Ville landed in front of the tent, huffing from his rapid flight across the Plateau. After a few last minute mishaps, Hemlock, who was supposed to return for another year of competition couldn't make it. Ville volunteered instead. And now here he was!

He gathered up the ingredients and immediately set to work. He couldn't make jam like that coatl liked, but he could make muffins to go with the jam!

Ville first made a quick muffin base using some grassland grain flour (and whatever else you put in muffin mixes) before chopping up some strawberries, apples, the blue and heart roses and the winterbelles. He added the bits into the muffin mix, tossing in some sunflower seeds -might as well, right?- and heated up the oven.

Once the oven was at the right temperature, Ville quickly put the mix into muffin tins and put it in the oven. He set the timer and waited. And waited. And then got bored and wandered off to go talk to some other contestants.

Luckily, he could smell the muffins baking from a few tents away. Once they smelled like they were about finished, he rushed back over and pulled them out. They looked amazing, at least to Ville. All that they needed was some honey! He generously drizzled the honey on them while they were still hot.

Ville waited for the muffins to cool a bit before gathering them together in a basket and taking them to be judged. While waiting, he sneaked one to try on his own though. Blueberry, strawberry, apple and honey! A very fruity flavored muffin if not a bit odd. He'd have to write the recipe down soon so he could make these again. Ville loved the muffins.

Now to see if the judge did too.
Ville's Entry
Judging

Ville... well. He cried a little bit when his muffins were ruined. He couldn't help it!

But it's another day!

Ville recoiled as the ingredients for the day were revealed. Insects? In his cooking? ...It may be more likely than he would have thought. If he wanted to compete he'd have to use them. Ville was stumped though, as a tundra baker, he had no clue what to do with the bugs.

He had a stroke of inspiration looking (very morosely) at the husks of his muffins, still set on his work table from the day before. They were coated colored dust... almost like...

WEDDING CAKES!

Ville jumped up and down a bit in excitement. Wedding cakes! He was sure he could adapt the recipe to these ingredients, the cakes weren't very complicated after all.

Ville gathered his ingredients, spreading them out on the table.
First, he mixed a cup of butter, a little vanilla extract and some honey together. It wasn't getting as fluffy as it usually did though. The honey was gooey and the sugar he usually used was not. Ville crushed up the bees until he had a half cup, mixing it in with the rest. Finally! It was a bit fluffier now!

However, Ville had been planning on using the bees as a substitute for pecans. Hmm. Ville finally shrugged in defeat and went to find chopped pecans. Once found, he put the pecans, flour & a small bit of water into the mix. With the dough made, he started up the oven and began forming the dough into little balls.

And into the oven went the cookies! As they cooked Ville started working on the covering. Normally, he'd only use confectioners sugar. Today, he decided to mash the nymphs up with a bit more honey to make a glaze. The cookies didn't need very long though, only around 15 minutes before Ville took them out to cool. He finished up his glaze and coated the still warm cookies in it. Once the glazed cookies were cooled, Ville rolled them around in a pan of confectioners sugar, making sure they got fully coated.

Ville proudly put the wedding cakes on a lidded platter (No color bomb was going to ruin these!) and presented them to the judges.

"Pecan wedding cakes using crushed honeybees in place of sugar and with a glaze of mashed nymphs and honey! I hope you like them!"

- - - - -
(Apparently these are also called russian tea cakes, snowballs & some other stuff. Though I've only ever known them as mexican wedding cakes. But ohh do I love them!)
Ville's Entry
Judging

Ville stared at the ingredients in horror. The last two days had been fun but this was just torture. Ville resignedly pulled on a bee-keepers suit he had found laying about; there was absolutely no way he was going to touch those ingredients himself.

With no ideas coming to him whatsoever, Ville decided to just wing it. He heated a pot of water to boiling and threw the Soylent Blue in. He diced the fungi up, tossing them in too. He was making soup, he guessed? He shredded some of the incorporeal dinner (don't ask him how he did it, he has no clue himself) and tossed the meat into the pot. He turned the heat down to a simmer and decided to get some vegetables for what he supposed was a stew of some sort.

He quickly diced up half a wild onion and some bulrush. Into the pot those went! Ville got a waft of the stew and gagged. Shuddering in revulsion he stirred in two whole withered roses and dumped in a bit of salt. The roses would hopefully mask the stench a bit and anything that smelled like that must taste terrible too. Salt made almost everything better though. The stew bubbled ominously as Ville cut open an Ashfall Prickler. He poured the sauce into the stew, stirred it a bit and sat down heavily.

What Villed wouldn't give to be able to get back to his own kitchen and bake himself a nice cake... Suddenly, a particularly large stew bubble popped. Ville was startled out of his daydream and he quickly shut off the stovetop heat. The stew was thick, chunky, and the color of rocks and owl pellets. It didn't smell as bad as before though and if he added some Cindermint as a garnish it might look better.

Ville did just that. He took a bowl of his... stew up to the judges to be evaluated.

"H-here it is! Incorporeal Dinner stew! The Soylent Blue and Fungi are mixed in the stew with all of the other ingredients!" Ville plastered on a strained smile, trying to appear confident in his Nightmare-inducing Culinary Shame Stew.
Ville's Entry
Judging