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Post by Portia Bianca Rosalind Cutty on Jun 10, 2010 19:23:29 GMT -5
It was a Friday morning, mid October, and the cooking classroom was set up for the latest lesson. A large basket was set on the front counter, filled with ripe, red -and, if a student checked, chilled- apples. Each student workset had a stock of popsicle sticks and a package of caramel. On the board, Cutty had written: Caramel Apples
For Six Caramel Apples
6 apples 14 oz caramel 2 Tb milk
Prepare apples by removing stems and inserting popsicle stick. Butter baking sheet.
Heat caramel and milk until soft, mix thoroughly. Allow to cool.
Roll apples in caramel sauce until coated, place on sheet to set.
The headmistress went and sat down as she waited for her students to enter.
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 10, 2010 20:48:13 GMT -5
Mellianne entered the room and took her customary spot at the front of the room. Waiting for class to start, she started to tap her fingers on the workstation counter.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 11, 2010 14:11:58 GMT -5
Aurora had many uncanny abilities besides the obvious ones: one of them was sensing the presence of sweets. She wandered into the class soon after Mellianne, not knowing exactly why.
"Ooh, caramel," she mumbled as she took a seat.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 11, 2010 18:58:25 GMT -5
Ada walked in comfortably before the start of class, and took a seat next to Mellianne.
"Cooking," she said happily to nobody in particular. "It's chemistry for hungry people!"
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 11, 2010 19:03:36 GMT -5
"Camistry... does that have to do with taking pictures?" It did sound like 'camera' afterall.
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 11, 2010 19:14:07 GMT -5
Mellianne smiled at Aurora. "It's pronounced 'kem-uh-stree.' Basically chemistry is a science about how the entire universe is put together, using elements. It's more complicated than that, but I'm not a genius and haven't had chemistry ever."
Turning to Ada, she added. "And I would agree, somewhat."
((you think for a chem major, I could actually describe chemistry...))
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Post by Portia Bianca Rosalind Cutty on Jun 13, 2010 21:22:16 GMT -5
"Good morning," she began. "Today we will be making candy apples." She smiled. "I thought it would be a nice treat to learn how to make, after last week's lessons over casseroles. Everyone will be making six candy apples, and you're all welcome to take them with you after class, or to come pick them up later."
She pulled on an sky blue apron and rolled her sleeves up. "You might want to be careful with the caramel, because it is sticky. We'll be using the microwaves today to heat the caramel sauce up. Thankfully, the instructions are quite easy to follow, so this should be no problem for anyone."
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 13, 2010 21:43:29 GMT -5
Mellianne checked to make sure her hair was properly tied back and made sure her shirt was tucked in so it would be harder to drip something on it. Turning to Ada, she asked, "Have you ever made candy apples before?" hoping to not be the only one new to this particular treat, as the cook at home usually only made meals, and not sweets.
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jun 13, 2010 21:49:41 GMT -5
Destiny tiptoed into the classroom. The class had apparently started already; and while she was used to having teachers stare daggers at her for her tardiness, she thought she might just be able to sneak in, if she was quiet enough, without being noticed.
This would have worked just fine, had the strap of Desi's pink overalls not caught on the hooked handle of a gravy ladle which lay on the supply shelves, the ladle end of which was under the lip of the bottom-most of a neat stack of saucepans.
Predictably, the gravy ladle toppled the saucepans, the saucepans upset the frying pans, and the frying pans clattered onto the floor amidst a shower of blue plastic cookie cutters.
Desi stood in the middle of the mess, eyes wide, and squeaked, "Umm... Sorry?"
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 13, 2010 21:57:20 GMT -5
"No, I hav-" Ada started, before the burst of noise from the back of the room.
"Desi!" Ada said, surprised. "Are you OK?"
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Post by Portia Bianca Rosalind Cutty on Jun 13, 2010 21:57:47 GMT -5
"Good morning, I'm glad to see you decided to join us, Miss Everett." There was not a bit of rancor or annoyance in the headmistress' voice. "Please put all of that away- in the sink, not back on the shelves, they'll need to be cleaned, and find a place by one of the counters."
She looked at the rest of the students. "Does anyone have any questions before we begin?"
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jun 13, 2010 22:01:37 GMT -5
"I'm fine," Desi said, blushing fiercely and busying herself in gathering up the scattered cooking implements. Of course. Whenever she wanted to be quiet, she always ended up doing something like this.
The light plastic cookie cutters had scattered under the benches all over the classroom; she was probably going to have to crawl around to track them all down. She sighed and got to work.
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 13, 2010 22:15:32 GMT -5
Mellianne winced when all the pans fell down. She spared a quick glance at the back of the room, but quickly turned back to the front after she saw that Desi was alright.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 14, 2010 3:03:35 GMT -5
"Hmm.." Aurora tried to imitate Mellianne's hair tying, since her own hair was so volumous and wild. Small metal threads extended from nowhere to tie her hair into an elaborate braided ponytail. She added some lights for good measure. Lights were always good.
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Post by Portia Bianca Rosalind Cutty on Jun 16, 2010 18:42:40 GMT -5
"No questions, then." Cutty smiled, and took a few of the apples over to her counter.
"Now, the apples are chilled to help the caramel set. Right now, we're going to push these crafting sticks into the top after we remove the stem." She demonstrated.
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 16, 2010 18:45:24 GMT -5
Mellianne watched closely to make sure she could remember how to make the caramel apples correctly later. She really hoped that she wouldn't mess anything up.
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Post by Destiny Valencia Everett on Jun 17, 2010 0:09:43 GMT -5
After dumping her last armful of cooking paraphernalia into the sink, Destiny went to work with apples and popsicle sticks. The first stick went nearly through the apple when she pushed too hard, but the next few seemed to work well enough. She waited expectantly for the next set of instructions, not noticing that her hair ribbon had fallen to the floor and her braid was unbraiding itself, showing just a little more animation than hair ought to have.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 17, 2010 0:16:42 GMT -5
Aurora proved to be particularly adept at such simple motor-driven tasks, and managed to complete the steps with almost the same level of grace that Professor Cutty did.
Having completed the task faster than her peers, her eyes started to wander and she soon noticed Destiny's hair. Her head inclined slightly in interest as she watched things unfold.
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Post by Portia Bianca Rosalind Cutty on Jun 27, 2010 2:21:42 GMT -5
"We'll also want to butter the baking sheet. This is to prevent the caramel from sticking to it later on while it sets." Cutty showed her already buttered sheet, just as she put the bowl of unwrapped caramels and a tablespoon of milk into the microwave behind her and set it to heat.
"Once we have that taken care of, we need to heat the caramel and milk to soften the caramel so we will be able to mix it together. We'll be cheating a bit today by using the microwaves to heat it up; half a minute or so should do just well. Please make sure to unwrap the caramel cubes. I'm sure no one in here would like to try a plastic and caramel coated apple."
When the microwave behind her beeped, Cutty removed the bowl and took one of the mixing spoons and began to mix its contents properly. "After you've heated the caramel and milk, make sure to mix it evenly."
She picked up one of the apples that had been be-sticked. "Finally, the messy part. We're going to coat the apples in the caramel sauce, making sure we don't get anything else coated, and set them on the baking sheet as we go."
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Post by Mellianne Joss on Jun 27, 2010 10:17:44 GMT -5
Mellianne careful followed the instructions. Even if she wasn't a big sweets eater, she did not want to mess this up. As she was doing this carefully, she was a little slow, but eventually she had all six apples on her cookie sheet.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 27, 2010 17:46:11 GMT -5
Aurora stacked the caramel a bit thick on the first four apples, leaving little for the last two. She frowned, not at the lack of her foresight, but that they obviously weren't given enough caramel.
She raised her hand, "Miss Cutty, I don't think I got enough ingredients."
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