Ginger Molasses Cookies and Cheater Cake Recipes
The sight of two over tall, over beefy, over a hundred years old, over super serum jacked soldiers in checkered aprons was both the funniest and also somehow quite possibly the most arousing sight Tony Stark had ever seen.
It just wasn’t right for the huge Tower kitchen to be dwarfed beneath two sets of massive shoulders, for the steadfast timbre of Steve’s voice and the rumbling pitch of Bucky’s drawl to both blend with and also overpower the steady whir of the stand mixer and the easy jazz from the speakers. Tony was used to feeling short-- damn his average Italian height-- but he wasn’t used to feeling small and somehow in the same moment feeling smitten especially when that same moment involved checkered aprons and the former Winter Soldier and a living breathing All American Fossil arguing about how much cinnamon was too much cinnamon and whether or not ginger could be eyeballed.
It didn’t seem right but was perfectly right all the same, absolutely hilarious but also a turn on and the way Tony felt whenever Steve or Bucky found a reason to touch him as they passed in the kitchen was…
…well, it sure was something, wasn’t it?
“Think you look better in that apron than I do, doll.” Bucky jabbed a silver finger into a couple sticks of butter to test their softness, then dumped them into the mixing bowl. “Where’d you get all those ruffles?”
“Uh, Pepper gave this to me.” Tony plucked at one of the ruffles, cursing the heat he knew was crawling up into his cheeks. After what had been a surprisingly fun, surprisingly flirty cooking session with Natasha just yesterday and with his stomach still rioting butterflies every time the slightly murdery ballerina smiled at him, Tony was feeling prone to blushing and damn it if Steve and Bucky didn’t seem prone to making him blush.
“I’ll hafta write her a thank you note for it.” Bucky elbowed Steve and inclined his head only briefly to where Tony was shading delightfully pink. “You’re sure pretty right now, Tony.”
“Don't mind Bucky, he thinks anyone in the kitchen cooking him food is pretty.” Steve had no real reason to brush his fingers over Tony’s waist as he passed to get eggs from the fridge, but he did it anyway, relishing the slip of Tony’s always fancy shirt beneath his fingertips and the near inaudible hitch of the genius’s breath that only a super soldier would hear. “I on the other hand think you’re pretty all the time.”
“Fuck off Stevie.” Bucky snorted. “You’re tall now remember? Don’t gotta upstage me with the compliments anymore.”
“Anymore?” Tony didn’t let himself linger on the idea that the super soldiers were trying to upstage each other to compliment him and instead latched onto the thought of not tall Steve competing with Sergeant Barnes for someone’s attention. “What does that mean?”
“It means that back when we were kids, I used to be uh… over eager… in romantic pursuits because I was shorter than most the women we chased.” Steve handed Tony a jar of old fashioned molasses and a measuring cup. “Bucky was tall but I was witty and clever so…you know.”
“I know what?” Tony obediently poured the molasses into the mixing bowl alongside the sugars. “That you got more girls than Bucky cos you’re clever?”
“Clever ain’t a match for this.” Bucky cracked both eggs in one huge hand and flexed his other arm dramatically, the checkered apron pulling tight across his abdomen as he did. “Don’t matter anyway. Only took a few dates for us to figure out we wanted each other and not some dame.”
“Bucky’s only saying that cos he lost to me a lot.” Steve grabbed down the flour sifter and measured out the dry ingredients. “People think pre-serum me was awkward but I had some game. Bucky had some too but it took alot of his charm to get me into bed. It took very little of my charm to get Bucky into bed. He’s easy.”
“Fuck off, Stevie.” Bucky growled it this time and Tony giggled until his sides hurt as the cookie recipe devolved into super soldier sized squabbling over just how difficult it had been for Steve and Bucky to end up together and who had seduced who and whether or not Steve had been overcompensating because he was short while Bucky got to rely on his brawn instead of his brains.
It was fascinating to observe them together, to see a literal hundred years worth of love and companionship surviving in the wake of separations, horrifying grief and a reunion that had been christened in blood as Hydra’s ships fell from the sky. On paper, both Steve and Bucky should have been solemn and withdrawn and traumatized after those events. They should have been huddled together away from the world and hiding from the harsh reality of the years neither should have endured.
At the very least, Captain America and the former Winter Soldier should have found other things to do with their time besides bake cookies in hilariously small aprons but here they were anyway. They were laughing and teasing, flirting and touching, and not just with each other but with Tony too and that was hard to comprehend.
…why are they flirting with me?
Tony pushed that particular thought away and chided gently, “Boys boys boys. You’re both very brawny and at least mildly charming these days, no sense in fighting about it. Besides, I think the cookie dough is ready.”
“Just so you know, Tony? I can bench press a helicopter.” Steve couldn’t resist one last jab as he pulled out cookie scoops and a cookie tray. “And for future reference, Bucky can’t walk through a metal detector without getting a full body cavity search so take that as you will when planning which one of us to take on vacation.”
“You weren’t complainin’ the last time I gave you a full body cavity search.” Bucky grumbled and Tony shrieked in laughter at Steve’s wholehearted embarrassment. “C’mon sugar, c’mere and I’ll show you how’ta scoop these out right here.”
“Why cookie scoops?” Tony tamped down the urge to ask if Bucky had used his left hand to explore Steve’s whole body, and focused on the recipe instead. “Why not a regular spoon?”
“Meatballs.” Steve readied another tray and retrieved another cookie scoop. “For a while Ma used to help with dinner at the church and she could feed the whole damn neighborhood out of a pot of her spaghetti and meatballs. You make enough meatballs, maybe you get a scoop to help portion so your hands don’t cramp rolling them, right?”
“....right.” Tony watched curiously as Bucky employed just a hint of that super speed to quickly and efficiently portion out two and a half dozen cookie dough balls on the tray. “And now, cookies?”
“When Stevie’s Ma wasn’t making spaghetti and meatballs for the church, she was baking cookies with my Ma to take to the shelter or to visit some’a the shut-ins.” The huge brunette clarified. “Don’t make sense to have more than a few kitchen utensils, specially when we had’ta think about heating bills and groceries durin’ the winter so Ma Rogers’s meatball scoop became my Ma’s cookie scoop. Portion it out like this, drop’em in the ice box and bake them when ya got time.”
“You freeze the dough?” Tony took the offered scoop from Steve and dug into the bowl, both surprising and embarrassing himself with the amount of effort it took to get the thick dough out in one smooth scoop. “Why?”
“Cos it keeps good.” Steve was already starting another batch of cookie dough, tossing everything together in the other stand mixer. “Cos when you’re poor you only got a little bit of time to do fun things that aren’t chores or necessary to survive, so you make as much as you can then store it so the next time, it’s only a few minutes to have cookies ready for guests or for church or for a welcome basket.”
“Cos ingredients didn’t keep back then how they do now.” Bucky grunted. “So you gotta use ‘em, freeze ‘em or lose them and we didn’t have the money to lose stuff.”
“Molasses?”
“Cheaper than honey and better for you.” Steve eyed the ground gloves, then tossed some in the bowl. “Ginger cos it helped keep my stomach settled.”
“Stevie couldn’t keep half of nothin’ down back then, but snacking on these helped a lot.” Bucky wiped his hands on his apron then retied the messy bun at the nape of his neck. “Smoosh it, Tony. Smoosh the dough down flatter. Not too thin, we want thick cookies but not too thick or else you need more time to bake.”
“How thick is too thick?” Tony was not a natural in the kitchen, he didn’t measure things with his soul or eyeball recipes so he stopped before smooshing anything just to double check. “How do I know if it’s too thin?”
“S’gotta be thick enough to taste real good on your tongue but thin enough to leave you wanting more.” Steve’s blue eyes dropped to Tony’s mouth, to the bottom lip the genius always chewed on as he thought, to the peek of pink as Tony wet his lips trying to force the cookie dough to be just thick enough. “Just uh-- always wantin’ more.”
“Always.” Bucky’s drawl thickened a little, his own eyes considerably lower on Tony, lingering at the curve of his butt in the always distractingly snug pants. “Always wantin’... more.”
“So what do we do after they freeze?” Tony was either oblivious to or studiously ignoring the way Bucky and Steve were staring at him. “Aren’t ginger snaps usually dipped in sugar?”
“Sugar was real rationed during the war, but yeah when we had some to spare, Ma would roll these in sugar.” Steve set out a bowl of sugar while Bucky pulled an already chilled pan of cookie dough from the freezer. “Good thing we don’t ration a damn thing in the Tower, huh?”
“Not a damn thing.” Tony grinned unrepentantly. “I believe in excess and I realize that might be difficult for two grandpas like yourself, but I have to spend my money on something. Might as well be ingredients for old fashioned cookies for my favorite hundred year olds.”
“We’d teach ya to bake whether you were spendin’ your money on us or not.” Bucky touched Tony that time, silver fingers sending shivers up Tony’s body where they grazed his bare skin. “But thanks all the same.”
“Are we your favorite hundred year olds, Tony?” Steve tugged at Tony’s apron strings teasingly. “Huh?”
“You’re the only ones I know, so I feel like it’s an easy competition.” Tony’s nose wrinkled in delight. “But yes, you two are definitely my favorite.”
“You’re our favorite too.”
“Hell, you sure are.”
The cookies had to bake for ten minutes, which was just enough time between opening and closing the oven for each batch to get the kitchen cleaned up, counters wipes and floors swept and dishes done. The jazz music was turned up loud, Steve riffed along to the beat under his breath while Bucky alternated between scrubbing bowls and grabbing at Tony’s hands to twirl him along to the livelier measures. Steve joked about Bucky hogging Tony, Tony didn’t dare get his hopes up about that statement but let himself be twirled by the blond as well, shoulders brushed and hips bumped and the first taste of fresh from the oven cookie was so good it made Tony moan.
“Is it good, sweetheart?” The name slipped out unconscious, Steve too focused on the crumbles at the corner of Tony’s sweet mouth to realize what he’d said and Bucky too busy cataloguing every flicker of happiness across Tony’s face to catch it. “You like it?”
“Enough that I’m gonna tell JARVIS to order my pants a size up so I can eat as many as I want and still fit into my clothes next week.” Tony grinned around another bite. “These are amazing! Bucky, this is your Ma’s recipe? It’s so good!”
“It’d make her real happy to know it's still bein’ used.” Bucky tapped the recipe card against his palm a few times before handing it over, his pale eyes uncharacteristically soft. “When Becca got married, Ma gave her the recipe to make for her babies and uh-- me and Stevie don’t have babies but Ma would be happy all the same to know it’s gettin’ passed down.”
“I don’t have any of my Mama’s recipes.” Tony held the card almost reverently. “So I’ll make sure and take good care of this one.”
“You ready to make another batch?” Steve motioned towards the second batch of dough he’d readied. “We got to make enough for the jackals to eat too.”
“Jackals?”
“Fuckin’ Sam and Clint.” Bucky interjected and Steve added, “And Thor. I saw him eat a whole watermelon the other. A whole one. Just cracked it open and went to town. He needs three dozen of these just to himself.”
“I could bake another batch.” Tony popped another cookie into his mouth and retied his apron. “But if you guys have things to do other than this, that’s okay too.”
“We got all day to bake with you, Tony.”
“...yeah?”
“Sure thing, sweet thing.” Bucky winked and squeezed at Steve’s hand before reaching for Tony and physically --gently-- dragged their favorite little genius up towards the counter. “You mix this batch, alright? We’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Oh…kay.” Tony gulped when both the soldiers pressed at his side, feeling butterflies riot all over again. “I can do this.”
********
*Gentle TW for mentions of depression from Clint and Tony*
“So rumour has it the old men taught you one of their grandpa recipes.” Clint rifled through the cupboards in the kitchen looking for box mixes and various canned goods. “What was it? Ginger snaps for incontinence? Molasses for memory loss? One of those weird war-time desserts that isn’t a dessert at all and is something horrifyingly gelatin instead?”
“What?” Tony laughed at him. “No! They were ginger molasses cookies! You should know that, you had a whole dozen.”
“Yep, and my tummy was very happy about it.” Clint apparently found what he was looking for and banged the cupboards shut in satisfaction. “How was cooking with the geezers?”
“It was…” Tony paused thinking about how Steve had called him sweetheart, how Bucky had crooned sweet thing right into his ear and how the words had rolled around in his mind all damn night, far longer than the last moderately spicy text from his boyfriend had.
“Fine.” Tony cleared his throat, then cleared it again, trying to push that particular thought away. “It was uh-- it was fine. What are we making today? What’s your super secret guaranteed to get me laid recipe?”
“Nothing as complicated as what Ye Olde Centenarians gave you.” Clint arranged all his supplies on the counter then dug out a big bowl and a sturdy mixing spoon. “Here’s the thing. Those boys have had an actual hundred years to bake shit, right?”
“I mean, give or take several decades in the freezer, sure.” Tony tied his newly laundered ruffled apron around his waist and secured it snug. “Wait, don’t you need an apron?”
“No apron.” Clint snatched several eggs from the fridge. “We make messes like men in this house.”
“Kay.” Tony bit back a smile. Clint was always so funny but honestly, Tony was never really sure if the mouthy archer was being serious with some of his more outrageous statements or not, so he tried not to laugh too loud and potentially hurt Clint’s feelings. “I’m gonna keep mine just in case.”
“Fair enough, those booty hugging jeans of yours probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.” Another bowl joined the first and Clint switched around a few of the ingredients to coordinate with which bowl they went into. “Anyway, none of this is complicated. Steve and Bucky had decades to figure out their cookie recipes. Us mere mortals don’t have that kind of time in the day or actually in our life, so we use shortcuts.”
“I’m a fan of short cuts.” Tony breathed a quick sigh of relief. Baking with Natasha and Steve and Bucky had been fun, but the recipes had multiple multiple steps and something simple seemed much more up his alley. “How’d you come across this recipe?”
“A charming mixture of growing up poor, always being too busy to actually cook and an often losing battle with my mental health that meant sometimes managing real food was difficult so this was how I fed myself when the sweet tooth got too cranky to ignore.” Clint switched the oven on, then turned and winked when he saw Tony grimacing sympathetically. “Hey now, none of that. I am a full on excellent person thanks to all that shit. Bucketful of childhood trauma, a sprinkle of depression and a slightly manic urge to work a bunch and hardly ever sleep so I don’t have too much time to turn that sprinkle of depression into a downpour? Totally fine. Don’t even worry about it.”
“Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m supposed to laugh at what you say.” Tony admitted self consciously. “Joking about mental health…I don’t know. We kept that sort of thing secret around the Stark house. Didn’t talk about it, didn’t look at it too closely. I don’t know. It’s weird that you just blurt it out.”
“Yeah and maybe if you didn’t keep it so secret, all the side effects of it wouldn’t have ended up splashed across tabloids for several years?” Clint suggested, tone snarky but smile sad in an understanding sort of way. “Like maybe if you’d made depression cake every once in a while instead of having a depression fifth of vodka you might actually remember your 20s?”
“Point taken.” Clint’s blunt but well meaning advice made Tony feel unexpectedly seen just then. The admission of depression and working at a manic speed just to keep it at bay was a habit Tony knew well, self coping in the form of insomnia and forgetting meals because sometimes food was too difficult… yeah, Tony recognized himself in all those words and felt unexpectedly seen.
It was…nice.
“Alright c’mere babe.” Clint snagged Tony’s hand and pulled him up to the counter. “This bowl right here is for when I’ve got time and a little pocket money and feel like being fancy. This other bowl? This is for when I’ve got no time and very little pocket money and just need to eat something. Since you always have time and lots of pocket money and have handkerchiefs fancier than most people’s houses, let’s start with the first one.”
“On it.” Tony tore the top off the chocolate cake box mix. “This says we need three eggs and--”
“Nope.” Clint smacked the empty box right out of Tony’s hands. “Ignore that. I got my own recipe. Pay attention now.”
Tony watched closely as Clint added a box of chocolate pudding to the mix, a splash of vegetable oil and some water, then not three but four eggs. “Do you measure anything? I feel like you just tossed it all in there.”
“I…” Clint pursed his lips. “Measure some times? That was probably a quarter cup of oil, maybe a cup and some change of water?”
“That doesn’t help me at all.” Tony frowned, then frowned harder when Clint flicked cake mix covered fingers at his nose. “Clint! I’m serious! I’m trying to make something to impress a boyfriend! Help!”
“Calm down kiddo, I’ll write down something readable.” Clint grinned when Tony scrubbed at his nose crossly. “Alright, the best thing about this recipe is you don’t need a mixer. Grab that spoon and stir it good, won’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Kay.” Tony set to work mixing while Clint retrieved one of the glass cake pans. “What’s the difference between this recipe and the other one?”
“The other one only has two ingredients and I can make it for under three dollars. It makes a whole cake or a super dense sorta cake-bread that could feed me for a couple meals, so it was always worth making if I could.” Clint brandished a spatula playfully and took the bowl to scrape the ingredients into the pan, then popped the whole thing in the oven. “But see that? Five minutes to mix it. No real measuring, not a whole lot of ingredients, we throw away the pudding and cake box and wash the bowl and spoon. We go from no cake, to dishes done and kitchen clean and cake out of the oven all in about thirty five minutes.”
“Oh and also?” Clint held up a smaller cake pan. “You can nuke it! Did you know you can make cake in the microwave? Mix it all up the same then put it on blast for eight or nine minutes and then check it, maybe nuke it a little longer? I learned that trick while living out of a motel for an unfortunate week and a half.”
“When was that?”
“Budapest.” Clint put the smaller pan away. “Well, pre-Budapest is when I figured it out then showed it off for Tasha in Budapest. She wasn’t as impressed as I would have hoped. The Black Widow’s sense of humour was way undeveloped back then.”
“I bet it was.” Tony eyed the still cake batter covered spatula longingly as Clint carried it to the sink. “You’re right, though. The super soldiers needed a hundred years to settle into that cookie recipe, I’ll be a pro at this thing in less than an hour.”
“Exactly right.” Clint briefly wondered if anyone on the team would kill him for what he was going to do next, but he decided it would be worth whatever they unleashed and swiped his finger into the cake batter, holding it up between them. “C’mere and get a taste, you know you want to.”
“I--” Tony turned about six shades of increasingly brighter red in about three seconds. “Clint, that sounded dirty.”
“Tony.” Clint gave his best effort at being scandalized. “What’s a little cake batter between friends? Come on now, don’t be like that about it. C’mere and get a taste.”
“Sounded worse the second time.” Tony hesitated, hesitated, looked into the sparkling, playful blue eyes and hesitated one more time…then leaned in and opened his mouth to lick the batter right off Clint’s finger.
It was delicious of course, it was double chocolate cake batter with added chocolate pudding, but Tony couldn’t think about that when he was busy thinking about how Clint had somehow snaked an arm around his waist and hauled him in close and was currently tracing the line of his mouth with a wet fingertip….
…boy howdy.
“Clint?” Tony squeaked a little but Clint just waggled his eyebrows and let him go with a casual, “Alright, depression cake next. Come on.”
“There’s only cake mix and pumpkin here.” Tony had to work to keep his voice even, his mouth tingling where Clint had brushed at his lips and tongue tingling from the sweet cake batter. “Aren’t we missing a few key ingredients?”
“Nope.” Clint opened the pumpkin quickly. “You can sub pumpkin for eggs and oil content in baked goods. Four eggs is about a cup of pumpkin, toss in a little extra--”
“Honestly, I’ll need actual measurements at some point.”
“Toss in a little extra if the mix is too dry!” Clint raised his voice over Tony’s protests. “Maybe a little water, but usually the pumpkin will do it. Mix until the consistency feels right. Carrot cake mix and pumpkin is delicious. Throw in some chocolate chips just for good measure and you’re golden.”
“Okay.” Tony glanced at the bowl and then up at Clint uncertainly. “How do I know when the consistency feels right?”
“Like this.” Clint swiped his finger through the bowl still in the sink and held it up so Tony could watch the batter drip. “See that? Just regular cake mix consistency. Toss it in a pan and then we’re done. Easy peasy, didn’t even take up a whole hour.”
“Kay.” Tony felt a wriggle of disappointment realizing their cooking session was already finished. “So um--”
“You know what the best part of all this is?” Clint interrupted. “Besides us getting to eat cake?”
“What’s that?”
“The cake was so easy that now we have time to eat left over pizza and gossip!” Clint rummaged around in the fridge until he found pepperoni pizza and a couple beers. “It’s the best part about cooking!”
Gossiping while the kitchen began to smell like first chocolate cake and then carrot cake really was the best part about cooking, and by the time the last buzzer went off for the carrot cake Tony was sitting cross legged on the counters across from Clint, three beers in and giggly and absolutely enthralled by the idea of Bruce having secret tattoos that Clint had somehow found out about.
“Don’t look so excited, I didn’t find it out in the naked sexy way you think.” Clint warned over a large bite of pizza. “It was more of a…. Right place right time when the big guy de-Hulked and whoops caught sight of a bare butt cheek with a smidge of ink right there!”
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.” Tony decided. “I wonder if he’d ever let me see it.”
“Tony, I’m pretty sure you could ask Bruce for anything and the guy would give it to you.” Clint rolled his eyes. “You could ask any of us for anything and we’d give it to you. Hey on that note, definitely go ask Stars and Gripes to get a tattoo. I’ll design it. Put it right on one of them tig ol’ biddies. It will be awesome.”
“Why would you guys give me--” Tony shook his head, changed the subject. “Do you have any tattoos in compromising places?”
“Nah not me, I’m a good boy.” Clint said as blandly as possible with as devious a smile as he could manage. “What about your boyfriend? Does he have any tattoos or uh… identifying marks?”
“Stop that.” Tony pointed at him sternly. “No, I’m not going to give you information on identifying marks just like I’m not going to give you his name or where he works or anything else like that. No way.”
“Why not?” Clint protested. “I won’t do anything sketchy with the information!”
“Okay see that right there?” Tony took a swig of his beer. “That right there where you pretend to be innocent but aren’t actually pretending to be innocent? That’s why I don’t talk about him around you people.”
“You people.” Clint scoffed, then scoffed again. “What do you mean you people?”
“I mean you people who are the world’s most successful ghosty super spies.” Tony answered pointedly. “You people like you and Tasha who could track down my boyfriend with nothing more than a few random details and then proceed to make his life miserable.”
“We wouldn’t--”
“And by miserable, I mean investigating every nook and cranny of his upbringing and habits and lifestyle and then inviting him over for dinner to grill him on that same information until he breaks up with me right then and there or runs away screaming, whichever comes first.” Tony levelled his best glare at Clint. “Sound familiar?”
“Okay.” Clint had the decency to flush at least a little. “Okay, I can see your point. But in me and Tasha’s defense? Tiberius was a wanker, alright? It’s a good thing we broke you guys up. He was actual scum and you just couldn’t see it around his veneered smile and box died platinum blond hair.”
“Ty was a natural blond!”
“Aw honey.” Clint cocked his head and clicked his tongue. “No he wasn’t. That was the first thing me and Tasha found out about him.”
“I hate both of you.” Tony pointed at him in aggravation. “So no. I’m not going to tell you even a tiny thing about the current boyfriend. Not even a tiny thing. Nothing you can use to track him down, nothing, nada, no way.”
“Alright now hold on.” Clint laughed and batted Tony’s finger away. “Tony, wouldn’t you rather us be nosy and figure out which boyfriend is terrible rather than let you get your heart broken?!”
“Clint.” Tony’s smile lagged. “Don’t you think it was pretty heartbreaking to have Ty publicly dump me because my home life was quote ‘too weird for any sane person to deal with’?”
“He said that about us?”
“He said that about me.” Tony pointed at himself this time. “Said that if I was okay living with all of you, then clearly there wasn’t room in my life for anyone else and when I tried to argue, he threw the ‘too weird’ comment at me. That wasn’t particularly fun.”
“Shit.” Clint slid off the counter to start the frosting, a frown etching into his rugged features. “We didn’t really think about it that way. We just figured if we scared the bad guys off you’d end up with the good ones.”
“Okay but.” Tony huffed. “But it’s not as if I have lines of people who want to date me. It’s not like there are dozens of eligible bachelors out there who want to try a real relationship with me! The whole Iron Man thing, the billionaire thing, the general--”
Tony waved his hand around to encompass everything that was him. “-- I have to take what I can get. You guys scare everyone off and I’ll end up having to date someone in the Tower.”
It was meant to sound bitter, meant to even sound ludicrous, and Tony visibly startled when Clint muttered, “Well maybe that’s where you should look for a relationship then.”
“...what did you say?!”
“I said it’s time to frost the cake.” Clint held up a jar of whipped white frosting. “Fancy right? I’m sure you can handle the recipe for this.”
“Kay.” Tony got off the counter slowly, fairly certain he’d heard exactly what he thought he’d heard and not entirely sure what to think about it. “Do you have an actual recipe for frosting?”
“Nah, but Sam’s got a good one.” Clint offered. “And don’t worry, even though my cake recipe is super easy, I’ll write it down for you too.”
“Thank God.” Tony rolled up his sleeves and tore the wrapping off the top of the frosting. “So what, we just glob this on the cake?”
“Neanderthal.” Clint sighed theatrically. “You gotta smooth it! Smooth it Tony, damn! Do you just glob paint on your Iron Man suits?”
“No, but those cost millions of dollars at a time to make.”
“And this cake will make your eyes roll back in your head, so which one is more valuable??”
“Fine.” Tony grinned and Clint nudged into his space to bump shoulders again. “I’ll smooth it. Sheesh.”
Carrying the smoothly frosted cake down to the gym for everyone to eat meant Tony forgot his phone in the kitchen and hours later as they were all still laughing and talking and watching Steve get his Star Spangled Tuchus handed to him courtesy of Natasha’s newest take down, Tony still didn’t realize the device wasn’t in his pocket.
There were several text messages and two missed calls from his boyfriend when Tony finally picked it up before bed, and he read the screen…then put it right back down.
Replying and calling back could wait till morning. Clint had suggested a near midnight round of charades and everyone else had agreed and that sounded like more fun than a phone call.
“Tony!” Clint hollered and Tony sent off a quick text-- Talk to you in the morning-- and hollered back, “I’m coming! Just a sec!”
********
Chapter Notes:
I adore Stucky in the Kitchen and the way Tony is so flustered. Also disaster!Clint speaking truth about how difficult just feeding ourselves can be when our mental health is at a low point. I started baking as a way to cope with my Eating Disorder (if I made it, I should eat it and not feel guilty, right?) and the cheater cake recipe is a nice, mentally easy adjustment on the days when the Executive Function isn’t quite working.
Next Up! Sam comes through with a top tier Cinnamon Roll Recipe.
And thanks for all the comments last chapter! I’m so glad you guys are enjoying the fic and the recipes!
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Ginger Molasses Cookies
*Makes approx 36 cookies
Ingredients:
1 ½ Cup (3 sticks) Softened Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar
½ Cup Molasses
2 Eggs
4 ½ Cup Flour
4 tsp Baking Soda
1 Tbsp Ground Ginger
2 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Cloves
1 Tsp Salt
Granulated Sugar to Roll Cookies in
Directions:
In Stand Mixer Cream Together: Butter, Sugar, Brown Sugar
Add Molasses
Add Eggs
Sift Together Dry Ingredients and Add Slowly to Mixture
Form Dough into Balls (I use a #40 Cookie Scoop) and Place on Parchment Paper lined Pan and Chill in Freezer for Minimum Two Hours
Roll Frozen Dough in Sugar
Bake 350 Degrees, 9-10 minutes
Cheater Cake Recipe:
1 Box Cake Mix (Any Brand, Even Sugar Free Options!)
1 Small (3.4-3.9 oz size) Package Dry Instant Pudding Mix (Vanilla, Chocolate, or Sugar Free Depending on Cake Mix)
4 Eggs
⅓ Cup Oil
1 Cup Water
Directions:
Mix.
Bake According to Box
Eat Easy Cake
Alternative:
Pumpkin Can Be Substituted for Eggs and Oil in Recipe. 4 Eggs= 1 Cup of Pumpkin, Add More as Needed to Achieve Proper Consistency!
Adjust Cooking Time Starting Ten Minutes Less than Noted on Box
Cake will be Dense, Thick, Will Not Rise as High.
My Favorite Pumpkin Cheater Recipe:
Carrot Cake Box Mix
1 ⅓ Cup Pumpkin
Chocolate Chips
Mix
Portion Into Muffin Pans (#20 Cookie Scoop!)
Bake According to Directions, Checking for Doneness Sooner!