Baking Bread

“All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the miiiix~” Vinyl sang as she, abiding by the lyrics, took a cup full of rye flour in her telekinetic grip, ready to unload it in the batch.

“What are you doing?” Octavia shrieked, grasping at the cup with her hooves, preventing Vinyl from spilling a drop of the powder.

Vinyl frowned, eyeing her new associate with dismay. “I am baking. You need flour to make bread.” The white mare grinned smugly. “Thought such a good cook as you would know,” she teased, rolling her tongue at the grey mare, who did not seem to have taken the slightest offence at that.

“You do need flour,” Octavia agreed, leaning the glass against the bowl that rested on the kitchen counter, where eggs were awaiting their cue. “But you don’t need a full cup. As I’ve said…” The mare smiled, adding a precise third of the cup to the mix. “Optimising ingredients.”

Vinyl humphed, leaning against the wall, the clock above her face screaming late midnight, the curtains closed, the moonlight peeking into the kitchen curiously through a tiny opening. The fresh air of the street reached her nose through the open window. “Well, Miss Optimal, I don’t see how you are going to make six loaves of bread with so little rye.”

Octavia smirked, darkly, in such a manner that made Vinyl wonder if this was the same Octavia Philarmonica, the timid, refined cellist she’d known for the past two years. But then again, Vinyl concluded, Tavi has always been a little on the strong side. Rough around the edges. “Who said we were making six loaves?”

Vinyl rubbed her forehead with a hoof, massaging the base of her horn. “Tavi, we need to bake at least twelve loaves by tomorrow, and I’ve only made six while you were out practicing so we need six more.”

“We will make ten.” Octavia reached for the cupboard, stepping away from the counter lightly. “Using just a third of the cup.”

Vinyl looked at her friend with unspoken curiosity, watching the cellist rummage through the cupboards diligently. “How will we do that? I am a unicorn and I assure you even magic can’t do that.” Unless you’re some kind of alicorn magic prodigy.

“Magic can’t,” Octavia agreed, fishing out a big packet from one of the drawers. “But corn can.” She threw the packet at Vinyl, who grabbed it with her hooves, reading the label.

“It’s…” Vinyl stared at her flatmate blandly over the packet’s brim. “It’s corn flour.”

“It is.” Octavia nodded. “And we have whole six packets of it left after my celiac uncle came to visit and gave those as a gift from his company.” Octavia’s face twisted in a scowl. “Celestia bless his poor soul.”

“Huh, you don’t seem to like him much,” Vinyl observed. “I thought he was a pretty cool guy. He liked my wubby tunes.” The white face fell into a wide grin.

Octavia sighed. “He sure did. One way or another, we mix in this corn flour with the rye, proportion two to one…” The grey mare, having got hold of the packet, opened it up and shook it, pouring the flour into the bowl in a thick dry grainy streamlet. “And we make more bread for less rye!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

For a moment, Vinyl eyed the grey mare with indulgent contempt, and then proceeded to levitate the bowl. “Now, we throw away the ruined batch and I spank you for wasting precious rye.” The unicorn smirked. “Always wanted to spank that sexy flank of yours~”

“Har har.” Octavia grabbed the bowl roughly. “It will work. My recipe will work.”

“It will,” Vinyl agreed, eyeing the bowl sternly, letting Octavia take hold of it, reluctantly. “But it will taste like corn bread. Corn bread is cheap and is sold everywhere. There’s no money in it. Ponies won’t buy it from me because they can buy it anywhere at a ridiculously cheap price. Besides,” the DJ observed, “ponies don’t buy corn because it tastes like shit. They want wheat. They want rye.”

Octavia smiled disarmingly. “And they will get both.” With a swift motion, the cellist opened the topmost drawer and fished out an open packet of wheat flour. Avoiding Vinyl’s yelp, she took a pinch and threw it into the batch boldly.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vinyl demanded, astonished by such a display of confidence. “Do you know how much wheat is worth nowadays?”

“Yes,” Octavia replied calmly. “And I know that a pinch of flour for ten loaves is an acceptable sacrifice. You cannot make dough without breaking eggs." Following her metaphor, the mare broke the eggs, swiftly adding ingredients to the mix.

“A packet of wheat flour costs five hundred bits,” Vinyl counted seriously. “I sell my bread ten bits per loaf. Just to pay for that packet of wheat, we have to sell fifty loaves.”

“And we will,” Octavia assured her, adding milk. “Also, note that we bought this packet before the so-called ‘crop famine’. Relax, Vinyl. Everypony wins.”

“I doubt that.” Vinyl winced. “Nopony wins if the bread tastes like corn. Which it will.”

“Have you ever thought, Vinyl,” Octavia began in a distant tone, “about how little amounts of something can change the structure of things, the way we see them…” Stir stir stir. ”The way we smell them…” Stir stir stir. “The way we taste them? Just a pinch of salt can ruin a bowl of fine soup. Just a pinch of wheat flour, surprisingly, when mixed right with rye flour, can give your bread a delicious, unforgettable taste, no matter how much corn actually went into it?”

Vinyl waved her hoof. “Bullshit. The bread will taste like corn anyway. You think I didn’t try mixing? It doesn’t work. You can’t be telling me this bread will taste like rye.”

“It won’t,” Octavia agreed, stopping her stirring routine. She glanced up, beaming at Vinyl. “It will taste like wheat.”

“What?!” If there were a drink in Vinyl’s mouth, she would’ve definitely spat it out.

“Did you know that those with celiac disease actually can consume products labelled ‘may contain traces of gluten?’ They can. The key word here is ‘traces’. A tiny amount of wheat flour in cornflakes makes them crunchy and delicious. And…” Octavia smiled, looking towards the window, as if she were piercing the curtains to peer into Manehattan night sky. “If you know the recipe - the right recipe - you can add a small amount of wheat and rye to corn bread and make it taste like wheat. It will look like corn bread, the dark yellow with brown… But it will taste better than the best white bread the bakeries of this city have to offer.” Now Octavia was looking directly at Vinyl, the smile still dancing in the corners of her mouth. “Thanks to my late uncle, Celestia bless his greedy soul, I know the recipe. And I can make this bread. And once your customers have got a taste for it, you can sell it for twenty-five bits a loaf, for we both know how hard it is to just find white - that is, wheat, - bread now.”

Vinyl could not help a grin. “Dammit, Tavi, you’re amazing. Can we make out now?”

Octavia chuckled. “In your dreams, Vinyl. In your dreams.”

“So, this will be like white bread, taste like wheat…” Vinyl could not hide her amazement. “But it will look yellow, like the corn?”

“Pretty much.” Octavia nodded.

“Did your uncle have a name for this recipe?” Vinyl wondered, eyeing the grey mare tinkering with the batch.

“He didn’t,” Octavia admitted. “But when I took it up, and perfected it… For home use, of course - I didn’t know there’d be a shortage of bread…” She chuckled, shaking her head. “Or a black market for selling bread, for that matter… One way or another, I did give it a name.” The cellist smiled. “I’m a composer, after all.”

“What did you call it?” Vinyl wondered.

Octavia smiled, putting the spoon down. “Yellow Submarine.”

BaKING BrEAD

Written by psp7master

An MLP/Breaking Bad crossover