Christmas Baking
“How many cups of flour?” Peter questioned.
“Four,” Pepper answered as she situated Morgan in her highchair.
“And sugar?”
“Two.”
Peter was beyond excited to be spending time with Pepper. He loved spending time with her, but she was really busy with running Tony’s company and taking care of Tony and Morgan.
“What kinds of cookies are we making?” Peter questioned, he bounced on his heels, excited as he eyed the mixing bowl and array of ingredients in front of them.
“Gingerbread, sugar cookies and peppermint drop cookies,” Pepper explained, dropping a few various fruits on Morgan’s highchair tray. “And maybe chocolate bark.”
“Yum,” Peter grinned. He’d only tried one of those cookies, since gingerbread was everywhere around the holiday season.
They were making sugar cookies first. Pepper read the recipe off the book she had in front of her and Peter gathered each item setting them on the counter beside the kitchen aid mixer, listening to Pepper’s instructions.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever baked like this,” Peter mumbled to Pepper as he watched the kitchen aid beat the butter, sugar and eggs together, tilting his head to gage her reaction to his admission. Pepper paused in measuring out the flour that had been mentioned earlier, giving him a small smile.
“Better late than never, right, Honey?” Pepper was working on the dry ingredients while Peter worked with the wet.
“Right,” Peter grinned, “this is really fun though, I like baking with you-” he was cut off by Morgan hurling a grape at his head and giggling loudly, “and you too, Mor,” Peter laughed, running his fingers through his hair as he turned to look at the baby.
“Morgan, we don’t throw things,” Pepper scolded, her lips curving into a small smile as the baby clapped her hands, not sorry at all. Peter laughed, scraping the sides of the mixing bowl with the rubber spatula.
The dough was starting to come together, and it tasted delicious.
“Stop it,” Pepper huffed with a laugh as Peter stuck his finger he’d just scraped along the inside of the bowl into his mouth. He laughed around his finger, almost choking on it (this made Pepper pat his back, and Morgan burst into giggles).
When Peter could breathe again, they continued with their baking.
“This will be so much fun when she’s old enough to help,” Pepper mumbled, casting a fond look over she shoulder to where Morgan was smashing a piece of strawberry into her tray.
“She’ll be a great baker just like her mom!” Peter chirped, sending Pepper a beaming smile. Pepper scoffed, reaching over to gently push the teenager’s head away.
“Did you add the vanilla?” Pepper asked instead of responding to Peter’s statement.
“Mhm, one table spoon, right?”
“Perfect,” Pepper agreed.
They watched the kitchen aid mix everything together until the cookie dough looked right.
“Maybe if we cut them out, Morgan can add the sprinkles?” Peter suggested, chancing a look back at the toddler who’d moved on to smearing banana into her tray.
“That’s a great idea, Pete, how about you keep cutting and fill these trays while I go wipe the fruit off her hands?”
“Alright, Pepper,” Peter grinned, flattening his palm on the top of a snowman shaped cookie cutter. Pepper continued glancing over her shoulder back at the teen as she wiped her daughter’s hands clean with a warm face cloth. By the time she’d managed to get Morgan fruit residue free, Peter had two trays filled with multiple different Christmas shapes.
“We’re using these cutters for the ginger bread too, right?” Peter questioned, placing a pine tree cutout on the tray with the last remaining spot, “because I’d like to decorate some of these shapes with icing, if we can?”
“Definitely,” Pepper smiled at the teen, “we can do whatever you want, Sweetie.”
“Awesome! So, I grabbed these sprinkles, the red and green mostly, but I know Morgan likes pink and purple so I grabbed those- and the blue ones because blue’s the best colour-”
“Why don’t we bring all the colours down, and the two of you can pick whatever colours you want?” Pepper suggested. Pepper watched the teen think it over before nodding in agreement and reaching into the cupboard to pull out the remaining sprinkles.
Pepper sat Morgan on the counter, Peter stepping closer to make sure the baby was safe. She grabbed a stack of mini plastic bowls and dumped some of each colour of sprinkles into each little bowl.
“Okay, how about Petey decorates one tray, and Morgan can decorate the other?”
“Sure, Pepper,”
Slowly the two trays of cookies blossomed into colours. Morgan tossed handfuls of the sprinkles onto the tray and Pepper tried her best to sweep up the ones that weren’t on any cookies so they wouldn’t burn. Peter took his time to cover each cookie with a few different colours, trying not to get the sprinkles on anything but the cookies.
When he was finished his fingers were an interesting brown from all the colours mixing as he picked and chose his sprinkles.
Both trays looked good, and Peter couldn’t help but be proud.
“We did so good, Mor! Look at your work on this tray, definitely the next Picasso!” Peter stepped over to pull the toddler off the counter, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. She giggled at the praise, lifting her hands to grab handfuls of his hair.
“Okay, okay,” Pepper laughed, “I’m going to put these in the oven, and then I’m going to put someone else down for a nap.”
“But I’m not tired, Pepper,” Peter teased, to which Pepper laughed.
“Very funny, Sweetie,” she huffed as she opened the oven and slid the trays in. “I trust that you won’t let these burn?”
Peter shook his head with a lopsided smile.
The teen watched as Pepper took Morgan into her arms, the toddler giving him a lazy wave over her mom’s shoulder.
He cleaned the counters, skimmed through the next recipe and gathered what was needed for gingerbread.
“Morgan is down, so it’s time to spend some one on one time with my favorite little guy.” Pepper grinned as she stepped up beside Peter at the counter. “I see you already have a head start?”
“Yep!” Peter beamed, “wanted to jump right into it!”
“You’re so much like Tony, it’s not even funny,” Pepper laughed.
Together they worked through gingerbread and peppermint drop cookies.
Peter had fun molding a couple gingerbread cookies ‘this one’s Iron Man,’ ‘I see, really building his ego up there, Petey.’ He didn’t like the peppermint cookies too much, having never been a fan of mint. But everything else was amazing. He probably ate more cookie dough today then he had in his whole life leading up to this moment.
“Chocolate bark?” Peter hadn’t heard of, or seen this before so he was curious.
“Yep.” Pepper nodded, pulling out a bar of good name chocolate, “Tony ordered this from Switzerland,” Pepper rolled her eyes fondly, “Walmart chocolate would’ve worked, but if we don’t use this it’ll hurt his feelings.”
“You know, I’m feeling really attacked right now.” Peter turned to grin at the man stood in the doorway, “I asked if you wanted good chocolate, and you said yes.”
“I thought you meant from like a candy store around here or something, not a shipment from Switzerland!”
“Hey, they have the best chocolate,” Tony crossed his arms across his chest, and then his eyes settled on Peter, “Right, Kiddo? Switzerland has the best chocolate. You can’t change my mind.”
“We’re getting sidetracked,” Pepper huffed over Peter’s laughter. “Now that you’re here, you can assist us.” Pepper turned an accusing eye to her husband.
“Sure,” Tony ducked his head in a nod, stepping up to brush his shoulder against the youngest’s.
“Good. You get to melt it. I’m going to trust you with this, unless you think you can’t handle it?”
“Pff.” Tony tilted his head at her, “I’ve got it, but what will little Petey here, do?”
“He’ll help me with the toppings. How do dried cranberries and pecans sound?”
“Yum!” Peter nodded, stepping towards Pepper to watch as she chopped the pecans. Tony worked on melting the chocolate in a double boiler. Peter busied himself with snacking on some of the dried cranberries from the bag.
“See, regular chocolate just doesn’t melt the same,” Tony shook his head as he lifted the spatula and a drizzle of smooth chocolate cascaded off. “Switzerland.”
Pepper shook her head at his antics as Peter laughed, dipping one of his cranberries into the drizzle.
“Hey, you brat,” The man narrowed his eyes, but his lips tilted up in a small smile.
“Don’t hey me,” Peter laughed as he stuck the treat in his mouth.
“Okay, okay,” Pepper giggled, “let’s build this before someone starts throwing chocolate-”
“Excuse you, this is Switzerland chocolate-” Peter cut the man off by smearing a finger of chocolate on the man’s cheek.
“Oops,” Peter shrugged his shoulders as the man eyed him. Peter licked his finger with an innocent look.
“Looks like you’ve got a little something right there,” Pepper leaned forward and licked Tony’s cheek, clearing the chocolate away.
“I’d really like to be offended right now,” Tony said with a scarily even voice, “tag teaming is terrible, why do I talk to you two?”
Peter laughed as he grabbed the pre-prepared pan off the table. Tony dumped his chocolate, licking his knuckle where some chocolate from the bowl had gotten on him. Pepper sprinkled her chopped pecans and Peter dropped some cranberries from the bag.
“Now it just has to set for a couple hours.” Pepper grabbed the tray, placing it in the fridge.
“Awh,” Peter pouted.
“Hours?” Tony looked up in shock. “I’m an impatient man, Pep.”
“Me too,” Peter grinned at Tony, who stared at the boy for a second before returning his sharp gaze to his wife.
“Yeah, Pep, we’re impatient men.” He teased, ruffling Peter’s hair.
“Well, as soon as we clean this up-” her eyes travelled around the mess of a kitchen, “they’ll be done. Let’s go boys.”