Today, let’s talk about the Tom & Jerry Cheesecake–what we are famous for! It’s a magical pastry we created after years of effort and is one of the most popular items we have for a reason. It’s a bit tricky to make those (I cannot share with you all the secrets!), but our bakers seemed to be getting used to the recipe quite quickly.
Of course, except one of them–and you know who I am talking about.
Tom & Jerry Cheesecake is one of the first recipes we teach to our new bakers. It is because we sell a lot of them. Our baker J has been around us since February, so he has had plenty of chances to get used to them. But sadly, he was a genius for making mistakes whenever he touched the cake.
It is common for us in the Wicked Cafe to see him open the oven and grab his hair in distress. Whenever that happens, everybody says, “Oh, it seems that J screwed up the T&J again!” In most cases, the cake would explode (yes, he CAN explode cakes). They eventually look miserable, as if they are the remainder of a nuclear test.
I’m not even a baker, so it is a bit of a mystery why he fails so many times to bake the Tom & Jerry Cheesecake when I never have an issue crafting perfect-looking cakes every time. My boss even told him to learn from me (a latte artist) how to bake Tom & Jerry Cheesecake.
It would not be a problem if he was only bad at baking the Tom & Jerry Cheesecake. Sadly, he has issues making them as well. There are several ingredients in our recipe for the Cheesecake. But those are straightforward and difficult to miss (if you are a careful baker, unlike J).
Of course, J tends to miss out on something, even when he literally memorized the recipes. In fact, I did try asking him for the recipe, and he could answer right away. He is aware of the high possibility of his potential mistakes, so he always looks at the recipe binder he memorized. Sadly, that does not help–and the mix ends up weird.
As a last resort, the boss told the bakers that they should not let J ever touch the Tom & Jerry Cheesecake until he proved to be better than before. That is why you will not see Tom & Jerry Cheesecake made by J at the Wicked Cafe at West Point Gray. But one day, one day, you will see (hopefully).