fandomhighdorms | Fifth Floor Common Room, Saturday Afternoon

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Fifth Floor Common Room, Saturday Afternoon

Tomorrow was Valentines Day. That meant that today Ringo was going to do something that she'd never had a chance to do before: make Valentines chocolates. After all, TV and movies back home made it very clear that this was an important activity for high school girls to undertake.

Ringo knew that she wasn't some expert cook or anything, but she didn't want to just make the easiest recipe she could find, so she had come up with a brilliant plan. She had found four or five different recipes and figured that she'd be able to make at least one of them with some amount of success. Which meant that she had tons and tons of extra ingredients. Given that those ingredients involved a lot of chocolate, she was also, er, sampling them as she went.

She was frowning at the screen of her phone as she read one of her recipes again. "What, exactly is a simmer?" she muttered. Because the recipe implied that if she didn't get the cream to precisely a 'simmer', she'd ruin everything.

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Kathy had wandered in to make herself a sandwich or three, but hunger was forgotten with a show in the offing. She'd stayed quiet, watching Ringo putter around in the kitchen, eating chocolate and mumbling to herself.

Finally, she couldn't stay quiet any longer. "It's the point right below a boil," she said from behind Ringo.

Ringo jumped in surprise, and spun around.

"Then why don't they just say that?" she groused, turning back to the stove and staring at the saucepan.

"They did," Kathy said, amused, and sauntered over to the fridge. "They used the word 'simmer.' That's what it means."

"Fine, Miss Walking Dictionary." Sick burn, Ringo. Real sick burn.

"Want to walk me through these other recipes, too?" Hopefully at least one or two would come out well.

"Hey, when I played Scrabble with my sister, we had a rule that you had to be able to define a word to use it," Kathy said, not looking particularly chuffed to have been so grievously insulted. "Also, I cook, remember? Simmer is a pretty standard cooking term."

Looking up from where she was spreading mayo over a slice of rye bread she added, "I've never made chocolates before. Just so you know. But I'm game to try."

"Neither have I," Ringo admitted with a little laugh. "I mean, I know you're supposed to, if you're a girl, but I never had time before."

She grinned. "Besides, you're the one who told me it was easy, so you better be able to figure this stuff out."

"But! You can't actually do the cooking stuff. That would be cheating."

"On the plus side?" Kathy said, giving Ringo a wink, "this is America, so no one will blink twice if you don't get make chocolates. That tradition hasn't crossed over yet." So no pressure! "Let me make my sandwich and look over the recipes? Show me what you've got so far."

"Well, I want to do it. It's part of being a normal high school girl, right?" Well, if Japanese TV was anything to go by.

"And I was going to start with these truffles because they seemed the most complicated."

Kathy was layering on her third choice of lunchmeat. This sandwich was going to be truly epic by the time she ate it.

"Ooooh, truffles." So, good job choosing quality treats, Ringo. "So, you've got the cream in a saucepan, right? What level is the stovetop on? It should probably be around the medium setting. If you heat milk too fast, it'll scald and you'll end up burning it. Or it'll boil over. It's better to go slow than too fast in cooking."

"Medium is what the recipe said." At least it had had that in there.

"But I just turned it on, so," Ringo squinted, "it'll be a while yet?" Because, yeah, she had no idea how long it was supposed to take to simmer cream.

"Good, then I'll have time to finish my sandwich," Kathy said, adding the proper ratio of tomatoes to pickles to lettuce.

Look, a proper sandwich took care. Just ask Eliot.

"So, you're making truffles. What else? And if I'm helping, I get to claim some to hand out, right?"

"I ordered some molds on the internet, and I was going to try this recipe for layered chocolates?" Calling it a 'recipe' was being generous. As, mostly, it was just "melt different kinds of chocolate, pour them into the mold in layers".

"And there's this cookie recipe that's mostly chocolate?"

"Okay, protip from the girl who uses highlighters to organize her schedule?" Kathy said, neatly returning everything to the fridge. "Always start with the easy thing and then work your way to the hard stuff. It's faster, you end up having more motivation, and you don't have to worry about running out of time and not getting anything done."

She took the first bite of her sandwich and sighed, eyes closing in delight. Yup. This was one hell of a sandwich. Good job, her.

"So, we figure out which one's the easiest, do that, and then even if the others catch fire and burn, you still have something to hand out tomorrow."

Sorry, Kathy, Ringo only heard part of that. Because that really was an awesome sandwich, and watching Kathy eat it was making her hungry. Really, Kathy, you should have made two of them!

Then what the other girl had been saying sort of registered. "Wait, so I shouldn't have done the truffles first?" Actually, that was probably right. She should have started by making a sandwich.

Well, at least there was some chocolate to nom on for the moment.

Kathy had thought about making two--but she would have eaten them both. Look, she had a metabolism like a hummingbird. On crack.

"Keep that up and you won't have any chocolate left to cook," Kathy warned. "Also, you'll end up snacking on baking chocolate and you don't want that. It's pure."

"It's delicious," Ringo mumbled, mouth partially full of chocolate. "And isn't purer better?"

"Try it and see," Kathy offered wryly. "Far be it for me to deny you a learning experience."

"Spoilsport," Ringo accused. Not a very effective accusation, what with the giggle.

"Oh, oh, is this a simmer?" Ringo asked, having remembered to look away from Kathy's sandwich to the saucepan.

"You're the spoilsport," Kathy retorted. "I was really hoping to see you try the Baker's Chocolate."

She glanced over to the pot and shook her head. "Not quite. Give it about another..." she frowned, then guestimated, "...minute and a half? The tiny bubbles need to be a little more frequent. What's the next step after bringing the cream to a simmer? You'll want to do that immediately, or the cream will come to a boil while you figure it out, or it'll cool off. Neither's good for your chocolate."

"Um." Ringo scrambled and looked down at her phone again. "Um, stir in the sugar until it's smooth, then turn down the heat and mix in the butter and chocolate?"

"Okay, tip number two," Kathy said. "Print out your recipes. This way you can mark it up, make notes, stick it somewhere it's safe, get it dirty without fear, and not have to worry about a phone call coming in while you're in the middle of measuring something out."

Efficiency, thy name was Kathy.

She finished up her sandwich, pulled her hair back, and then washed her hands. "Okay, Kathy Li reporting for KP! How much sugar do you need? How much butter? How much chocolate? Does the butter have to be softened or melted or anything?"

"Print them?" Ringo was frowning. "With, like, a printer?" Who even had those anymore?

She glanced at her phone. "Um, I used twice as much cream, so I guess double the sugar and butter from this recipe?" She frowned at it. "Which is at least in grams." Oh, that reminded her. "I couldn't find a kitchen scale, though."

Probably should have done that before you started, Ringo.

Kathy did. Obviously.

"Oh Ringo," Kathy said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Recipes are not the time to be haphazard. Yes, if you doubled the cream, you need to double everything. Get out the sugar now, so you can begin to stir it in as soon as the cream--the cream is simmering now."

She was starting to see why Ringo had such trouble with cooking.

"Hey, that's why I got extra ingredients. I knew I'd mess up a couple of things along the way."

Which, was actually pretty good planning. For Ringo.

"And to make up for the amount of chocolate you ate beforehand," Kathy teased. "Okay, this is what we're going to do, huh? Turn down that cream to low--it should stay close to simmering without it boiling over. Then email me your recipes and I'll print a few copies out and translate from metric to Imperial. I know you understand metric better, but without a scale, all the units will be in Imperial."

Don't worry, Ringo. This could still work.

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