[XOTM] XOTM: Nilla

Nilla woke up with a start at the sound of her alarm ringing. 

It was early in the morning, the sun barely rising over the horizon and the cream colored xero let out a tired yawn and stretched out her stiff limbs before finally rising from her bed, letting out a pleased hum while starting to get ready for the day ahead of her. 

The female left her home as early as she could, heading towards the bakery she owned. Normally she left earlier than this, wanting to get everything ready before opening time but she wasn’t worried for once about being late and having to delay. She had left a sign almost a week ago to announce that the shop would be unavailable for the day due to it being the one day of the month where she would be experimenting with new recipes once again. She normally took a day or two each month to bake something new, offering a couple of spots for some of her clients or friends to be the taste testers for her experiments since she didn’t want to spend too many ingredients, especially rare or too expensive ones when her experiments might not work out. 

Nilla made a stop at the market on the way, grabbing some fruits and produce along with some extra flour, butter, eggs and even some cocoa powder just in case she ended up needing it.

The light brown colored xero left the market and started humming a light melody while on her way to the bakery. She cheerfully grabbed her key and inserted it into the keyhole, twisting to open the door and once inside, placed the ingredients on the counter and washed her hands thoroughly, drying them up with a towel and taking everything out to think about what to try out first. Nilla was just about to start washing the fruit and produce she got when she heard the ringing of the bell above the door that signified the entrance of someone into the building. 

With a smile and a humming sound, Nilla greeted the few clients she had chosen for this month and told them that she was starting up with a new cupcake recipe which used some lantern fruit and hake nuts along with a bit of cinnamon and prickly polysa sugar to sweeten it all up. She had thought about this back during the Twilight Carnival season but due to the high demand of the produce and how very little time she had available during the festival, had been unable to experiment with the idea until now. She quickly finished cleaning everything up and started cutting up the hake nuts into very small pieces, placing the lantern fruit into a blender and turning it up, wanting the fruit to be properly blended and strained before she added them to her mix of flour, cinnamon and prickly polysa sugar. When everything was mixed up, she placed the mixture into her mold and placed it into the oven, getting ready to make another idea she had some time ago, wanting to see if she could perhaps use some affocato and sweetsap pod milk to create a new cookie recipe that kept the bitter flavor of the caffeinated produce without it being too overpowering. With a nod and smile to herself and her thoughts, Nilla got back to work, overjoyed to finally have a day to work on her creations after such tiring months without much free time to play around and do what she loved.