Dried Alraune Tiramisu
A finger-thick beige shortbread cookie sank with a soft plop into the black liquid steeped from dried alraune, which had gone cold on the journey over.
Among cookies, shortbread stood alone in how little moisture it held. The crumbly, arid cookie drank up liquid at a startling rate. Just as watercolors bleed across blank paper, the beige shortbread flushed a light brown in moments. Before it could drink so greedily that its shape collapsed entirely, it was fished out and laid square and snug on the plate—again and again. Edges and midsections crumbled or mashed under the process, but that was inevitable once force met a cookie already heavy with moisture.
After accepting those small sacrifices, a mountain of dense cream cheese was heaped with a wet slap atop the neat square of shortbread lining the plate bottom. A wooden spatula crushed it flat at once. The spatula worked the mountain this way and that, spreading it wide until at last it was squared off to match the shortbread layer beneath—edges and angles perfectly aligned.
As a dessert, the process looked almost too simple. Yet the flavor promised to be exceptional. The shortbread, having drunk in that black liquid—nutty like roasted beans and nuts, yet carrying a seductive, elegant fragrance—would still offer texture while remaining soft. The bitterness from the near-scorching roast would be veiled by the rich cream cheese, reduced to little more than a quiet counter to the butter’s greasiness.
But the hands at work did not stop. Plenty of shortbread remained. The first steps repeated once more. Shortbread cookies that had finished their brief half-bath in the black liquid, now stained light brown, were laid without a gap over the cream cheese like a new geological stratum. Then came another mountain, just as before—only this time not cream cheese, but thick, heavy cream. Heavy cream made even denser by melted butter cooled into it piled high and was crushed without mercy, smoothed square and even to match the layer below.
Simple, yet finished with delicate hands. The taste would already be superb like this. One final step remained. Over the pure white heavy-cream layer crowning the four strata, a deep-brown powder fell like a sudden heavy snow. Finer and softer than any snowfall—ground as fine as dust itself—the deep-brown dried alraune powder blanketed the heavy cream thickly, covering the white snowfield without a single gap.
"Hmm. Looks like you’ve brought another thing I’ve never seen before."
"Using cookies in place of cake sponge… I’ve never heard of that."
"Well, nothing saying you can’t, right? People use cookies for pie crusts sometimes. Hey—!"
Slap. Catherine lightly swatted Gordon’s hand as it stretched toward the plate, then gave a small nod.
"But we’ve got a problem."
"A problem?"
"That’s right." Catherine uncrossed her arms and propped her chin lightly on one hand. "I distinctly told you to leave the butter out this time."
"Because you’ve been eating far too richly these past few days."
"Yes. And yet—" She took her hand from her chin and pointed at the plate. "What is this? Isn’t that shortbread?"
"It isn’t only in there. It’s in the cream as well."
"What? In the whipped cream?"
"Heavy cream specially made with extra butter."
Karem spoke while clearing the jar of shortbread cookies from the table.
"Hold on—my order included cheese."
"It’s in there, isn’t it?"
"Huh? Where?"
"The second layer is cream cheese."
At Karem’s explanation Gordon went, "Oh," and lowered his arm.
"Whipped cream with extra butter added. Heavy cream. A weighty name that lands as heavily as it sounds. I could barely hold myself back."
Mary, expressionless, put the spatula away without the slightest tell—yet looking closer, her pupils were faintly trembling.
"You say that, but your reaction doesn’t look any different from usual."
"It’s thanks to this unique, elegant scent—and the butter fragrance that hits you directly."
"Ah, right. That…" Catherine pointed at the plate again with a finger, then hesitated. "What… what did you say this dessert was called?"
"Tiramisu."
"Hmm. Judging by the sound, is that Servianus? Kid, when did you learn Servianus?"
"When a certain someone lightened my workload." Karem shrugged, smoothly draping present-life knowledge over his previous life’s information. "I studied a few plausible phrases while I was at it."
Catherine murmured "tiramisu" a few times in varying ways before settling on a conclusion.
"Tirare mi su. A shortened way of saying ‘it lifts the spirits.’"
"Once you taste it, your mood will lift all by itself."
"Hmmm. There’s still one thing that bothers me, though."
Catherine narrowed her eyes and wordlessly held out a hand to Mary. Mary grasped her intent at once and passed over the pouch they had brought along. Catherine’s fingers opened it.
A scent similar to roasted beans—nuttier, deeper, more refined. Along with it, deep-brown crumbs nearly black in color came into view.
"…Alraune stems and leaves?"
"Yes. I got them from the kitchen."
"…You’ve processed them. Eating them like this shouldn’t cause trouble, but… doesn’t it feel a bit… off?"
Catherine pinched a deep-brown crumb from the pouch. Anything edible that touched her hand met a predictable fate: life and moisture drained away until it shriveled black and crumbled into formless ash under her curse. Yet these did not crumble. The dried alraune stem and leaf crumbs remained perfectly intact.
Of course they did. Because they were not food. They counted as magical materials. For now, at least.
"…Among magical materials, this isn’t one that causes problems when eaten."
"Hold on, Mage. So that really is the alraune stuff?"
"It is. Not the most commonly used material, but yes. Still—using something like this as a fragrance…"
"No, wait, that’s—huh?"
Just as Gordon started to protest in disbelief, he tilted his head. Come to think of it, this wasn’t without precedent. The Red Witch’s Finger he had once believed was pure poison had become an indispensable staple at the table. Grizzly Beaver castoreum was the same. Who was responsible for Grizzly Beaver vanilla sweeping Coldon among young and old, men and women alike right now?
Yes—thinking of it that way, he felt strangely more at ease. Raw, it was deadly poison; he knew that well enough, having used it himself. But once processed, the toxicity vanished. And if eating it caused no particular trouble… then wasn’t it fine to eat?
"…So when do we get to eat it?"
"You’ll have to wait a little longer over there."
"What now? Something else to sprinkle on? Another former monster venom?"
"No. You’ve been eating so much that I have to prepare a separate portion."
"Ah."
While Karem and Gordon bickered, Catherine finished her preparations. Mary set the entire plate of tiramisu down in front of her mistress as she adjusted her attire.
"This… is making me a little excited."
Catherine was mildly thrilled. Outwardly, of course, she showed little of it. Cakes were meant to be portioned slice by slice onto plates. Devouring an entire pan was the height of inelegance. Eating a whole cake by oneself—how could anyone do something so undignified?
Yet undignified acts sometimes stirred a person’s deepest fantasies. The dream of sitting alone before an entire cake and finishing every last bite was a secret longing almost every woman had harbored at least once, regardless of age or station. It was the counterpart to a man’s fantasy of tearing into a giant spit-roast by himself—a taboo overflowing with romance.
Granted, compared to a normal cake, the tiramisu was small. But a whole pan was still a whole pan. It was more than enough to kindle the fantasy.
"I’ll eat it right away."
No sooner had the words left Catherine’s mouth than Mary’s fork moved.
Sliiiip.
The fork aimed for one corner of the tiramisu, sank gently through the pure-white heavy cream blanketed in deep-brown alraune powder, and reached the bottom in an instant. Shortbread was a dense cookie, yet so thoroughly soaked that it offered no more resistance than a sandcastle after rain. No—thanks to the moisture from cream cheese and heavy cream, even less.
Heavy cream, cream cheese, shortbread. And the black liquid steeped from dried alraune crumbs, plus the powder itself. That last part was a little unsettling, yet Mary felt no revulsion. Everything else was something she adored. More than that—two things. The precedent of Grizzly Beaver vanilla, and the mellow fragrance of the dried alraune crumbs, sent her curiosity soaring.
No. Not now, Mary. Later.
Mary took a small breath and fed Catherine the tiramisu.
Hahp.
The first thing Catherine registered was an intense bitterness. Yet the shortbread that followed kept it from lasting. The powerful butter richness and the nutty, moist cookie softened the bitterness, leaving the dried alraune’s uniquely captivating, seductive aroma lingering gently in her mouth.
She barely needed to chew. The two layers of moist shortbread, the strata of heavy cream and cream cheese—everything collapsed in an instant. Simply moving her tongue was enough. Then the similar-yet-different heavy cream, its cream flavor made weightier by the added butter, mingled with the dense cream cheese that carried the taste of milk and cheese, taming the bitterness further.
But cream was cream and cheese was cheese. Just as the layered greasiness of cream cheese already rich on its own, made even richer by butter-laden heavy cream, threatened to overwhelm her, the bitterness rose again. Not a harsh, brow-furrowing bitterness. The savory depth of roasted nuts. The scent of beans toasted to the edge of burning. A soft bitterness like concentrated shelled nuts.
No description could truly capture it. In that moment Catherine could not savor it longer and simply swallowed. When her mouth emptied and she parted her lips in lingering regret—
"…Hah!"
The scent. Smell was the most vital element of taste—the organ that perceived and amplified every sensation beyond sweet, bitter, sour, and salty. The so-called taste receptors. The addictive bitterness that had lingered to the end melted away like snow, and as outside air rushed in, the fragrance that had been held captive inside her mouth exploded.
It was on an entirely different plane from simply eating or smelling. A denser, more captivating aroma swept not only through her mouth but through her entire inner body along the direct pathways. She had already swallowed the tiramisu, yet the rapturous fragrance and faint bitterness that remained coaxed saliva to pool.
Mary sensed exactly what Catherine wanted. Without a word she moved the fork. Catherine had already tasted it once, yet she found no composure. More precisely, her tongue did not. The thick aftertaste left in her mouth urged her body to feel that sensation again, only to be restrained by Catherine’s reason.
No need to rush. There’s still plenty.
But when a generously cut piece of tiramisu approached her lips, Catherine could hold back no longer and ate it swiftly. Over senses already opened wider, the fragrance of cream heavy with butter and the deep, seductive aroma of a near-scorching roast exploded once more. The shortbread crumbled softly, lifting the cream cheese and heavy cream above it another level, and every time greasiness threatened, the bitterness intervened without fail and washed it clean.
"Th-this… I almost feel guilty telling you to wait until I’ve finished."
"Contractor?"
"I can’t. You eat some right now too."
"In that case I won’t refuse…!"
At those words light flared in Mary’s eyes as she moved her fork like a beast.
"No—wait!"
"What is it, Contractor? You already released the reins on the beast I was holding back. I will not stop."
"Not what I was eating. Prepare your own portion separately."
"Ah."
Mary, with a shameless calm that made her earlier reaction seem like nothing, quietly lowered her fork and took out a fresh plate.
— Tiramisu —
This is a picture drawn by ChatGPT.