The Art of Baking

Baking is a Science

It was a frosty Sunday morning in Dunwich, three children were missing, and the federal detective had turned up dead in the street. It was the sort of morning that starts off unpleasant and promises to get worse as the day goes on. Enterprising employees at the local markets would find their fingers red and aching in the chill air. Pious folks would huddle under heavy coats to hear their weekly sermon, and today the stories of fire and brimstone might be viewed with a little more warmth.

The perfect day, in short, to bake a chocolate cake. Or so thought Mrs. Armitage, at least. And since she thought it, she thought she should explain it to someone. Pass down the arcane wisdom of a woman who bakes on Sundays to whichever lucky soul crossed her path, she thought.

“Because a cake, you see, should bring joy. That’s what makes cakes different to other desserts,” she explained with a knowing smile to the bagboy as he stacked butter atop sugar, sugar atop eggs, with a separate bag for the milk. The ginger lad smiled professionally, but the dark bags under his eyes and strained set of his jaw gave lie to that expression. His brother hadn’t been seen in a week. Yesterday the fed had found a blood-stained raincoat, some fingerprints, but not Jason. “Tut tut, young man,” Mrs Armitage clucked, fluttering halfway between disapproval and sympathy, “You look like you could use some cake! Why if this were 40 years ago I’d invite you to come pick up a slice after your shift, but such things are seen -as- unseemly today,” she says with a wistful shake of her head, fading red and iron grey curls bouncing. She scribbles down a time and an address. She gives it to the boy. “Anyway, where was I?”

“Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and retirements. All of them have -a th-ing in common, you see. Well, two things,” she huffs, clutching the bag of groceries to her bosom as she shuffles past the police cordon, the handsome young officer taking her firmly by the elbow to guide her away. “Yes, two things. Cakes, and joy. Funerals? Get Well Soon? Being shuffled -off-?” She straightened her tartan coat, enunciating very clearly. “Well, they might have cakes, but they usually don’t. Cakes are for bringing joy.”

“Well, we could use some ‘round here,” the patrolman mutters. The fed’s head had been bashed in with a heavy blunt object. It was enough to give a small-town cop a few nightmares on its own. But the empty sockets…that’s what haunted him. Empty, but still staring.

“Pre-cise-ly,” Mrs. Armitage agrees patting his elbow. She looks into his eyes and lets him know where and when he can pick up a slice of cake.

“It’s science, you understand. Not just old wives tales or any of that foofaraw. What makes a cake so -asso-ciated with joy is the ingredients, of course. Flour, from wheat, the crop that brought humans out of the primitive darkness of our forebears,” she told the bus driver. He gripped the wheel savagely, his back was rigid and sweat poured down his face. The gauge was moving from F to E so quickly. The wheels scraped on cobbled stone, shreds of rubber flying free. After he dropped her off at her stop, he knew the time and place for cake.

“Eggs and dairy, well they are the power of the feminine. Interestingly, cake mix didn’t see well until those ingredients were -re-moved. The subconscious desire of the baker to offer her eggs to the man. To provide her milk to the children. Of course, the baker was assumed to be a woman, but then, this -was in- the 1950’s dearie.” She smiled to soften the edge of that potentially political statement. Her neighbour didn’t notice the almost feminist idea being spouted and wouldn’t have cared if she did. She clutched her mug of tea as if it were a lifeline, but it couldn’t save her. It had gone cold. When the gibbous moon rose, the neighbour would head over next door for her slice of cake.

“What makes -ch-ocolate cake different is the -ch-o-co-late! Cocoa of course is a form of the masculine. You know…’beans’,” Mrs. Armitage let out a giggle, scandalized by her own vulgarity. She knelt before the headstone.

HENRY ARMITAGE

Once again, in your arms I shall lie

For in strange aeons, even death may die

“I miss you my Henry, my love. You wouldn’t be too happy to see me right now.” Magda Armitage looked at herself. Truth be told, it was not a frightful sight. The slabs of fat under her arms, and surrounding her thighs lend her a snuggly pillow softness. The blue veins wound their way around stretch marks and under liver spots, but these imperfections were the exception to her alabaster skins beauty, not the rule. It was her hair that caused her the most distress. Once a plume of flame, promising warmth and fire and mischief, now it was a faded dull orange, mixed with ashen grey. The fire had died, ever since Henry had. “I’m bringing it back Henry. I’m bringing it all back. You, me, my hair. We’ll live forever and everywhere.” She placed the fungi she had harvested from Yuggoth on his gravestone and went inside. Did Henry know to get his slice of cake? She would find out.

“But what I think is most interesting, you see, is the -time-,” she explained, pronouncing ‘time’ incorrectly. She looked at the three kids on her kitchen floor. Lovely children, not a peep out of them while she talked. “With time,” she continued, pronouncing ‘time’ correctly, “the leavening agent acts. It foams and churns. It kneads with unseen hands. It brings the dead to life. Science, of course. But once, it would have seemed like magick.” The children didn’t respond to this wisdom. The flies buzzing seemed to form a response, but that might’ve been her imagination.

Three cups of plain flour, which of course is one hundred and twenty-eight grams. Fifteen and a half grains per gram. Divided by three cups. Not quite the number, but close enough for government work. The flour was harvested from the wheat of Carcosa, so it was black and it whispered secrets to her, but that was to be expected.

Eggs are easy. Three eggs, but one with a double yolk. Not four eggs, that’s insane. Crack, plop, crack, plop, crack, plopplop. Three shantak eggs, bloody side up.

Butter is much harder. No matter how much you put it its always just one. Chop it up, smear it round, burn it, bash it or break it. One. But we need three again. Tell that to them. So, fifty grams from three different bars of butter. The goatmen of Leng could be so accommodating.

The cocoa beings are easy in theory, but to crush them, to mix them, to giggle and remember her first time, they took a while. Louisiana swamps didn’t make the tastiest cocoa but these beings had been raised in the bayou, hearing the Call.

Darkness was falling. The mist was rising. The stars twinkled, glimmered and she knew they were right. “But why cake? Today of all days?” she hears them say.

“Because baking is a science. Dear Henry scribbled down his words and formulae, but if I time it right, if I cook it right, that will let me in. I’ll -ri-se up -li-ke l-ea-vened bread!

“Oh, which reminds me!” she thwaps herself gently on the wrist, such a silly woman, steps back into the kitchen and adds her old family recipe, Homemade Miska-Tonic. Clear as water, except for the detective’s eyes bobbing in the mix. No electric egg-beater for Mrs. Armitage. Bit of sweat and elbow grease is good for the soul. More wisdom. If only someone was around to listen. But not until the cake was done. She took out her rolling pin, frowned at the reddish-brown stain, gave it a quick scrub in the sink and went back to the cake. That detective really had been most troublesome.

Last in went the sugar. Children are so sweet, aren’t they? Sweet as sugar. Last in went the children, then. How much? Three should do. Finally, the cake was ready to pop in the oven.

As she slid it in, her eyes rolled around, and foam dripped from her lips, and her blood raced and burned in her veins, and she set it to 50π, a number without end. Then she sang horrible words

“As-A’Th-Off Cise, So’asso Re-Wasin CH-CH-CO Ty-Meh! Ri’li-Ea!”

Her neighbour, the bus driver, the patrolman and the bag boy arrived for a slice of cake. Even though it was cold, and dark and they didn’t want to, they came anyway. The thing pulsating and writhing in front of them hurt their eyes to look upon, strained their minds to perceive but all the same it was clearly a chocolate cake. Whimpering, they each had a slice.

The cake did not bring them joy. It didn’t warm them on a cold night. Years of therapy and pills and drugs helped the patrolman survive, but the rest didn’t last long.

A slavering, squamous Mr. Armitage screamed and begged to be set free.

Mrs. Armitage listened to their gibbering and shrug, popping another forkful of chocolatey goodness in her gaping maw. “Honestly, it tastes fine to me. Baking is more of an Art, than a science, I suppose.”