Second Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

[glacial_queen]

Cream? Check.

Milk? Check.

As many different types of chocolate as they could find? Check.

Enough other various toppings and ingredients to open up a grocery store? Check and double-check.

The second floor common room's kitchen had been transformed. Bowls filled with fruit, candy, chocolate pieces, and other various ingredients were strewn about the counter. Tiny bottles filled with lemon, vanilla, and peppermint extracts lined up like soldiers awaiting deployment. Every available surface in the fridge was filled with cartons of heavy cream and gallons of milk.

In the center of it all, whirring in self-important splendor, was the ice cream maker Ben had gotten for his birthday.

"This," Karla breathed as she glanced around the kitchen one more time, "is going to be epic."

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Ben looked up and beamed. "There's chocolate in it!" he added.

[endsthegame]

"I just had lunch," Ender informed the both of them. Proud of themselves or not, Ender would really rather stay far out of the path of stomach poisoning. "Sorry." Yes.

[glacial_queen]

"There's always room for ice cream!" Karla protested. "Especially ours. We might just put Chilly Boulder out of business. What should we call this flavor, Ben?"

The recipe had referred to it as 'French Vanilla.' But they'd improved on it!

...While still following the recipe, of course.

[momslilassassin]

"Chocolate coffee crunch?" Ben suggested.

With the whole coffee beans in it, it would certainly be crunchy...

[endsthegame]

"I also still have some coffee in a thermos in my backpack," Ender said, smoothly. It wasn't a lie, though it was an addiction for which Ben was definitely to blame. "Ice cream's still more Ben's thing."

[glacial_queen]

By this point in their friendship, Karla had realized she had about equal odds of teaching rocks to sing as she did convincing Ender to do something he didn't want to.

"More for me and Ben then," she decided. "Though, we'll be making more once this batch is done. You want to help?"

[momslilassassin]

"Please help," Ben said. "Karla tried to substitute kidney beans for vanilla beans."

That wasn't true, but it could have been.

[endsthegame]

There was a short pause. Ender sighed.

"I wouldn't even pretend to be a cook," he said, "But someone needs to save you two from yourselves. Scoot over."

At least he'd be able to keep them from forcing anything poisonous down anyone's throat.

[glacial_queen]

"Hey!" Karla protested, turning to poke Ben in the ribs. "I did not! I was too busy trying to figure out how many teaspoons of vanilla extract equaled a bean!"

By the time she was done with her calculations, they would have ended up using three bottles of extract and been drunk on the fumes alone.

[momslilassassin]

"It just easier to toss in a handful of coffee beans and figure it would all even out in the end," Ben added with a nod. He shoved the cookbook towards Ender. "You can pick the next flavor."

[endsthegame]

"It won't even out in the end," Ender said, with a slight sigh. He was absolutely hopeless with the book, frowning at it; even after several years at Fandom, his taste in cuisine still tended towards the terribly bland. "Cooking's like chemistry. Careful measurements."

[glacial_queen]

"We carefully measure them," Karla said, sneaking toffee bits out of one of the other bowls. "We made sure to only use the same number of coffee beans as the recipe called for vanilla ones."

And then just a few more because they looked so lonely, but that barely counted.

[momslilassassin]

"And a few extra because I think coffee beans are smaller than vanilla ones," Ben added helpfully. "Two coffee beans is just sad."

Ben would not be embarking upon a career in the culinary arts if Jedi-ing didn't work out.

[endsthegame]

"The two of you realise that all it takes is a different ingredient for natrium to become a pyrotechnic rather than a salt," Ender said, idly. He glanced at their available ingredients, and flicked through the book looking for something that matched.

[glacial_queen]

"What's natrium?" Karla asked, clearly focusing on the important part of Ender's comment. "And which ingredient turns it into a pyrotechnic?"

[momslilassassin]

Ben stuck his tongue out at Ender. "It's sodium," he said. "Half of the chemical compound that makes salt." He turned to Karla. "But I'm positive there's nothing we could do that will make salt explode."

He hoped.

[endsthegame]

"NaNO3, sodium nitrate, alias saltpeter," Ender said, unruffled. "Natrium plus nitrogen plus oxygen. Nitrogen is a compound found in, among other things, ammonia. Salt, on the other hand, is natrium plus chlorine."

He ran his fingers over the page. Strawberry. Did they have strawberries...?

[glacial_queen]

"So if we added salt to the liquid nitrogen we're gonna get, things could explode?" Karla asked Ben, eyes wide. "Cooooool."

Karla, that was not the appropriate response. Please try again.

"I mean, we'd be careful!"

She glanced at the page Ender was looking at. "Ooh, strawberries. Over there, on the table."

The table looked like some kind of fruit stand. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, pears, plums...Ender could take his pick.

[momslilassassin]

"Not cool," Ben said. "I like having a room to live in. Maybe we could try it outside instead..."

[endsthegame]

"Let's not," Ender said, even as he put the book away and went for the strawberries. "My point is that it's not a good idea to pick substitutes based on whether they sound remotely like the original thing. While I doubt anyone's stomach will explode, their tastebuds might."

[glacial_queen]

"Ender, we used coffee," Karla reminded. "Coffee, the symbol that the Darkness is kind and loves us all? We're not mixing saltpeter, ammonia, and chlorine."

Though that might explain what happened with Jaenelle spell. Hmmm.

"Cream and sugar and flavors. How reactive can they be?"

[momslilassassin]

"Depends on the flavors," Ben mumbled not quite to himself.

It was partially why he'd hidden the Tobasco sauce.

[endsthegame]

"Fairly," Ender said, shooting Karla a look that could best be qualified as very even. "Recipes exist because certain flavours don't blend well with others. I don't think making people vomit is really your goal, Karla, so I'd try to avoid the risk in the future."

[glacial_queen]

"The coffee beans were Ben's ideas," Karla said, justly chastened and a little sulky for it. "I was trying to figure out the bean-to-teaspoon ratio, remember?"

In this situation, she was in the clear! It was all those other times, however...

[momslilassassin]

"Coffee is good in ice cream," Ben replied with a little frown. "It's not like I reached for the broccoli."