Like it or not, every Wonderbolt is required to be on a rota to cook meals at the headquarters’ kitchens. Some ponies either love it or hate it. Thunderlane had taken a particular shine to it, although he detested being on the schedule to start with, but now has his little brother Rumble into cooking. Misty Fly, however, was on the opposite end of the spectrum, stating that one day she would cause HQ to burn down. However, what was agreed on was that every Wonderbolt made a mini-game out of it. Every pony would try to beat the previous ponies meal, either for the main meal or dessert.
So where did fellow Wonderbolt and saviour of Equestria Rainbow Dash fit in with this challenge of making sure every ponies’ bellies were full and no one got sick from uncooked vegetables? Here’s the thing, Rainbow can cook, and every pony would say her veggie goulash and three-bean chillies were unbeatable. However, when it was time for her turn on dessert, her baking was the type of baking that would make Pinkie Pie have nightmares and Princess Luna would be having a hard night dealing with them.
Rainbow’s eyes glared at the kitchen rota pinned to the notice board one day as she found out that she would be on dessert duty for today’s training. If looks could kill, then that piece of paper would be a small pile of ash on the floor. If only she knew that she would be serving pudding for every pony today. If she had known, she would have dashed off to Sugarcube Corner before training and begged Pinkie to bake something. She would do anything to get something done from that pink pony. She would then be able to fake it to her comrades. That, however, slipped her mind as she didn’t check the schedule the previous day, wanting to dash off to the Castle of Friendship for a spot of Daring Do reading with Twilight.
She puffed her chest out and made her way to the kitchen and began inspecting what she had to work with. On the worktop, there was flour, salt, butter, a bag of apples, courtesy of Sweet Apple Acres, and a big bag of caster sugar. At the sight of the ingredients, her eyes shrank in horror. Those were the ingredients for a certain dessert she loathed. A dessert that made Pinkie Pie force her to eat.
Those were the ingredients for a pie. A traditional apple pie.
Rainbow groaned and face-hoofed, again. How she wished Applejack or Pinkie Pie was here. She dragged her hoof down her face and headed to the worktop, picking up the boring instructions. At least she had something to work with. Her eyes scanned through what she had to do and made her way to the oven to preheat it at the required temperature. She didn't want to serve a bad pie and burn down HQ at that same time.
Then came the pastry. Oh, how Rainbow Dash hated pastry making. It was so specific, unlike herself. The time of mixing, the thickness when baking, it was so not like her. She rolled up her imaginary chef’s sleeves and stared hard at the bowl.
“I can do this,” She muttered to herself, “This is Rainbow Dash here. Fastest flyer in all of Equestria and I can make a decent pastry.” She then opened flour, only to have it explode in her face. Coughing and sneezing, she wiped powder from her face and mane. She took out some scales and measured the required amount of flour and poured it into the mixing bowl. She then got a jug and filled it with water, only for a jet of water to spray everywhere. She turned back to the instructions, only to discover that the flour made a right mess of things.
To make things worse, flour and water mixed together made the writing on the instructions completely unreadable. She could barely see the instructions.
“Oh, horse apples,” Rainbow gritted her teeth. She then decided to just blitz it from then on. She mixed an unknown amount of flour the water, butter and a pinch of salt. She mixed it with vigour and looked down at the bowl of yellow mush. She dipped her hoof in and tried to take it back out, only for it to get stuck in the bowl. Struggling, she tried to heave it out, only to fly backwards and crash into the opposite workspace.
“What’s all the noise?” A familiar stallion’s voice came from the kitchen door. Soarin was there, giving Rainbow a strange look. Rainbow quickly scrambled to her hooves, one hoof still embedded in the dough. She leaned on the workspace, pretending, and failing, that something wasn’t wrong.
“H-hey, Soarin,” Rainbow smiled as normally as she can, “What are you doing here?”
“My group finished with a cloud clearing drill,” Soarin said, unconvinced with Rainbow’s acting, “I just put my uniform back in my locker when I heard a crash from the kitchen. Thought something was up.”
“No!” Rainbow said too quickly, “Nothing it up! Just your friendly Rainbow Dash baking a pie.”
“Did some pony say pie?” Soarin’s eyes lit up, “If that’s so then that pastry is way too wet for the base.”
Rainbow’s eyes darted back and forth between her stuck hoof and Soarin’s knowing smile before she caved in.
“Yes,” She sighed in defeat, “I suck at baking! I can’t bake to save my life!”
“So I heard,” Soarin chuckled, causing Rainbow eyes to widen.
“Did Pinkie tell you?!” She asked in horror.
“No, but I do hear bits here and there about a certain pie conundrum. Pinkie did investigate us when she discovered that we were being given pie donations,” Soarin said as he inspected the mess around him, “But I’m free now and it looks like you need an extra pair of hooves to help you.”
“You know how to bake?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.
“Well I love a good hot pie, so it would be common sense to know how to bake one. Remember your first Gala?” Soarin shrugged, causing Rainbow to chuckle sheepishly at the memory. “Now let’s get you out of that bowl and I’ll show you how to bake a proper pie. This pie won’t bake itself and we have plenty of mouths to feed.”
After some time struggling to get the bowl off Rainbow’s hoof and cleaning up the mess, Soarin began teaching Rainbow Dash the art of baking the perfect pie. Sieving the floor and rubbing the butter in, Soarin began pushing and folding the pastry until it was at a perfect consistency. Rainbow began rolling it out and placing it into the tin.
“Dash?” Soarin asked unexpectedly, “What’s with you and pies anyway?”
Rainbow sighed, “Never really liked them. Maybe because it was the crunchy pastry, or the filling, or something else entirely, but I never really liked pies.”
“But what’s not to love about a nice smoking hot pie?” Soarin asked, “Sweet thin pastry with an even sweeter filling is something I would have after a sweaty day of training.”
“Shouldn’t a Wonderbolt also be aware of their weight?” Rainbow gave a knowing smirk.
“Says the one who’s friends with a sugar-rush pony,” Soarin countered.
“Hey! She doesn’t give us that much cake to us!” Rainbow glared.
“Just warning you,” Soarin put up his hooves in a defensive manner.
“And are you calling me fat?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. She then inspected herself and turned back up to Soarin with a hard glare.
Soaring opened his mouth but decided to close it immediately.
“Is this a moment where I should really think carefully about what I say next?”
“Good,” Rainbow smiled, “You’re learning.”
Then came the part Rainbow knew something about. She began to peel, chop and started stewing the apples, adding sugar every so often as she continued mixing until softened, but still kept their shape. Soarin was busy smoothing out the pastry into a large baking tray, large enough to feed the whole squad. Rainbow poured the apple and sugar mix evenly and covered it over with a pastry sheet.
“This is a lot better than my first attempt at baking,” Rainbow muttered as they put it in the oven to bake.
“Oh really?” Soarin smirked.
“Nothing!” Rainbow said too quickly.
“And how bad was your first attempt of baking?” Soarin pushed on. Rainbow knew she would have to break it our some time.
“I’m not getting out of this one, am I?” Rainbow huffed.
“Nope,” Soarin smiled victoriously, happy for his mini-payback.
“It was that bad that Pinkie asked if it was pastry of some kind of concrete,” Rainbow said in a deadpanned tone.
That caused Soarin to turn an interesting shade a green.
“If that was the pastry, then I do not even want to know how the filling turned out,” Soarin pulled a disgusted face.
“Believe me, you don’t want to know,” Rainbow shivered, remembering how she dived headfirst into her baked monstrosity.
They chatted about other things besides bodged bakes, like the next Wonderbolts show, weather schedule and new nicknames for the recruits. It was then that the oven sounded the alarm, telling them that the pie was ready to be served.
Rainbow Dash opened the oven and took out the pie with and together they cut it out into equal portions.
“Thanks for your help today,” Rainbow thanked.
“No worries,” Soarin winked. He was about to put the cutting knife down when he slipped on a pile of leftover messy dough from Dash's earlier attempt, causing him to fall backwards and land in a rather awkward position being held by Rainbow.
“Well, looks like the pie wasn’t the only thing baking in the kitchen,” Came a voice from the opening where the Wonderbolts were expected to be served.
Both Rainbow and Soarin looked up to find Spitfire with a victorious smirk, along with the rest of the Wonderbolts, Fleetfoot, Surprise, Misty Fly and Thunderlane. Rainbow quickly put Soaring back on his hooves and glared at her captain.
“This wasn’t what you think it was,” Rainbow tried to save her dignity.
“Just keep telling yourself that,” Spitfire chuckled as she got a plate, “So are we going to be served or not?”
Rainbow groaned as she served the pie. She was going to lose her voice from groaning all day.
“Let us never speak of this again,” Rainbow whispered to Soarin as he joined the others.
“Deal,” Soarin said, “Although, it will be hard to get rid of this. Once it gets out around HQ, it’s as fast as fully-fledged Wonderbolt.”
Rainbow groaned again as she began serving her joint-effort pie to her recruits.
