Baking Lessons

‘The Gardenview Museum is now closing, thanks for visiting!’

Sprout heard the same announcement that played every week in the museum, at the same time every day. Children fled to their parents and some had to be convinced to leave once again, and the toon handlers (plus some toons who decided to help) began to close up and clean the museum lobby. 

Sprout looked around once more, scanning the lobby just in case some sneaky kids tried to stay or something of the sort. It never happened, but Sprout always liked to check. 

Vee and Astro had things to do, it seemed, as they were nowhere to be seen in the lobby when Sprout checked- they probably took the first elevator down with the rest of the toons so eager to rest after the hyperactivity of children. Dandy... wasn't there either. It wasn't surprising, of course, but Sprout wondered why he started hanging around his friends less recently.

Oh well, it's probably nothing. Dandy's World has been getting popular recently and of course that came with added stress to the star of the show...

During his scan, he almost skipped over Shelly waving over to him if it wasn't for the ammonite calling his name and waving. 

"It's been a bit since we've talked!" The ammonite spoke first, dangling her feet sitting on a rather large crate. "How'd it go with Cosmo?"

Sprout sat down near her on a wooden chair- he couldn't help but note the way it creaked and the fact that one of its legs were chipped so the sitter could never get it to stay upright without using their own legs. "It went well! I think we're friends now. He agreed to do the baking lessons today."

"That's great to hear! I knew you two would be friends." Shelly seemed as if she was about to open her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by her own name being called out. Seemed like her toon handler was beckoning her over for something- despite Sprout's curiosity, he knew better to go into the humans' business. "Oh! I guess I'll see you around, bye Sprout!" 

The ammonite hopped off her crate, almost tripping over herself as she ran to her toon handler. Sprout waved back, taking a few more seconds to rest before heading into the elevator.

Sprout's first assumption was that they'd be meeting in Cosmo's room, before remembering that if they were doing baking lessons, then they'd be doing it in a kitchen- and none of the toon rooms had any built in kitchens. In fact, almost all of the toon rooms except for the mains only had one or two rooms. The strawberry couldn't help but feel that it was unfair sometimes, even if he WAS getting the better end of the stick.

So, Sprout's next guess was that Cosmo would be in the diner. It seemed he was correct, as he spotted the cosmic brownie from the kitchen in the distance when the elevator opened. 

It seemed like Sprout wasn't the only toon trying to get some help from the best (and, well, only good) baker in Gardenview. Boxten headed out of the kitchen, waving his goodbyes to Cosmo before bumping into Sprout.

"Oh, Sprout!' The box stumbled back, readjusting his now slightly crooked glasses. "Ill, um. Just... slip past you." The box quickly moved past the berry, frantically pressing the close button to try and flee as quickly as possible. Weird, but Sprout supposes that's how Boxten usually acts, based on what he heard from others.

Cosmo was cleaning the kitchen when he saw Sprout come around the corner. "Sprout! Hey, I was just cleaning up." He squeezed a rag of its water before wiping down the counter, trying to get the smudges of egg, dough, and other ingredients off the table.

"Let me help!" Sprout grabbed a towel of his own. "Four hands is better than two, right?"

"Sprout, you really don't have to-"

"I insist."

Sprout draped his towel over the edge of the sink and the counter. "We cleaned up well!" The kitchen was... decently cleaned when the two finished. No, decent wasn't the right word, like Sprout said- they 'cleaned up well'! But if you compare it to Tisha's cleaning or had her come in to critique it, it'd definitely be scored as 'decent'. "I hope we still have enough time for the lessons."

"We should have!" Cosmo checked the clock- it was only 5-something pm, that's plenty of time to make something good. "We can start off with something simple." Cosmo grabbed a cookbook- the only cookbook in gardenview until Brightney convinces her toon handler to get her more for her makeshift library. 

"You were trying to make chocolate chip cookies, right?" Cosmo looked up at Sprout, who nodded in agreement. "Those aren't too hard, we can start with that. Here!" Cosmo opened up one of the drawers, which held a few aprons. "Grab whichever one you like."

Sprout grabbed a basic brown one- he wasn't too crazy for any patterns, plus he assumed that maybe the dark color will help hide the inevitable stains. "I can grab the ingredients if you want."

Cosmo hummed in agreement. "You should find most of them in the fridge and in the cabinets over there. It's 2 eggs, 2 sticks of butter..."

Sprout began opening cabinets and drawers collecting whatever Cosmo listed. He stopped when he heard Cosmo say a specific ingredient. "Vanilla as in vanilla ice cream or?"

"Vanilla extract."

"Gotcha." And so the gathering continued until the ingredients were all scattered on the counter. So many ingredients... It was almost intimidating. Much more stuff than when Sprout tried to bake... maybe that's where he went wrong. 

Cosmo grabbed two bowls, one for Sprout and one for himself. "Baking usually consists of putting the ingredients together, mixing them, and, well, actually baking them. Aside from any other toppings or frosting, that's the core of it." He grabbed some dry ingredient measuring cups, handing one to his baking buddy. "Just repeat after me."

Cosmo started with the flour. “We’ll need about… 3 cups of flour.” He started pouring the flour into a measuring cup, some of the powder not quite making it in and coating the counter around the cup but it wasn’t his biggest concern yet. He took the handle of the measuring cup and shook it a bit, before using a knife to level it. After, he dumped the cup’s contents into his bowl. “You try!”

Sprout took the flour, pouring it into the measuring cup and trying to keep a steady hand. “This enough?”

“Yep, just cut off the excess with a knife.”

Sprout did just that, of course moving the cup over the sink first to avoid more mess to clean up. They repeated with the rest of the cups, until Cosmo checked the recipe book again for the next step. “Now we just need a cup of sugar and two cups of soft butter… Hm.” The butter was only just taken out of the fridge. “I'm gonna put these two in the microwave for a bit. Think you can handle the sugar?”

“Sure can.” Sprout affirmed, looking for the white and pink bag labeled “sugar’ while Cosmo was off dealing with the butter. He dumped the first cup into the bowl. “Just one cup?”

“Yeah, just one cup.” Cosmo called back, taking the butter out of the microwave. Sprout put one of the sticks in his bowl while Cosmo took care of his cup of sugar. “Now for some of these…” He reached for the baking soda, powder, and salt. “Be careful with pouring these.” The toon handed the other what looked like a swiss army knife of tiny spoons. 

“You wanna use this one for the soda and salt, and this for the powder.” Cosmo explained, before Sprout took the teaspoons. 

“Right… okay.” Sprout muttered.

“I can do it if you want-”

“No, no! It's alright, I swear.” He reached for the baking soda.

Measure, level, pour. Measure, cut, drop. Baking seemed pretty repetitive, Sprout could get used to this! Cosmo checked the recipe again, seemed like they had the ingredients they needed in their bowls. "Now for the mixing. It's, uh, pretty self explanatory."

"Way ahead of you!" Sprout held two whisks, tossing one over to the brownie. 

Yes, baking was repetitive. Maybe actually too repetitive. When will this batter actually mix!? Every time he showed Cosmo the batter, it was always not mixed enough. Cosmo, admittedly, may have sounded a bit mean while critiquing the batter, though he didn't mean to.  

"Mmm... Cosmo?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't you have an electric mixer somewhere? I'm sure itll speed up the process." 

Cosmo hummed, pondering something. "Yup, I do. I haven't really used it since, well, the incident."

Sprout stopped mixing when he heard that. "The incident? What incident?"

"I was just using the mixer like normal, then it started going haywire and made a mess everywhere! Never used it since then." 

"Well, where is it?"

"Sprout I just sa-"

"I know, I know, but it's probably been a while, right? Maybe it's time to give it the old college try!"

"...What does that even mean."

"You know, to give it your best shot, try it again." 

Cosmo pondered, maybe it could be worth another shot... The last time he used it was around the time of his physical creation, so about a year ago. Maybe the mixer sorted itself out? 

The toon sighed. "It should be in that cabinet." He pointed to one of the higher cabinets.

Sprout had to use a stool to actually reach the handles- he wondered why it was placed so high, or rather, how it was managed to get it all the way up there. Maybe a toon handler? No- definitely one of the toon handlers, they are much taller than the smaller-sized toons anyway. Cosmo put the bowl down and headed near Sprout for support in case he fell.

The strawberry spotted the mixer, grabbing it by its base. It was... much heavier than anticipated, causing him to almost lose balance when he finally got it in his arms.

Cosmo panicked a bit when he saw it. "You alright there?"

"Yep! Just gotta get down now..."

"Hand it to me!"

The taller toon crouched down a bit to hand the other the mixer. Cosmo had to take a step back and then one forward to keep his balance.

Sprout hopped down from the stool and Cosmo placed the mixer on the counter, grabbing the bowl needed for it from one of the lower cabinets. He began to pour both Sprout and his batters into the bigger one.

Sprout plugged the mixer's cord into an outlet once he got down, checking the sides of the mixer and all the buttons and levers. "How do you even use this?"

"It's not that complicated. Here..." Cosmo prepared the mixer, putting the whisk in its proper slot, bringing it down into the batter and putting the setting on medium before immediately stepping back.

The mixer began to mix, slowly. Sprout stood near it, unlike Cosmo who, rightfully so, assumed that the mixer would go berserk again. Sprout would be lying if he said he wasn't a little on edge too.

Cosmo's guard dropped down when the mixer continued to stir the batter normally. "Guess it really did sort itself ou-"

Wrong. The mixer began to make some weird whirring and clunking noises, and the pace of the machine began to pick up.

"Is it- is it supposed to do that?"

"No??"

"Oh glaze." Sprout went up to the machine, trying to bring the knob down to Off, but it wouldn't budge. "Uhh... Cosmo-"

The machine suddenly jolted to the side, bringing Sprout with it as he tried to keep it in place. 

"Sprout!" Cosmo rushed to Sprout's side, trying to help the mixer stay still while it was rattling back and forth for some unexplained reason. The situation only got worse when the bowl began to spin and the whisk began to circle in a pace that shouldn't even be possible for this kind of device. 

Cosmo raised his hand to wipe some of the dough that was flung in his face, which was a bad idea since now the demonic mixer slid to the left, Sprout having to drag it back to its original position. "What do we do!?"

"I dont know!" Cosmo put his hand back on the base of the machine. 

Sprout began to pull, maybe unplugging it will work! He kept tugging at the machine before stumbling back a bit when the plug finally escaped the socket. Seems like it was a success, and the mixer finally died down. Both toons sighed in relief, Cosmo letting go of it and Sprout keeping it in his arms. 

Sprout was going to say something, until they heard the familiar whirring sound. Why was it still going!? It's supposed to be unplugged! Screw this!! In a panic, Sprout threw it on the ground and began to stomp on it until it finally, actually, died.

"...Guess I learned my lesson." Sprout admitted, his apron and face now caked with light brown batter. Cosmo wrangled the bowl out of the fearsome grip of the mixer, checking its contents. 

"There's not even anything left to bake with..." Cosmo spoke, leaving both toons sighing.

"Clean up and try again?" Sprout suggested.

"Clean up and try again."

They managed to grab Tisha to help them, no way they were going to clean all of this up by themselves before sunset. Tisha, of course, scolded them for the absolute mess they've caused.

Another hour passed of ingredient gathering, cracking, measuring, pouring and HAND mixing it. Sprout wasn't going to try THAT again. They combined their bowls to make a bigger batter and Cosmo placed down a baking sheet so they can shape their cookies.

"There's not many rules for this part, just make sure all of the cookies are even." Cosmo explained, shaping a cookie and adding chocolate chips for demonstration.

Sprout could see how baking was relaxing while doing this. Well, if you don't have an evil mixer that makes you completely restart the entire recipe. He grabbed a handful of dough, and shaped it into a circle. "Like this?"

Cosmo observed the unbaked circle of dough. "Yeah, thats good. Maybe add a bit more dough though."

Sprout nodded, molding the clump of dough more and starting on the next one.

When the cookies were done, Cosmo slid the batch into the oven and stood near Sprout. "It should be about an hour until the cookies are finished. Feel free to relax in the meantime." 

Cosmo began to gather the trash and throw them away. Sprout was going to help, until he noticed something. "Hey, Cosmo? Do you smell something? It smells like somethings bur-"

Life does like to torture them, doesnt it?

As if on cue, the oven began to burst into flames. Just great.

"Shoot shoot SHOOT-" Sprout rushed to the sink, turning on the faucet and pouring a bowl with water and throwing it into the fire. That didn't exactly help- well, some of the flames went out, but the rest were growing bigger. The heat of the flames beat against the toons, and Sprout was forced to take some steps back as the flames began to catch up. He was able to stomp out the smaller flames, but at his position he couldn't grab more water to try and put out some of the others without running into the blaze.

Cosmo grabbed a rag, trying to maybe fan down the fires, but to no avail. Smoke began to rise from the flames, causing him to cough. He backed up as the flames approached, trying to think of a different solution. "I'm going to grab the fire extinguisher! Try to stay safe!" 

He dropped the rag, rushing out of the kitchen. The fire extinguisher was somewhere in the diner- he just hoped he could find it before Sprout turned into deep fried strawberries. 

Sprout, on the other hand, was practically trapped in the kitchen, because of course the flames began to block the exit after Cosmo left. He began to cough, what little oxygen there was becoming scarcer. He tried to stay positive- Maybe Delilah will remake him when he dies! Yeah! But would that mean he'll lose all his memories since becoming physical?? Glaze, Sprout didn't want to lose his memories! 

He could already feel the ichor in his blood begin to boil. Maybe if he closed his eyes, it'll be over quickly. 

But the end never came.

The fire in front of him was interrupted by foam covering it. His breathing slowed down, trying to see through the smoke and flames. The brownie in shining apron had come to save him! Not that it would've been a surprise, even with the chance of him being dead Cosmo would have at least tried. 

The rest of the flames were quickly doused down too, Sprout stomping down the smaller ones. "Holy Delilah..." Sprout coughed, trudging over to Cosmo's side. "I thought I was going to kick the bucket!"

"Heavens, no!" Cosmo put the extinguisher aside. He let Sprout lean against him while he recovered. "I'd never let that happen to you or ANYONE. Are you okay, by the way? Were you burnt anywhere?" He pushed Sprout off of him so he could get a good look, lightly grabbing his arms to make sure there weren't any burns.

"Only internally. I'll be fine, just have to get to my toon handler..." He reassured Cosmo. Cosmo sighed in relief, but he was still a bit worried. "...Think the cookies came out well?"

Both of their attention was centered on the oven. "Uhh... only one way to find out?" Cosmo cautiously put his hands on the handle of the oven- with oven mitts of course, and threw the oven door open. Both toons coughed at the amount of smoke that was released from it, and peered into the oven once the smoke was cleared

The cookies looked... good! Surprisingly. You'd think that an explosion of fire surely would have burnt the cookies to a crisp.

Cosmo pulled the tray out of the oven and placed it on the counter. Both of them took a cookie, clinking their chosen pastry together like glasses. Despite the appearance, both toons were a bit nervous to try it. Cosmo because, well, the fire must've at least burnt the pastry on the inside if not on the outside, and Sprout, both that and the possible fact that he still can't bake anything good.

"These... turned out great!" Cosmo spoke first. The cookies were not perfect, but they were definitely really good and were at least MUCH better than the abomination Sprout presented yesterday.

Sprout took a bite after Cosmo said that, lighting up at the taste. "Hey, you're right!" He didn't waste time finishing the cookie. 

"Seems like you're a good baker after all."

"Only ‘cause I had a good teacher!"

Cosmo’s cheeks couldn't help but flush at the compliment. "Wanna bring these to the others and see what they think?"

"Yeah!" 

Sprout and Cosmo stood in the lobby with the other toons staring back at them. It was no secret that Sprout's last attempt at baking was horrific, children always had a knack for never keeping their mouths shut and spreading things around faster than the flames spread through the kitchen... too soon?

"Cosmo, I don't think they want to try it." 

"Just give them a bit! It'll only take one good review until they all start trying them."

After a bit of awkward silence, Shelly was first to go up and grab a cookie. She was not going to let her friends deal with this awkwardness!

Sprout and Cosmo watched nervously as Shelly took the first bite, some of the others watching as well.

...

"Hey, these are amazing!" Shelly quickly took another bite. "You two should bake together more!"

This caused some of the toons to get curious and grab a cookie, and hey, they all had good reactions!

"I HATE COOKIES." Shrimpo yelled, before taking one anyway.

"Well I think these are fintastic! R-eel-ly did a fin-omenal job on these!" Finn cod-plimented, which only ili-sea-ted a cod-fused response from Cosmo.

"Does that mean you like them or..."

"I just said I did!" 

"Oh, right!" Cosmo fake chuckled. He never understood any of Finn's puns.

Rodger grabbed three, insisting that two of them were for Toodles and Teagan. Sprout would've believed him if he didn't see him already on the second cookie a minute later. He wasn't going to question how Rodger was able to eat without a mouth.

All in all, everyone had good reactions! Sprout had assumed they'd have at least a few cookies left to share among the two of them, but when he looked back at the tray, all of the cookies were gone- which he'd blame on a certain gachapon coming to take more cookies multiple times in random disguises, whose name is totally not Gigi.

"I thought we'd have more..." Sprout commented.

"Well, we could always bake more. I'm sure we can also make other pastries too if you want!"

"You'd... actually be willing to keep teaching me? Even after all that..."

"Well, yeah!" Cosmo put the plate on a nearby surface. "The food turned out good and it was really fun to bake with you... if you ignore the uh, fire and the mixer." Both toons shared a quick laugh, before it died down when Sprout said something.

"Yeah, I'd be up to bake again! Does tomorrow before the museum opens work?"

"I can work with that!"

"That reminds me!" Sprout snapped his fingers as if he just remembered something. "Shouldn't we do something about the mess in the kitchen?"

"Oh, right..." The fire definitely made a mess of things. "Let's hope Tisha won't be mad at us?"

Tisha was definitely mad at them, but a cookie or two got her to forgive them, just a bit.

When the museum opened, Sprout and Cosmo handed out cookies to the kids like Sprout tried to do those days ago, and this time there was a good reception! The strawberry toon couldn't help but feel proud of himself, rightfully so.

"Those two have been getting along." One of the toon handlers spoke to the other. She had red hair (almost matching with her toon) tied up neatly into a ponytail, wearing the red scrubs given to her as a uniform.

They were close enough to see Sprout and Cosmo and to help them in case things got out of order, but far enough away that they wouldn't draw too much attention. "I'm proud of Sprout. He hasn't really made any new friends besides the mains."

The other toon handler- brown skin and a short afro highlighting their face- agreed with a nod, his mouth was full due to him also trying one of the cookies. Can you blame him? They're good! Once he swallowed he finally spoke. "Mhm- yeah, I'm glad they're becoming friends."