"and we're stirring...we're stirring," Cris softly chanted as he stirred the mixture while Jasmine added first the 1/2 cupful of flour and then stirred some more while she added more.

As he continued to stir, he realized that unlike the beginning where it was easy to stir the dough around with his wooden spoon around and around inside the mixing bowl, it was now getting harder to do that, with every additional cupful of flour Jasmine added. The doughy texture was getting thicker and beginning to pull away from the sides.

"Um...Jasmine you mentioned about stirring until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl? Well I think it's doing that now," Cris raised up his wooden spoon to show her. "See it won't even stick to my fingers," Cris demonstrated as he wiped a clean finger along the inside of the bowl and tried scooping up a piece of the dough.

"I think it's time to spray that other bowl with cooking spray and pop the dough into that one," Cris suggested as he placed the bowl he was holding down on the worktable and reached out to pick up the can of cooking spray and began spraying the second bowl liberally with cooking spray.

"Would you like to do the honors?" Cris asked as he handed the bowl full of dough, over to Jasmine.

So water was first that should be the easy part. Everything else after that was up for debate.

And what in Merlin's saggy left.......oh it was Schuyler.

Merlin that was sneaky. Partner, what? No debate, no asking. Partners just like that. Amazing. Now he would actually have to do work besides laughing at his own screw ups. Which would take considerable less effort.

Sigh.

"Well i can't say no to that"

Since there was nothing to say no to."Okay" You know what they say when in the muggle world. Do as the muggles do or something like that. Probably wrong. But it sounded cool. So he took the two cups label 1 cup and 1/2 cup .Obvious enough even for him and went over to fill them with warm water. Once back to their station having no idea what to do next. "And for the record i have not cooked anything more advanced than pasta." If you can call that cooking

Could he ever say no?

Schuyler grinned.

And after she'd measured out the sugar and yeast and he'd done the same with the water, they were making progress and moving on to step numero DOS. Oh, wait. Not quite yet. They had to wait ten minutes for the yeast to bubble. "Ten minutes?" That was a long time. Well, for this. And for Schuyler. So she busied herself with talking to her prefect pal and measuring out a half a cup of flour for the next step.

"And for the record," she poked his arm. "I used to be a worse cook than you, then. Until I practiced." And now she still wasn't great, but she knew what she was doing.

All she had to do next was to spray a freaking pan? She could do that, she could totally do that. Eyeing her mess dough she thought that it looked okay. Maybe nobody would even know that she messed her up? WAIT! She was going to have to eat her pizza... no matter she would just make Angel or Adi share theirs. Between the two of them, she had faith that somebody would get it right.

Spray, spray, spray. All set. Looking once more at the board, she was ready for the final step.


AJ had to play the waiting game again. Right before covering her masterpiece she decided to take a small taste. Discreetly she picked a small piece off and popped it into her mouth. "Yuck!" Oops, she was trying to be quiet here. Maybe it wasn't supposed to taste good yet. It sure did taste sweet. The lion covered it all up and waited for it to rise.

Its easy to pick up? She raised her eyebrows at his comment but then Simon gave her a reassuring grin. "Okay." Whatever Simon said. GRIN.

The first year watched closely as the older Slytherin putting all the ingredients into the bowl. And there goes the sugar. If they're going to eat this after class she would just let Simon eat it. She noticed that Simon already finished mixing the ingredients and now they need to wait ten minutes like Hadley said.

Candice saw her partner was waving at someone. Huh? Who he's waving at? Wasn't that the dude that she saw during the Potion Project. The one who had an uncle working in the Ministry? What was his name again? Ethan? Hmm..Maybe her partner and that Ethan guy were roommate or something.

"I'm a first year." Here she thought he already knew she was a first year since she was pretty small compare to the other girls in there. Third year? And his first year here? "Are you a transfer student?" She wondered where did he go before. Was it the Durm school or the French school?

She looked at her watch and ten minutes was up. Moving on to step two. "Do you mind if I do step 2 and 3?" Because stirring wasn't sound so hard. And that wasn't really a question she just wanted to let Simon know that she's going to do the second and third step. Candice added 1/2 teaspoon salt into the bowl and started to stir it. Then she added 1/2 cup flour into the bowl before she continued stirring it. The instruction on the board said they need to add more flour. So that what she did, she added another 1/2 cup of flour into the bowl and stirred again. Then another 1/2 cup.

Stir....Stir...Stir...

Her arms were starting to get really tired from the stirring. This was way harder then stirring potion.

"Why thank you, don't mind if I do." Jasmine picked up the big blob of dough and placed into the freshly sprayed bowl. Then she looked around for something to cover the bowl. When her grandmother made bread, she always covered the dough with a tea towel, but Jasmine didn't see any of those lying around. After a brief search, she found that the bowl had its own cover. Placing the cover on top of the bowl, Jasmine checked her watch. "OK, now we have to let it rise for 45 minutes or until it has doubled in size. I think we're good for a little while." Stepping back, Jasmine allowed herself to relax for the moment.

"Ten Minutes was quite a while to wait" He could easily get bored and daydream. They could not really do anything else. And look at that sass. She was even poking him in the arm.

This was hilarious and hurt a tiny bit

"See that is where the problem is. I don't want to practice this. It does not interest me....and i don't have the patience" Eating Pizza does interest him, not making it. Same with potions. Though he was better at that. Maybe it was ten minutes now. Who knows. He did not have a watch. The dough did look a little bubbly or whatever they were suppose to be looking for. Which meant that Nigel just threw some salt on it and stirred.

Why he was stirring he did not know.

"Wait? We have to wait 45 minutes or until it has doubled in size?" Cris asked incredulously. He thought it would only take a few minutes before they could actually get down to making the pizza and then....finally eat it!.

"So what do you propose we do for 45 minutes?" Cris grinned cheekily as he swiped some flour with his finger, reached up and drew a smiley face on Jasmine's forehead.

Beverly wondered how this connected with Muggle Studies. Everyone ate pizza, including wizard folk. Or...did they not and she's been living like a muggle her entire life since she had enough teeth to eat with and...BAH. That would be BLASPHEMY. She'd never forgive herself because there was no way on this planet she would give up eating pizza. Ever.

Coming back to her senses, she realized she'd thought way too ahead. Was the cooking spray muggle? Not the wizard's kind? She snatched up the can and read every single word on the label. Didn't appear to be off. Hmm. She'll ask later. Her pizza needed to be done and baked first.

Taking another bowl, she sprayed some of the cooking spray on it, twirling it so she wouldn't double spray areas. It was the way her mom taught her so many years ago. Mellow. Focusing on the matter at hand, she finished with they spray and placed the dough in the bowl.

Pat, pat, pat.

What nice dough. All her work. ALL her. Perfect. It looked small in the bowl, but soon it'd rise and become a glorious piece of dough, which would then be transformed into a pizza, which THEN will end up a meal. YES.

Covering it up, she cleaned her area while she waited. It was a habit.

Oh, my MERLIN!

Sophie was going to fail this class! She thought it'd be an easy O until she found out they'd be baking! She thought they'd be discussing the function of a rubber duck or something!

Sophie quickly copied down the recipe and directions for quick reference.



Okay, so step one. Sophie could do this. She COULD.

Sophie collected a bowl at her table then just stared into it. She was used to being able to clean things with magic during potions, but in this class, she was only allowed to cast Aguamenti. Maybe Muggles didn't clean their bows. Shrug.

She kinda dusted it off by hand, though, before beginning. She used a measuring cup (and her wand to cast Aguamenti) to measure out a cup and a half of water. She added it into the bowl before using a measuring spoon to measure a tablespoon of sugar. She added it into the bowl then repeated the same step with the yeast. Pretty soon, she had those three ingredients in the bowl.

Now the ten minute waiting game began.

"First year here? That's awesome. How do you like it so far?" he offered as he they waited for the yeast to get all nice and bubbly. He nodded when he asked if she was a transfer. Simon grinned. "Yes, I'm a transfer student and I'm glad to be here at Hogwarts."

Simon was about to ask her another question when Candice asked if she could do the next few steps. He checked the yeast and it was very bubbly. It was time! He nodded. Sure thing. He didn't see why she couldn't. Simon watched as the little girl followed the instructions so carefully. He was amazed how someone at her age could be so conscious about getting all the details correctly. He too had been the same way at that age. While she stirred, he washed out the other bowl. Then he dried it and sprayed it with cooking spray.

Simon glanced sideways to check up on how Candice was going when he found her struggling with the stirring. "Here let me help. You take a break. It's tough stirring the dough around." He didn't have to do too much stirring. The dough was almost ready to go into the bowl by the time he got it. He quickly finished stirring the dough around and then lifted it up carefully (and it didn't stick to his hands- SCORE!). Then he placed it in the other bowl.

Picking up the lid for the bowl, he securely covered the bowl and then glanced at Candice and gave her a smile. "Now we wait 45 minutes or until its doubled in size. Awesome stirring by the way. You'll become an expert stirrer in no time," he said giving her a quick thumbs up.

Jasmine stared at Cris and blinked. Did he just draw a flour smiley face on her forehead? "Oh I am so going to get you back", Jasmine said with a grin. "Sometime, somewhere when you least expect it........expect it. Besides, I don't think that the Professor would appreciate us setting off a food fight in the kitchens. So you are safe.........for now."

Jasmine tried to discretely wipe her forehead. She did not want to get kicked out of her first Muggle Studies class. "You know I can be fun, but the new kid doesn't want to make a bad impression right off the bat. Anyway, the Professor said that we would be having a discussion while we waited for the bread to rise and that should be any minute now." Yes Jasmine was sure that the Professor would not have them sitting idly for 45 minutes. In the meantime, she plotted her revenge.

Ascanius would have been wounded by that look if he cared, yeah? He knew that she was lumping him in with the general crowd of quiet, but it didn't mean that they didn't work. Just meant that they understood talking in any class at this school was futile. Everyone else jumped in and down every Professor's throat to try and get out their textbook perfect answer.

So he refrained from talking in mostly every class.

Gathering an apron, but not before cleaning his hands really quickly, Ascanius tied a blue apron around his waist and paused. Second time in his life he had donned an apron and for the second time he was reminded just how AMAZING he looked in one. Downright criminal. If only Alice could see him now.

He then collected what he needed and got to work on the dough. Needed this nice and perfect to be effective at all. Nothing was worse then bad pizza.

Firstly, he took one of the bowls at his station and added in water, sugar and yeast being careful with each of the measurements as they were instructed. It was followed by the ten longest minutes of his life, especially since he was up on energy right now, when finally the yeast was nice and bubbly.

Jeez, he never wanted to make dough again.


Then he added half a teaspoon of salt and stirred. With his baking hand and whisk. The tool of champion artists in the kitchen.

Then he added a half cup of flour and mixed that. With each passing minute he added a dash her or there, just to make the consistency juussst right. When the dough started to stick to the whisk Ascanius cursed himself. He should have used a wooden spoon. Would have made getting all the dough out easier.

Too late now. He added in a half cup of water.

Grabbing another bowl, he sprayed it and threw in the dough into it. Done. Almost. Ish.

Text Cut: How very Italian of us, Kita

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaniDiNardo

He wanted to be clued in on how she'd out him? "What have I told you about how knowing things detracts from how epic they'll be?" It was the same principle as the perks he wanted to know about. Knowing made them less cool, or had he already forgotten? "Most I'd tell you is the time, but not the day, just so you can freak at that hour every day til it finally happens." If it ever does. Sometimes mind tricks were enough, she'd learned that.

Lex watched the two with their preparation of the dough? Was that it, yeah. It was a part of the pizza, the name wasn't that important to her anyway, just the watching and not getting in the way.

She smirked at what she'd be taking as a compliment from Whitlock. "I have my ways." Of making things work for her that is. "And my father was a Slytherin, taught me everything he knows." A double benefit for her right there. Her father was cool--not as cool as if he'd have been a Gryffindor but you know--and he taught her how to get what she wanted, even if it did backfire on him sometimes. Not her fault.

Lex looked to Lottie at the mention of adding toppings. "I can do that. What kind do we have?" She glanced around the kitchen. "I don't reckon there's chocolate." Not to put ON the pizza, but to munch on while she added said toppings. It could be tiring work you know and she was missing the taste of sugar in her mouth right about now.

Oh, the easy part was here? She gave them a salute before grabbing the first bowl and heavily coating it with the spray. No one said how much. Don't question it. The second wasn't coated with as much but she was seriously thinking about it while she glanced back at the intstructions. "Done."

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermionesclone

He should have realised that he'd get an answer like THAT. Seriously, man, think about who you're talking to. "Okay, fine. But that means that it has to be epic otherwise I'm going to be disappointed." A bit of a morbid topic, this one was, but his current level of care was at the same level as his level of niceness. "Spoooooooky!" he said, waving his flour-covered fingers at her, "I'm sure I'll wet my pants out of fright up until that momentous occasion." That MIGHT have been sarcastic. Maybe.

They can decide.

Something they couldn't decide was who was going to end up sharing their pizza with Lex. Grayson was in his happy, blissfully unaware state where he'd share a small portion of his pizza with Lex and the pretty one could share a bit more of hers. Uh huh. Completely unaware.

Her father being a Slytherin doubled up with her being in Gryffindor made a lot of sense. No really, it did. "Bet he'd be proud about that. It must be a dangerous combination, being brave and cunning." And then he turned to new girl over here because he hardly knew her. Didn't even know her NAME. Jeez. "What about you? Do I need to watch out for your cunningness too?"

The topic of toppings came next and Grayson was only half paying attention. Only half. But he did manage to pick up on what Lex said about chocolate. "Are you seriously thinking about putting chocolate on pizza?!" Weren't they going to put tomato on there instead? Bit of a weird combina--

Oh sweet Merlin. This was how she was going to kill him. Not poison or any of that nonsense. Bad food combinations. And to think he hadn't even gotten that leather jacket yet. SIGH.

And the surprises kept on coming, didn't they? Grayson, who was patting the dough down to make sure it wasn't sticky, looked up and over at the two girls. "What in the name of Merlin? You two are best friends?!" Oh jeez. Oh man oh man, this explained EVERYTHING. And why had they not bothered to mention this before? HELLO. This was kinda important. Don't leave him all wishy washy like the clothes in a washing machine.

Giving the dough one last pat, the fourth year placed it in the bowl with less cooking spray -- not that he knew that -- and covered it. 45 minutes starting now!

Text Cut: Instructions

- 1 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon. yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3-4 1/2 cups flour


Step One: Using one of the bowls at your workstation, combine the water, sugar, and yeast. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes (or until yeast is bubbly)
Step Two: Add salt and stir.
Step Three: Add 1/2 cup flour and mix well, gradually adding more flour (usually no more than 3-4 1/2 cups) until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and no longer sticks to your fingers. You'll want to add just 1/2 a cup at a time.
Step Four: Spray the other bowl with cooking spray and place dough in the bowl.
Step Five: Cover and allow the dough to rise for 45 minutes, or until its doubled in size.

Do you really want to know what would happen? Lex's boredom will get the best out of this boy, only if he was worth it. Right now, Lottie didn't think he was boring Lex, so nothing was going to happen. Unless... LOL! The waving of flour-covered fingers only made her throw a liiiiiittle bit of flour towards them. Spooky, right. "Everyone will be disappointed, because you'd still be alive." Self-preservation was a real Slytherin thing. He should learn it. Obviously didn't have it, because he was discussing his death in the presence of L-Squared.

Lex's father... Lottie wanted to ask but refrained from doing so. This Slytherin boy had something right, though, Lex was a dangerous combination of something, though she wouldn't say 'brave' and 'cunning'. It was close enough. Quite frankly, she was surprised the boy decided to ask Lottie about it, she slowly raised an eyebrow and smirked as she worked on the dough. The answer would be 'yes', "Depends on what mistakes you make." Like staaaaring into a mirror, right Nigel? "You have to watch out for all of me." Boyfriend and best friend included.

Chocolate. See, now Lex was distracted. Lottie shook her head, "This is no dessert pizza, though, so no chocolate." BUT, well, well, well, Slytherin, you've never had chocolate pizza?? "I have done that, actually, the dough is basically the same, you just skip the cheese and tomato sauce, then you can have it as dessert." She had done so especially for her bestie. No one else has tried that. Lex is special, you can tell.

SERIOUSLY LEX, that was too much cooking spray, so Lottie conspicously lowered the amount by squeezing some out of bowl. And that was supposed to be an easy task. No toppings for you. Either way, she placed the dough inside the bowl and covered it. Counting minutes now.

"And you talk too much, has anyone ever tell you that? I bet that's the reason you'll die young." Wink. Well, they'd been just talking about it. Why was he so surprised, though? Also, WHAT did he know about Lex? "What's your name?" Too curious.

Angel looked at Benny as he said they should try it again, she was about to argue when she realised that she had forgot to add the water, that just wasn't cool was it. "Oops!!" Angel giggled as she thought about the mess that she had made.

"I think that would be best, I always seem to get carried away when I mix and most of it gets everywhere." Angel sighed, she really wished that she was better at baking but without an adult helping she was no good and she had no idea why, her sisters seemed to be good at it.

Benny glanced at his watch to check in on the time. "Its okay..." he tried and assured her as they waited, "this is supposed to be a learning experience after all." Professor Hadley wasn't expected them all to be whizzes at this. He couldn't bring himself to be mad at her for her mistake, especially seeing as he was one to talk with his own experiences. The third year took the time to dust himself off and their work area clean better from the dry ingredients that had been tossed about earlier. That and reading over the various steps better so he could make sure everything was prepared.

When the contents of the bowl had finally started to bubble, the boy glanced at his watch to check again. Just about 9......9 1/2 minutes. That fell within the suggested range so they could move on. Ben added the salt and started to stir, looking at Angel for assistance with the next step. "We'll need the flour next," he suggested.

Jasmine was right. It wouldn't look well if she got into trouble because he got ansty. Being properly chastised he mouthed sorry at her, before looking down at his hands. Yes idle hands...not good...not good at all.

So Cris sat quietly...or as quiet as he could get. He began to hum softly while waiting for the other students to finish up preparing their dough and keeping a close eye on theirs.

Rise, please rise faster.

Pizza... this would be a fun lesson. Her hair was already tied back, so she didn't have to worry about that. Penelope put on a blue apron and washed her hands. It was really important to make sure her hands were clean before preparing food.

She would probably not be able to get the exact amount of water needed with aguamenti because she was still inexperienced with the spell, so Penelope measured out some warm water. Carefully measuring out one tablespoon each of sugar and yeast, Penelope added them to the water.

When the mixture started to bubble, Penelope added 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and stirred the mixture.

He realized very shortly that although the consistency and colour seemed the same, there was a flaw in his pizza. And one that he thought might be fatal. Almost always one to help himself, Cutty took his wand to the mixing bowl and vanished the ingredients. The Professor had mentioned having enough for groups or singles and since some had elected to group up, he guessed that there'd be enough to account for his error. His wand, ever at the ready was used to cleanse the inside of his bowl and prep it for what would be the right combination of ingredients this time. Who knew what he would've made had he allowed that abomination of yeast and whathaves to continue on.

Right. So yeast did go in again, as did sugar. He wasn't sure what temperature his water had been last time, but now would be a good time to make sure it was warm as needed. Just in case. Thinking back to their last Potions class and how Professor Culloden showed them the variants on water spells, Cutty measured out some of the water from his casted, "Aquamenti!". He stuck his finger in the water to test it's temperature before adding it into the mix, then stirring it. Cutty noted the size difference from before even if the overall look was about the same.

“She’s looking. She’s looking!” Ethan kept a straight face and scanned the room for his other mates. MERLIN. The Slytherin has never felt so awkward before. In fact, this was all new to him. The boy’s a friendly chap, and would (most of the time) talk to anyone who he thinks is worth his time. To distract himself, he craned his neck and pointed to where Grayson and Cutty were working. “Oh look!” Please look away from him? “There’s Grayson working with Lex.” He said as he gestured Josette to look at another Slytherin boy working with the Gryffindor prefect. “Aaaand that’ll be Cutty.” He said as he pointed at his pseudo brother working all by himself. Ethan looked at his partner and grinned. “I have yet to make friends with the other houses.” He said and nodded.

Stir. Stir. Stir.

In reality, he already made friends with the other houses in school. He just haven’t realized this because the concept of grouping the students into four clumps is an odd thing for the boy. “I’m a transfer student, in case you were wondering.” He said as he tried to start another conversation, to make them feel both at ease. And yes, the glancing should stop for now, okay? Okay. “Would you know why the school groups its students into different houses?” She’s a Ravenclaw after all. She’d definitely know the answer, what with having a reputation that the Eagles were the smart ones in the lot. “Uhm…I forgot to ask...are you a transfer too, or did you start your formal education here?”

Stir. Stir. Stir.

That’s it. No more glancing.

But he did look up at her when she said she accidentally put their house on fire. “Merlin, you’re like my older cousin.” Nod nod. “Said he set their house’s library on fire when he was nine.” That’s when Mordred found out that he’s magical and all that. Sort of…confirming that he is a wizard. “Well…at least you and your dad are okay.” Ethan wanted to ask about her mother. Because he just might be sharing the same dilemma as her? You see his mother died three years ago, and he misses her more every day. “The school’s kitchen is open for you to bake, yeah? You can practice here anytime you want.” Pause. “And you can use magic to put out the fire…just in case.” Ethan looked at her from his bowl and gave her an assuring grin. Practice will make her baking skills, better. He was sure of it.

The Slytherin looked at his bowl again when Josette said that the mixture was pulling away from the sides when he stirred the sticky stuff. “Wowzers. Mixing that stuff was harder than I thought.” Manual labor right there. Ethan wiped his forehead and left traces of flour on it and on his hair. He didn’t mind though. They were bound to get messy in here. “…aaand yep! We’re doing a fine job!” As long as their mixture was doing what it is supposed to do, then they’re good. See? Just like Potions.

Onto the fourth step!

The Slytherin grabbed the can of cooking spray and examined it. Spray? How does it actually work? Ethan found the nozzle and pressed it while it was facing him.

PFFFFFFFFFFFT.

Ethan looked at his green apron, now sprayed with the substance with awe, then back to the can. “Good Merlin. That’s Strike Two for today!” The Slytherin bit his lip and chuckled to himself. “Oh the things I will learn in Muggle Studies.” The boy got hold of a new bowl and spraaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyeeeeed it with the substance. PFFT. PFFT. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. “And in here you go!” Ethan got the clumped mixture and placed it inside the bowl, and patted it for good measure. “What do you use to cover it?” he asked his partner. She’d know for sure, yeah?

Lucy mixed the ingredients with firm hand and waited ten minutes..
The pizza..how many memories of her childhood!!
Then she added salt and she mixed again!

Her dough was good so far. It was time to add the flour.Starting with 1/2 a cup, Penelope mixed in the flour. She added a few more 1/2 cups of flour, until the dough did not stick to her fingers and the side of the bowl.

Just as she was about to ask him something, he'd suddenly starting pointing out his friends to her in the kitchens, which did make her look up from her notes to see who they were. She was certainly interested to see the other friends he had been talking about, but she didn't want to come across as too curious. Josie did know quite a few people from her house too, mainly from playing Quidditch, so she'd seen them a lot, not only that they were definitely almost like a second family to her. She really missed playing with all of them. But, hopefully they'd be able to play next term? But alas, she learned the names of Ethan's friends, not being familiar with any of them at all, but she'd simply nod at each face he pointed out to her & would give him a small smile as a response. When he'd said that he had yet to make friends with the other houses she spoke up a bit, "I-I've only met a few people..outside of my house...B-But not a lot..."

Without thinking, she leaned in a little close to watch him stir the dough, just to make sure that everything was turning out alright. It was when she realized they were inches from touching, did she clear her throat nervously & inch away to open up that space between once more. Just then he spoke & she found that he was a transfer student, just like that one boy she'd met in Diagon Alley. "W-Where'd you..transfer from-I-I mean, um, where did you used to attend s-school?" Then he'd asked another question, looking like he was trying to keep her talking. But it was a good question though, why were the students sorted into different housing. Josie gave a shrug before saying, "I-I'm not too sure really...But..maybe, it could have something t-to do with everyone's p-personalities...Maybe?" That kind of sounded like a dull answer really, not a very good one either. Before even trying to recover from that terrible answer she was asked another question. "Um..No, I didn't t-transfer...I-I started attending school here..last year.."

Watching him stir, not watching him, nope.

Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. It was a moment that was very scary & her father nearly had a heart attack from that incident. Thankfully he was in the next room, so she was quick to call him for help. Although, she did feel a little bit better when he told her that his cousin had set his family's library on fire, but he hadn't been baking though, so of course it was a different situation, but still, it was a nice effort to make her feel a little better. "Mhm..H-He was in the next room..I didn't know w-what to do...It was..pretty scary.." She would have went on to say something, but stopped herself as he was speaking again before her. Best not to be rude & try to talk over him. The brunette smiled a little bit, "R-Really? I-I guess..that could be a good time..to work on it...A-And..hopefully..not set anything on fire...again.." And he did make a good point, she could always use magic to put the fire out..or she could just..panic & look for a Professor..or maybe even the House Elves might be nice enough to help her, even if they would probably be VERY upset with her.

Thank goodness, this dough was doing everything it was supposed to be doing. It was such a relief! Ella would be SO proud of her! She looked at him after he apparently sounded like he was tired from stirring. Josie asked, "A-Are you going to be a-alright?" Oh, he'd wiped flour on his forehead & in his hair. She couldn't help but eye the flour on his forehead & hair for a few moments before she softly told him, "U-Um..you've got a little..Bit of-um.." Instead of touching his face or hair, she traced the areas on her own forehead & hair where the flour was located on him, so he might figure it out easier. But she was really relieved that their dough was looking alright.

Now it was time for them to move onto the next step, which was to spray another bowl with cooking spray & place their dough in the new bowl. She didn't get in Ethan's way as he reached for the spray, quickly figuring out that he was going to do the fourth step himself. But she noticed something was odd, wasn't it supposed to be facing the other way? She opened her mouth to stop him but all she could get out was, "-Uh-Uh wai-" but it was too late, he'd sprayed himself in the face. She quickly reached for a cloth, & without thinking was wiping his face for him. Josie stopped herself midway & then moved back nervously. Still holding the cloth she asked him, "A-Are you alright?"

She watched as he tried again, cautiously standing by with the cloth in case he sprayed himself in the face again, but this time he'd done it right & sprayed the bowl. Josie smiled as he successfully moved their dough from the first bowl into the second bowl & couldn't help but clap a little bit after he'd done it. Now it they were on to the last step of the progress which was to cover it. She bit her lip as she tried to think of what they could wrap their dough with, but she wasn't entirely too sure. Josie looked around the kitchen silently as she tried to think of it, until her eyes were set on plastic wrap. "P-Plastic..wrap, maybe?" Taking a moment to walk away from their workstation, she'd grabbed onto the plastic wrap & went back to Ethan & their dough. Then took another few moments (with a slight struggle) to cut off a piece of plastic wrap to cover their dough as directed. Looking over at Ethan she smiled a little bit saying, "Now..We have to w-wait for it to rise....in-," she looked at her notes quickly, "45 minutes.."

Now THAT was going to be a long wait.

Cutty waited. And waited...and waited. Until he finally saw little pocks from the bubbling in the yeast. Merlin that stuff stunk. Like Vegemite. He wondered if Bart would eat the raw mix. Probably would. He stuck his finger into the gooey and plopped a piece into a sheet of clean parchment before tucking it away in order that he may test this theory 'round about lunchtime.

He took the salt and measured out half a teaspoon then tossed it into the mixing bowl with the salty scented blob. He took his stirrer and more out of habit than anything, cleansed it with a charm before taking it to the mix and combining it proper like.

When the salt was well and thoroughly mixed, Cutty added half a cup of flour to the sticky mess. It seemed that this had made it angry for it showed exactly zero ammount of co-operation from that point out. Sticking to the walls of the bowl and onto his hands as he tried to free the stirring tool from it. He added more flour quickly, hoping that this battle would be over soon. Alas it had only begun as the dough became so clumpy that Cutty was forced to abandon the stirring instrument. He opted to use his hand. Good thing they were clean. This seemed to be the only thing that satisfied the blob, however and it eventually started acting like it wanted to stay together and not stick to fingers. Cutty added one last half cup of flour to the blob and continued massaging into a ball watching it grown with the regaining of it's bits that had stuck to the bowl walls and his own hand.

Once the doughy blob looked well mixed, Cutty left it to go wash his hands...The muggle way. He wasn't touching the end of his wand whilst his hands were full of the dough. He paused mid-scrubbing when he heard his name and shot a how'd you do to Ethan's girlfriend, or whatever she was.

Midway his stirring though, he felt his arm muscle get tired and all. “I’ll be fine.” He assured her with a grin. The sticky stuff was hard to mix and it would have been better if he used his hands. He didn’t of course because he was sharing the dough with someone else. Josette might get upset if he did, you know? He cares, so there’s that. The Slytherin however held his breath when she inched closer and looked at their creation.

ASJDF;DJFK;DFJ;DKFJDSF. “She’s so close!” Ethan had to bite his lips, tongue, and cheek to prevent himself from making a sound. No, he will not make that mistake. He did breathe out slowly when she backed away. WHEW. Merlin. Who knows what will happen if SHE made contact? “Eyes on the dough, Mordaunt! Merlin.” Ethan scolded himself and continued with his work. “Keep the conversation going and stop with being so awkward. MAN UP!” The Slytherin cleared his throat and grinned at his partner. “I guess you’re just like Simon over there. He’s a shy guy when I met him…but I’d like to think that he’s come out of his shell.” If it wasn’t for dragons and stuff, the boy might find Ethan overwhelming with his talking. “It’s great to have many friends you know.” Does she need help in that area? Because making contacts meant network…and networking is a good thing. Adult stuff if you ask him, but Mordred was consistent in drilling that thought in Ethan’s mind. His older cousin missed that opportunity and now regrets it. He didn’t want his younger cousin to have a tough time in the end.

“I went to Durmstrang for two years.” Surprise, surprise. “Not my kind of school, if you ask me. Though the place offered a year’s supply of snow which meant snowboarding for me.” Then he goes skateboarding in the summer when he’s with Mordred. Cool, yeah? “I’ve never read the history of this school…which is a shame…” he said as he stared at her parchment. Not looking at her. Good. “But when I donned the Sorting Hat…it did mention personalities.” Ethan made a face when he recalled his experience. “I still question its decision though. I mean…Slytherin? I am my cousin and father’s opposite. I’m sure of that.” So…he was probably better in Hufflepuff? “Mordred said the hat can never be wrong and stuff…which made me more confused. That’s why I left the ‘stereotyping’ thing behind, thus my question as to why Hogwarts need to sort its students.” He can be deep and confusing at the same time. “Sorry, I talk a lot.” And yes, he felt the need to apologize again.

After the spray incident though, Ethan, while Josette was clearing up his face held his breath again and felt his brain do a restart. Did she just?...She made contact, yeah? And the boy couldn’t believe his luck. He did make a fool of himself for being ignorant, all right? But look! The unexpected happened! The moment she removed the cloth from his face, the boy could swear he heard music somewhere. “She wiped my face, dear MERLIN. I can die now…” Ethan blinked and blinked at his partner for a few seconds, his heart hammering against his chest, recovering from his shock. “!!!!!! She did! She did! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!” The Slytherin gave her a shy smile and scratched the back of his head. “I-I’ve never used anything like this before.” He said as he got the can of cooking spray and showed it to her. Merlin, is he blushing again? “But…uh…yeah, I’m fine thanks.” For wiping his face and making him REALLY happy. Ethan bowed at her when she clapped for him then placed his hands on his hips as he watched Josette get the plastic wrap thing and put it on the bowl’s lip securing their dough inside. “Breathe, Mordaunt. BREATHE FOR MERLIN’S SAKE.”

Aaand all steps for the dough are done! See? Teamwork’s good. And he’s even more delighted that he partnered up with the most beautiful girl he has ever seen in school—minus of course the bloopers that happened in between. And even though he carelessly embarrassed himself in front of her, it was all good. Her smiles make up for it, so in the end—he’s having a grand time. Come on, it’s pizza plus pretty Josette. What’s not to love, hmm?

And. 45 minutes. 45.

O_______O

Ethan grinned and sat across her as he started to wait for the next set of instructions. Maybe this is a good time to talk while waiting, yeah? Yeah. Based on what Josette told him, Ethan could tell that she’s not a pureblood. Maybe she’s half or even muggleborn if she’s into these things. “Fire is scary.” True. He can’t even imagine Mordred contain his own fear when he set the library on fire. Ethan would probably cry in one corner after, if it was him. “I can help you practice your cooking skills, if you want?” The Slytherin grinned and showed her his wand. “I can look out for you if ever a fire breaks out.” See? Not necessarily help with the cooking, but make sure that she’s safe and whatnot. Helping, okay? “…oh! And I can taste test your creations too, how about that?” Please say yes?

Please?

And...Hi Cutty!