Pinkie Pie has a problem.
Pinkie's a very skilled baker. But, officially, she's only an apprentice baker. She's not legally qualified to do anything more than help out the Cakes and work in their store. If she's ever going to run her own business, she's got to become a fully-fledged master baker. But to do that, she's got to cook a certain dish. One single masterpiece pastry, to prove she's skilled enough to make it on her own.
The dish in question? A souffle. Just a plain, ordinary souffle.
The problem? Pinkie hates souffles... and they seem to hate her right back.
Read it here
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Cerebus Retcon: The discussion about Flat Characters becomes a lot harsher in hindsight when later posts by the author, both chapters and blog posts, revealed that cutie marks can have literally addictive effects, overpowering the minds of their bearers until they can't define themselves by anything other than their mark. Especially when the various degrees of succumbing to the mark are Equestria's most common mental illness.
- Does Not Like Spam: Pinkie Pie dislikes lemon-flavored pastry and hates too much vanilla in anything.
- Flat Character: Discussed In-Universe. Cranky comments that a disappointingly large number of ponies allow themselves to be defined entirely by their cutie marks, getting involved only in things that relate to their special skill and otherwise being thought of as just their destined role - the Baker, the Builder, the Candlestick Maker. One of the things he admires about Pinkie is that she averts this, getting involved in all kinds of things that have absolutely nothing to do with her mark at all.
- Growing Up Sucks: The reason why Pinkie can't make a souffle. She subconsciously sabotaging her efforts because she's terrified that attaining the rank of master baker will force her to leave the Cakes' home, the only home and family that she's ever really had.
- Mythology Gag: In the Continuum, Pinkie's "hot sauce muffins" from the events of the first episode were the result of her being a little too upset to properly focus after a failed attempt to make her first ever souffle for Twilight's arrival in Ponyville.
- Nightmare Fuel: A downplayed-for-laughs In-Universe version; Pinkie Pie's opinion of the fact that Griffon bakers need to successfully make a meat pie for their masterpiece is that it sounds horrifying, not just because of the instinctively disgusting notion of cooking meat, but the fact that the would-be baker has to manage to cook both the meat filling and the pastry exterior without leaving either undercooked or overcooked. The prospect sounds so difficult that it's the one dish she imagines might actually be even worse than making a souffle.
