When Anakin had said that he wanted to do something nice for Senator Amidala's birthday, Ahsoka had thought Anakin meant get her a present or send her a holo-card or something along those lines. But then again, this was her master Ahsoka was thinking about, and as suave and discreet Anakin Skywalker tried to be, Ahsoka knew—and should have known, if she was being perfectly honest with herself—that of course, Senator Amidala's birthday was very particularly important to Anakin.

Which was why Ahsoka was standing in the kitchen with Anakin and Obi-Wan, trying very extremely hard not to scream because they had been arguing for nearly forty minutes, and they still hadn't gotten started on the surprise cake that they were supposed to make.

Ahsoka wasn't even sure why they had started fighting. She was pretty sure the argument had started with using a kitchen scale versus measuring cups and spoons, and then something about using a square versus circle pan, and now—

"Don't compare cooking to baking, Master—we both know you don't know how to cook."

"That is not the point—"

"Then why are you—"

"Masters?" Ahsoka asked, trying (and miserably failing) to keep her voice even. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan turned to her, their expressions melting from annoyance to sheepish surprise, as though they had forgotten that she had been standing behind them this whole time. Ahsoka decided to feel insulted by this at a later time. "I know that we want this cake to be perfect," she said, "but wouldn't it be easier if we just…started?"

"Because at this rate," Ahsoka added, glancing meaningfully at the chronometer, "there won't be a cake for Senator Amidala."

Ahsoka didn't know whether to laugh or groan at the way both Anakin and Obi-Wan startled at the time.

"Quite right," Obi-Wan said after an embarrassed silence. (An embarrassed silence from Anakin and Obi-Wan, not from Ahsoka.) "Thank you for reminding us, Ahsoka."

"How long have we been…" Anakin's voice drifted at Ahsoka's expression. "You know what, I don't want to know."

"Forty two minutes and thirty seven seconds," Ahsoka deadpanned, opening the cupboard for the cake flour.

"I said I didn't want to know!"

"And you also said that we would be done with the cake like that," Ahsoka said, snapping her fingers behind herself. She dragged out the cake flour and thumped it down against the counter, sending up a thin cloud of white. In just another few movements, she was taking out the salt, sugars, and baking powder.

The banging and clanging behind Ahsoka told her that Anakin and Obi-Wan were finally taking out the bowls and pans.

Sure enough, when Ahsoka turned around, Obi-Wan was organizing the baking equipment, and Anakin was dragging out the butter, eggs, and buttermilk from the fridge.

"Can you get some more bowls?" Anakin asked, pushing the ingredients towards Obi-Wan. "We need these at room temp. Just stick it in the microwave for a few seconds. The butter, not the eggs. You'll have to—"

"I know, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, sounding more amused than annoyed. He peeled the paper away from the sticks of butter, dunked them into a small bowl. He pushed the greasy papers aside and stuck the bowl in the microwave. "How many seconds?"

"I thought you know."

"Anakin."

"Thirty seconds."

Ahsoka caught Obi-Wan's slight eye roll, and despite her own annoyance just a few seconds ago, she couldn't help but laugh a little. She didn't know that Obi-Wan was bad at cooking, but now that she actually thought of it, Anakin always seemed intent on shooing Obi-Wan out of the kitchen. Ahsoka wondered then exactly how many times her master must have been victim to Obi-Wan's concoctions.

But Obi-Wan seemed to be doing fine with the baking preparation, at least. He was running the bowl of eggs under warm water now, looking almost relaxed.

When the microwave beeped, Ahsoka took it to herself to taking the butter out. She looked down at the sticks, and a moment later, she felt Anakin hovering by her side.

"That's good enough," he said.

"How can you tell?" Ahsoka asked, turning to follow him back to the counter.

"I'm an expert."

"Clearly," Ahsoka said dryly, watching Anakin tear open the bags of sugar. But her master didn't catch her sarcasm, and so Ahsoka just dumped the butter into the medium bowl Anakin pushed in front of her. As soon as she did, Anakin was tugging forward the kitchen scale.

Ahsoka watched as her master measured out portions of white sugar, then brown sugar, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

"Whisk," Anakin said, and Ahsoka passed the little device to Anakin's open palm. Ahsoka was briefly reminded of their time in the hanger—only instead of under a starfighter, they were hovering under the fluorescent kitchen lights. "Can you get the flour ready?"

"Are you sure you can trust me to not goof up your perfect cake?"

Anakin lifted his head and looked at Ahsoka.

"Just kidding," Ahsoka said hastily, reaching for the bag of flour. She set another bowl on the kitchen scale and scooped out some flour. Her hand was instantly streaked white, and she wiped it against her leggings, which was a mistake, because now her leggings were a little white too.

"Okay, so now you just have to separate the egg whites from the yolks—"

"I know, Anakin—"

Ahsoka looked up to find Anakin and Obi-Wan hovering the bowl of sugar and butter, Obi-Wan with eggs in hand. There was a sharp crack, and Obi-Wan dumped an egg into Anakin's bowl. Another crack, another egg.

And then Obi-Wan pulled away a little, and Ahsoka could see now that he had yet another bowl—there was going to be so much dish washing—only this time to catch the mucus-y egg whites.

"Don't get the shell in there," Anakin said.

"If you were half as careful with your lightsaber as you were with this cake—"

"Okay, okay, okay—can you get the vanilla?"

"Do you need the flour mix now?" Ahsoka asked, eventually deciding to come to Obi-Wan and Anakin's rescue. She wasn't sure which one of them needed the rescue more. She held up the bowl of the mixed dry ingredients.

"Buttermilk too," Anakin said, nodding to the end of the counter.

Ahsoka picked up the bottle and pried it open. She took a quick sniff and grimaced. "Why does it smell like that?"

"Smell like what?" Anakin asked, picking up his head from the bowl.

Ahsoka pushed the buttermilk towards Anakin. He picked it up, took a quick whiff, and shrugged. "That's what it's supposed to smell like," he replied, grabbing a measuring cup.

"Why?"

"Bacteria. Now stop hanging around there, come over here."

Ahsoka scooted herself closer to the bacteria-buttermilk. "Okay," she said, looking down at the now much-thicker mixture in Anakin's bowl. "Just tell me when."

"Don't dump it all in," Anakin said, handing the measuring cup of buttermilk to Obi-Wan.

"We know," Obi-Wan and Ahsoka said in unison.

Anakin only let out a huff of a laugh before nodding at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan alternated between dumping in the flour and buttermilk, and only once did Ahsoka accidentally spill some flour over Anakin's sleeve. He flicked the flour dust to Ahsoka and Obi-Wan instead, and Ahsoka considered dumping some of the bagged flour over Anakin's head, but she decided she would save that for another day.

"Okay," Anakin said, finally dropping the whisk. "Chocolate."

Obi-Wan obligingly scooted the chocolate over to Anakin, who snapped the pieces into a bowl before sticking it in a microwave. Melting the chocolate took longer than any of them liked—the kitchen now smelled much more pleasant, but they all had to keep stirring the chocolate around until it was just the right consistency of melted.

They split some of the original cake batter to yet another bowl, and then Anakin entrusted mixing the chocolate with the new cake batter to Obi-Wan. In the meantime, Ahsoka dragged out the pans from the oven.

"Use the butter paper," Obi-Wan said, not looking up from his bowl. "To grease the pans."

"How'd you know that?" Anakin asked almost defensively.

"You act like I haven't at least tried to bake before," Obi-Wan said.

"Right—try being the operative word?"

"Ahsoka, are you—"

"Yes, Master Kenobi," Ahsoka said, wiping the pans with the butter paper. "And don't be mean, Master. I'm sure Master Kenobi's attempts were fine."

"He burned down the kitchen once."

"I did not—"

"There was a flame—"

"Yes, and you've never—"

"The smoke alarm went off—"

Ahsoka interrupted them both by nabbing the bowls out of their hands. She poured the original cake mixture in first, and then she dumped the chocolate cake mixture on top. She heard both Anakin and Obi-Wan start to say something, but Ahsoka didn't so much as look at them as she used a knife to swirl the chocolate and the vanilla cake batter together.

"That's what it's supposed to look like, right?" Ahsoka asked, already knowing that she was right. She looked up at Anakin and Obi-Wan. "Marble?"

They at least had the courtesy to look a little apologetic as they nodded.

"Wonderful," Ahsoka said, scooting the pans into the preheated oven. She closed the oven door and, wiping her hands on her leggings, she asked, "Can we not take forty minutes deciding the right way to wash dishes?"

"I think that can be settled," Obi-Wan said.

"I call drying."

"Anakin."

(And Ahsoka did manage to throw some flour at Anakin. And Anakin managed to throw some flour at Obi-Wan. And they all somehow managed to make themselves presentable when delivering Senator Amidala the cake later.)

(Senator Amidala said that the cake was the best she ever had.)

A/N: I think this is the first kind of dumb, mindlessly fluffy fic that I've written in a hot second, so um. Here we are! (Also, I just love baking a lot. If anyone really loves baking, I highly recommend checking out Sally's Baking Addiction and Handle the Heat for some top-tier recipes, because *chef's kiss*)

As always, reviews/favorites are greatly appreciated!