Promptvent - Day 6
25 days of winter prompts to thaw your writers (ice)block - and this year it's all about being Cozy.
Hello and welcome to day 6 of Promptvent!
If you’d like some wintry musical inspiration whilst you write, why not try listening to Cookies Baking from ‘Christmas Kitchen Jazz’ on Spotify.
Listen to me read the guided invitation via audio below or if you prefer to read the transcript, that is also available for you underneath the audio.
Welcome back to our Promptvent village advent calendar where you find yourself standing once again before the cozy Christmas window.
Bundled up in your warm woolen mittens and thick scarf, you are eager to to know what wintry word of the day awaits you. What world will you step into and discover today? You lean closer, and can feel the eagerness in your fingers as you pull off your mittens and reach for the iron latch on the window, lifting it with care.
Your nose is met with the most delicious notes of cloves, cinnamon and ginger. You hear some hustle and bustle inside and a few friendly faces in red aprons are mixing and pouring ingredients into bowls. One person in a white bakers hat is pulling a large silver tray out of a huge oven, steam fogging up their glasses as they indulge in a deep sniff of what just came out. You notice an entire mini village of Gingerbread houses all made of different colors, one person is squeezing out white icing to give a snow touched look to the small roofs. Your stomach rumbles as more delicious baking smells waft over to you. You lick your lips and the baker at the Gingerbread houses looks up, smiles at you and beckons you in.
The red wreathed door to your left slowly opens, inviting you further. You step through the door and enter the bakery, which feels more like a rustic kitchen home. You stamp off the snow from your boots and hang your winter coat up on a golden brass hook. The baker hands you a red apron which you gladly take and tie around you. Christmas music is playing and the others bakers hum or whistle happily to the tune. Someone comes over with the silver tray and shows its contents to you, they are tiny Gingerbread shaped people. Mmm the smell of sugar, butter and spices. Delicious. You to take the tray and find a spot next to the Gingerbread houses. There are hundreds of tubes of icing and you can’t wait to get stuck in and decorate them.
As your imagination goes wild with all of the possible options, memories flood your mind. The numerous times you’ve baked Gingerbread with relatives, young and old. The squeals of laughter and delight when the icing bulges out too quickly. The compulsory licking of the mixture in the bowl before anything goes into the oven. Eager fingers pulling away quickly from the items too hot to touch, but most of all, the anticipation and the creativity.
The baker puts some of your creations on a plate and hands them to you with a glass of warm milk. She nods to a cozy chair by the wood fired stove in the corner. A little table next to the chair has a candle labelled, ‘Gingerbread Dreams’, which is lit with a bright flame. You sit down, put the gingerbread man up to your nose, inhale it’s warm cinnamon scent and take a bite. The taste sends you back down memory lane, the notes of ginger and the crisp yet chewy texture is so familiar to you. You take a swig of warm milk and notice a square item next to the glass on the table - you pick it up and realize it is a notebook and a pen, which smells so good you almost want to nibble it.
You open the notebook and see one word in large cursive script written at the top of the page.
It reads: GINGERBREAD
You take one last bite of chewy, ginger goodness and then you pick up the pen and write.
Oh, how this makes me long for a Wintery festive season! This is so cosy, so glorious, I love it! It honestly felt like being wrapped up in a favourite jumper! 😍 (I'm in Australia so it's Summer here and this beautiful write has me pining for Winter 🤣)
Prompt vent day 6
Gingerbread
Years ago I learnt to bake the best cake ever . Baking , a forced activity at school was quite fun at the new school I attended . The spacious domestic science room felt like a huge kitchen built into a stately home and was nothing like school . I loved it . Every week at the end of the lesson we wrote down a list of ingredients needed for the lesson the following week . There was a choice of buying ingredients from the teacher or bringing it from home . We needed golden syrup , black treacle sold in tins , bicarbonate of soda , butter , flour and ginger spice . I can’t remember what else we needed . Did we add other spices . Or eggs ? I just remember not having to soften and beat eggs in a big bowl . The best part was using a tablespoon to delve deeply twisting the spoon into tins and scooping out syrup . After repeating with the treacle. Wondering how I had miraculously avoided a trail of sugary evidence. Melting butter on the low flame of the stove in a saucepan with the syrups . Then adding into the sifted dry ingredients and mixing throughly breathing in spicy sugary goodness . I had made a greaseproof paper insert for the round baking tea , poured the mixture into a preheated oven with instructions not to open the oven for one hour . The cake would go flat and be ruined otherwise . I had to write down the time in my exercise book . It was my responsibility not to forget . Finally the hour was up and the cake was cooled on a rack . Still no tasting . I had to clear my working area , wash up and let the cake cool . In those days clearing up took me ages I wasn’t used to such tasks . When I finally finished it was time to wrap my cake in a tea towel , place it into an old biscuit tin before loading it into a wide necked basket . Not long after it was time to walk home . At the time we were living with my grandparents . Thankfully Grampi was home . Asking him if he wanted to try my cake he readily accepted and told me he would make a pot of tea. We sat down together at the table and Grampi cut us generous slices . A lovely moment rounded off by the greatest compliment ever . My cake was the best he had ever tasted , the texture was light , the flavour perfect . I was a champion . My thirteen year self was proud , the accomplishment my best ever, equipping me with future confidence to join in fully with cookery classes at school .