Published: August 3, 2025
Although the calendar said it was spring, outside the blizzards had only just started to ease, and the cold was still harsh, giving little sense of the season.
However, with the blizzards lessening, Tulli began visiting more often. That meant the day I could return home was drawing nearer, and I couldn’t have been happier.
One day, Tulli came over carrying a small jar.
"Hey, Myne. This was supposed to be eaten in winter, right? What are we going to do with it? It’s just been sitting there since you weren’t around. Mom told me to ask you how to use it."
Tulli set the jar on the table and opened the lid. Immediately, a sharp scent of alcohol hit my nose. Inside were fruits soaked in plenty of liquor, now brown and syrupy. It was a small jar of fruit liqueur—rumtopf—that had been prepared at home.
I had completely forgotten that I had been soaking fruit since summer, and I gasped.
"Ah! I completely forgot about the honey and sugar too, and that I made jam!"
"...I thought so."
The rumtopf, with various fruits soaked in alcohol, was fully matured. The fruit had lost its sharp edges and become rounded, and the liquor had thickened. It looked ready to be eaten immediately, but I wondered how best to enjoy it.
"What should I do? At first, I thought of eating it with ice cream or pudding, but the easiest sweet to make at home is parue cake, right?"
When I started making it in summer, I didn't plan on retreating to the temple, so I intended to bring sugar and rumtopf to Lutz's house and have him cook. He would provide eggs, milk, and labor, and I would create new recipes like ice cream and pudding, topping them with small pieces of rumtopf fruit.
But since I couldn’t go to Lutz’s house, that plan fell through. I had to think of a way for my family to easily enjoy it at home.
"So, should I make parue cake and pour this on top?"
"You chop the rumtopf into small pieces and sprinkle it on. Mom and I will just eat the fruit, and Dad will be happy to have the leftover liquor. Besides parue cake, you've made French toast a few times together, right? That’s also delicious with rumtopf. And, and..."
Stollen is a classic dessert using rumtopf, but since we don’t have an oven at home, baking it isn’t possible.
"Myne, calm down. What will you make and eat here? Parue cake is out, right?"
"Yeah..."
I basically want to avoid having Ella learn the parue cake recipe. So, if I want the chef Ella to help, parue cake is off-limits. Also, there isn’t enough rumtopf to involve the orphans in making parue cake in the girls' dormitory.
"What should we do? Stollen is the classic, but it takes a long time to make, especially starting now. Hmm, how about having Ella make crepes?"
"...Is it okay to reveal the recipe like that?"
Tulli, knowing that my recipes are used in Italian restaurants or sold to Ilse and Frieda, which leads to money, looked a little cautious.
"Probably. There are similar dishes to crepes... so I think it’s okay?"
What I’ve seen in this town isn’t crepes per se, but dishes like galettes made from buckwheat flour, filled with eggs, ham, mushrooms, or cheese, cooked as a light meal.
Interestingly, I’ve never seen galettes served as desserts. Maybe somewhere they are, but I don’t know. In downtown, filling the stomach usually takes priority over sweets, so perhaps it’s unavoidable.
"Fran, can you prepare cream quickly?"
"Since it’s cold season, it can be prepared easily. How much do you need?"
When I turned around, Fran was already holding a writing board, ready to take notes.
If milk hasn’t been processed, its fat separates when left in the cold, so if there’s enough milk, extracting cream isn’t difficult. But removing too much moisture turns it close to clotted cream, so one must be careful.
"Then please get about a cup of cream and a cup of milk."
"Understood."
There’s buckwheat flour in the pantry, so we could make galettes, but I prefer to make crepes with wheat flour this time.
Sugar-based sweets are basically meant for nobles. Since this kitchen is in my room, it’s better to make something that looks a little more noble than what’s eaten downtown. We’ll have Ella make crepes, serve them with whipped cream, and sprinkle chopped rumtopf on top.