The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year: The Parisian Christmas Bake Off / Winter's Fairytale. Jenny Oliver

again.’

      ‘So why let it happen in the first place?’ Chef spread his hands wide but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

      ‘Henri, a word.’ Philippe pushed it open and was standing in the hallway, beckoning for his brother to step out and join him.

      ‘Un moment.’ Chef paused mid-tirade, wiping his hands on a tea towel and marching off to join Philippe.

      Rachel shut her eyes and took a second to catch her breath.

      ‘Where have you been?’ Abby whispered.

      She waved her question away. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Marcel sitting smugly, legs crossed, rolling an egg back and forth on his work surface, a wilted lily lying on the shelf with his pots and pans like a trophy.

      She was about to say something when Chef stormed back in. ‘OK, let’s get on with it.’

      ‘That’s it?’ Lacey hissed. ‘How do you get away with it?’

      Rachel didn’t look at her.

      ‘Today it is soufflé.’

      ‘Shit,’ she said under her breath. Rachel had never really made soufflé. She actively avoided making soufflé. She tried to concentrate extra hard on what Chef was doing but her mind wouldn’t focus—it was dancing back and forth between the thrill she had felt sitting next to Philippe on his reckless drive through the backstreets of Paris and Marcel and his traitorous, backstabbing ways. What a fool she had been.

      She couldn’t stop casting sideways glances in Marcel’s direction, determined to make him feel uncomfortable but he wasn’t having any of it. Face impeccable, poised, concentrating on every word Chef said. Dressed all scruffy and artfully dishevelled, he was the exact opposite of Philippe with his cashmere suit and confident stride, but she wondered now, remembering the satisfied look on Philippe’s face as they’d zoomed up outside the pâtisserie, if maybe both of them had the same glint in their eye—a glint that no good had come from with Marcel as far as Rachel was concerned.

      She reminded herself to be more careful; she was here to bake, not to get carried away by good-looking men. If Marcel had had his way she’d have been out of the competition and she was already on thin ice with Chef. Yet when she thought about Philippe she couldn’t help but wonder what he had said to stop Chef’s anger, and about the fact that whatever he had said, he had said it for her. But as she thought about how that made her feel, an image of the bauble he’d bought on their shopping trip sprang to mind, along with the question of who it was for …

      By the time she got round to listening, Chef was pulling a perfect, puffy blue cheese soufflé out of the oven. As everyone gasped at the beauty of it, he said, ‘You, this afternoon, will prepare me and my brother a soufflé. Oui?’ Then he swept out of the room for a cigarette.

      Rachel didn’t go out for lunch; instead she walked down to the pâtisserie and picked out the largest chocolate éclair there was and rammed it into her mouth right there at the counter. Françoise was laughing because her mouth was so full.

      ‘J’ai faim,’ she said over the cream.

      ‘Very hungry.’ Françoise nodded. ‘Un café, aussi? Very tired too?’ she said, pointing to Rachel’s face.

      Rachel slumped down onto one of the stools. ‘Very tired.’

      Françoise made her an espresso and popped it down on the marble counter. The dim white milk-glass of the lights took any brightness out of the room, making it perfect for her hung-over eyes. She stared at the wall behind the pastries where there were postcards pinned along of places she assumed customers or friends had been. Perhaps she could run away somewhere hot, leave smug Marcel and the daunting soufflé behind. The high stool she was sitting on was squishy and comfy, the espresso bitter and sharp. She remembered how that morning she had wanted to win the competition to make her mum proud, but just the idea of it now seemed overwhelming, the prize way out of reach. Perhaps she could have a little nap—the cup clinked into the saucer as she sat back and shut her eyes but she could still hear the clock ticking down the end of her lunch break, so she ended up just ordering another eclair.

      Soufflé-making was hard. Rachel had never understood them. Her mum had never understood them. Once baked, twice baked, what was the difference? And were they really baking, anyway?

      She was sticking to a really simple three cheese and spinach one with roasted cherry tomatoes and garlic on the side and perhaps a sprinkling of crushed rosemary. Lacey was doing a crab, lobster and clam soufflé with a prawn and fennel bisque on the side and a crispy garlic-infused baguette. George was doing cheese as well but was aiming to make it the highest in the group by fashioning a baking parchment sleeve that would force the mixture to keep growing to practically the height of the oven. Marcel—she didn’t even look at what he was doing. Ali had chosen raspberry rice-pudding soufflé with vanilla custard sauce, which he was planning very secretively, and Abby was doing a white chocolate and amaretto one with a sweet lemon and almond curd, which sounded delicious. Rachel gave her a thumbs up before they got started.

      As she separated her eggs she could feel the tiredness creeping into her body, and she was coming down fast off the eclair sugar rush. All her determination was seeping out of her in favour of crawling back into bed. But there was the fact that Philippe was tasting and she found herself wanting to impress him with her food.

      Ten minutes in, George burnt his butter, which made the whole room smell sweet like cinema popcorn. Ali tipped his whisked egg whites above his head pretending that they might slip out all over him, and when she heard Marcel laugh she gave him a sneer. Then she went back to cutting through her beaten whites with a palette knife but all she seemed to be doing was making her mixture go from light and fluffy to flat and drab. It just seemed too heavy, but it was too late to start again. The smell of her cheese made her feel sick, as did Lacey’s bubbling prawn stock.

      Tearing her eyes from her solid-looking mixture as it tried to rise in the oven and switching off the grill as her tomatoes bubbled under the heat, Rachel wiped down her surface just praying that her mixture would puff up enough not to be an embarrassment. She only looked up when she saw Abby draw out a white-chocolate stunner. Smooth, fluffy and risen high like a chef’s hat, it was the most glorious-looking soufflé she’d ever seen. Dusted from up high with a snowy shower of icing sugar and sprinkled with slices of sugared lemon rind and circled with a vivid yellow curd sauce, it was a definite show-stopper.

      As she glanced across at Lacey’s individual crab towers that were quite pale and George’s burnt crust it was clear that Abby would be the day’s winner.

      Rachel hardly dared look at hers. Everyone else was putting the finishing touches to theirs. Ali was spooning his custard into a vintage blue and white Cornishware jug. George was looking dubiously at his very forlorn soufflé, blackened like a scorched Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sucking in a breath, she bent down and peeked through the glass of her oven.

      There it was—tall and puffy and risen like a skyscraper, with a tear round the edge where the cheese had pulled like crocodile teeth. She did a little clap. Then yanked the door open and drew out her beauty, bronzed on top and glistening with a deep glazed shine.

      ‘Wow,’ said Lacey before she could stop herself.

      Rachel could only nod, speechless that it had worked.

      Abby came round to look at it. ‘That’s amazing.’

      ‘I know, I can’t believe it.’

      They all stood round gazing at Rachel’s cheese tower.

      A knock on the door broke the reverie and as Chef went to answer it Rachel pulled off her oven gloves and, turning her back on her prize creation, went in search of a plate.

      Philippe walked in, wearing a black cashmere suit, and looked round the room till he spotted Rachel and smiled. She winked back and pointed triumphantly at her soufflé. He did a nod as if humouring her. She raised her eyebrows nodding more, to try and show him how much this risen soufflé meant to her.