through it. Then she grabbed a neat brush and dipped it in lard, coating the surface with careful, even strokes.
"Coat the dough with lard once it’s stretched enough, be generous with the coating, but don’t make enormous lumps."
Mira said it like she was reading directly from a cook book, her voice slipping into something almost rehearsed.
Jeff followed suit, apparently understanding the difference between generous coating and overcoating, his brush moving slower than hers but steady enough. A thin sheen of lard soon coated both stretches of dough, catching the light.
Once they’d spread the lard, Mira grabbed a bowl of pumpkin jam and filled one long edge of the dough, the orange color spreading like a thin river along the fold. The smell of it drifted up, sweet and faintly spiced.
The recipe had mentioned not to overfill if she didn’t want a rather loose pastry, so she went moderate on the filling, dabbing rather than pouring.
Once this was done, she rolled the dough into a cylindrical shape, making sure it stayed as loose as a thin rope. Jeff mimicked the motion beside her, a little clumsier but close enough.
They repeated the process for the rest of the unshaped dough. Once they finished, they gathered every last piece onto a flat board and covered it, letting it rest for another ten minutes.
By then, flour dusted both their sleeves, and a faint ache had settled into Mira’s fingers from all the stretching and rolling.
While they waited, Jeff poured her a cup of coffee. As she drank, they talked about Nico’s meal preferences, his dislikes, and whatever it was he actually enjoyed eating most.
From that one conversation, she discovered that Nico didn’t hate any meal, or at least, that Jeff hadn’t discovered anything he actually hated in all his years cooking for him.
She also learned that he’d grown up eating Jeff’s cooking, and probably made his own meals whenever he traveled somewhere the chef couldn’t follow him to.
While Jeff explained all that, Mira hoped that he would actually like her cooking. She would never admit it loudly, but he was the real reason she’d dragged herself out of bed early to make breakfast at all.
She turned her coffee cup slowly in her hands, watching the steam curl upward, and let herself wonder, just briefly, whether Nico might end up liking it too.
Fifteen minutes passed, and Mira uncovered the pastry. For the closing process, they rolled every last cylinder into a clean spiral, laying each one onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Then she arranged them in different layers inside the oven, cranking the heat up to a moderately high degree, the door clicking shut with a soft metallic sound.
The baking took twenty-five minutes. Once it was done, she pulled the trays out, revealing ensaimadas in a light golden color, their spirals glistening faintly under the kitchen lights.
Heat rolled off the trays in visible waves, carrying the smell of toasted sugar and warm dough through the entire kitchen.
The sight of it was almost too perfect for her, and for a moment she just stood there, gloves still on, staring at what her hands had made. Jeff leaned over her shoulder, quiet for once, studying the trays with something close to admiration.
"Moment of truth." She grabbed a piece once the pastry had cooled off. "How does it taste?"
"I guess we’re about to find out."
Mira broke the pastry into two equal parts and handed the first one to the cook. They both took a bite at the same time, chewing slowly, their expressions carefully blank. Outside the window, the morning had grown a little brighter.
"It’s not bad at all." Jeff swallowed and took another bite. "Infact, I think I know what this would go nicely with."
Just then, the two of them chorused:
"Café con leche."