by Budgielover
The young hobbit watched the cake deflate, its rim descending almost to the plate until it more resembled a griddle cake than a pound cake. Frodo groaned deeply and leaned over the counter to cradle his head in his arms, smearing flour on himself up to the elbows.
“At least it isn’t burnt,” Bilbo ventured carefully, patting the dismayed young hobbit on the back.
“It’s flat, Bilbo,” Frodo responded. “It looks like an oliphaunt stepped on it.”
“Now, lad,” the old hobbit said kindly, “baking takes time to learn. You can’t expect to master the skill at your first go.”
“It’s not my first go,” the tweenager replied with a hint of sullenness. “This is my fourth try. So far my cakes have burnt up, blown out, broke into crumbs and … and now this. It’s flat, Bilbo!” The last was delivered in a rising wail that did not sound appropriate to a soon-to-be twenty-two year old tweenaged hobbit.
“And we’re out of eggs,” Bilbo observed. “Maybe we could take the bits that aren’t too badly burned from the first cake, and add them to the bits we can find of the second cake, and -”
“Thank you, Bilbo,” Frodo returned, more collected now that he had accepted the inevitable. “But it’s useless. We might as well throw these messes out, and I’ll start washing up. The presents I have for everyone tomorrow on Our Birthday will have to be enough.”
“Wait, lad,” the old hobbit urged. “I have something that just might suit.” With that Bilbo bustled over the pantry and started poking about, his search interrupted by the occasional sneeze and muttered comments about the unrestrained breeding of dust bunnies.
Frodo sighed and began collecting the baking utensils. He had tried. He had so wanted to present a cake he had baked himself to his guests. It was to be just a small family dinner after the Party, but all the more special to Frodo because it was his Brandybuck relations. Little Merry would never believed that his big cousin was capable of baking a cake. And it looked like the lad was right, Frodo thought morosely as he pried a section of his second effort from under the breadbox. How had things managed to go so wrong?
“Here we go, Frodo-lad,” Bilbo called cheerily, wiping dust off from a jar. He peered at the scratchy writing on the label, then shook his head. “Gandalf brought this to me years ago, knowing how I like odd things.”
Odd it certainly was. Once the two hobbits had wrestled the lid off, a sharp, almost pungent odor greeted their nostrils. They looked at the jar’s contents dubiously.