~Chapter 46 – Pudding & Chocolate~

            “Your first lesson for today will be chocolate,” smiled Lay kindly “I’ll give you guys tips on making bonbons with a caramel filling.”

            “I can’t wait to eat that when we finish,” said Luhan eagerly as he eyed all the ingredients Lay placed out.

            Chen let out a laugh “Are you showing up to the lessons just to eat?”

            “No! Of course not!” gasped Luhan equally as playfully before saying seriously “Sehun and I are learning tons of new things from all of you guys.”

            “Yeah these lessons will seriously pay off in the long run when everything goes down during the Dessert Finale,” added Sehun.

            “That’s good to hear, we want you guys to win no matter what,” responded Chen before a smirk stretched across his face “We can’t lose our baby maknae now can we?”

            Sehun shot Chen a look “I am not a baby.”

            “But you are the maknae so by default the baby,” grinned Chen.

             Sehun continued to frown, but Lay interrupted before Sehun could shoot a comeback at Chen, “Okay I’m all ready to start.”

            “You got our attention,” replied Luhan as both he and Sehun refocused themselves on Lay’s lesson.

            “Great, so when making bonbons, depending on the type of filling you have it may be better to make the filling first like in this case with the caramel filling,” began Lay as he placed a pot on the stove top and combined sugar, water, and corn syrup into it “As this mixture caramelizes and turns a sort of deep amber color, it’ll mean that it’s time to add the cream but be careful when you do this because it’ll splatter and bubble up a bit and you don’t want to burn yourself, after adding the cream you should turn the heat off and wait until it settles down before mixing it all together to make a smooth caramel.”

            Sehun, Luhan, and Chen watched with caution as Lay poured the cream into the caramelized sugar mixture which began to rise and bubble, as Lay turned the heat off and let the mixture settle he swiftly stirred the caramel mixture until it reached the correct consistency and color. “Now we can just leave this caramel filling here for the time being to cool while we get started on the chocolate part of the bonbon.”

            Lay took out another pot, filling it with water before setting it atop the stove “Alright as the water boils we can start chopping up the chocolate bar into smaller pieces so that it’ll be easier to melt, when making bonbons it’s important that you choose the correct type of chocolate and usually the one I use is couverture chocolate because it contains a higher quantity of cocoa butter, and gives molded chocolate a better shine and snap,” as Lay talked he began chopping the large bar of chocolate and placed a majority of the chopped chocolate into a large glass bowl and the rest in another smaller bowl.

            “Are you going to use the smaller bowl of chocolate for tempuring?” asked Sehun as he took notice of how Lay separated the chocolate.

            Lay nodded “Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to do it helps with steading the temperature, since the water is now boiling you can just turn the stove off and take the larger bowl of chocolate to melt down first by placing this on top of the pot, you have to keep stirring and agitating the chocolate the entire time while you begin tempering it as well, if you don’t temper the chocolate correctly you might get streaky white marks on the bonbons and you really don’t want that.”

            As the chocolate in the large bowl melted down quickly, Lay took the smaller bowl of chocolate and began to add them in slowly making sure that the entire chocolate mixture stayed smooth, once Lay deemed the chocolate to be finished with tempering he reached over to grab the bonbon mold. “When you use the mold for bonbons it’s best to actually warm up the mold a bit because it can prevent the bonbons from getting cracks or air pockets in them.”

            Sehun and Luhan nodded committing the tip to memory like the many others.

            Lay lifted the bowl of melted chocolate carefully with heat proof gloves and poured them into the mold cavities, after placing the melted chocolate bowl back down and letting the mold stand for ten seconds he inverted the mold and shook out any excess chocolate before taking a metal scraper and cleaning the tops of the mold off “Now that the chocolate is in the mold, we can just place it in the quick chiller for about two minutes and then we will fill it with the caramel, then one last layer of chocolate to seal it off.”

            After placing the chocolate mold in the quick chiller, Lay began filling a piping bag with the cooled caramel filling, twisting the bag and leaving it to the side, Lay went back to extract the mold from the quick chiller placing it on the counter “When you do the filling be extra careful not to fill it all the way to the top because you want to be able to seal off the bonbons with another layer of chocolate too.” As Lay talked he began filling each of the chocolate openings, finishing quickly he placed the piping bag back down and grabbed the melted chocolate bowl to pour another layer of chocolate over the mold and then using the metal scraper to take off any excess. “This will go back into the quick chiller for a few minutes and then we can eat it after taking it out of the mold.”

            “Okay, I volunteer to help you with that!” grinned Luhan, about ready to hop out of his seat until he felt an arm wrap around his middle holding him still.

            “I don’t think so,” Sehun told Luhan before turning to Lay “Luhan would put the bonbons in his mouth right after unmolding them, there’d be none left after he finishes.”

            Lay blinked at how straightforward Sehun was about Luhan’s habits and began laughing “Yeah, I know. Luhan has a really huge sweet tooth, thanks for holding him back to save the bonbons.”

            Luhan resting his chin on his arms with a deflated expression muttering the word “Unhappy,” since he knew Sehun wasn’t going to release him no matter how much he pleaded. Luhan was deliberately ignored by the others as Lay went ahead and took out the now solidified chocolate bonbons to release them from the mold. As Lay carefully popped each bonbon out and laid them on a plate, Chen came to stand behind Lay and when the other looked down to start extracting the next piece of chocolate, Chen slyly reached towards the plate and grabbed three, popping it quickly into his mouth.

            “Yah!” protested Luhan instantly catching Chen in the action while jumping up in his seat “No sneaking chocolate Chen!”

            Lay turned around to face Chen seeing the latter stop chewing on the chocolate and smile sheepishly at him, “You couldn’t have waited until I at least unmolded all of the bonbons?”

            Lay raised an eyebrow when he got no answer from Chen but that expression was quickly changed when Chen leaned forward and pressed his lips on Lay’s nose in a quick peck. Lay blushed and Chen smiled as he garbled out “No” due to the caramel sticking to his tongue. Lay only squeaked “Fine,” before continuing with his task quickly finishing up with his cheeks obviously still rosy.

            Luhan pouted but even that didn’t last long as Luhan suddenly felt the smooth glossy texture of the chocolate bonbon touch his lips, Sehun had reached over and grabbed one of the bonbons that Lay had placed on the plate and was now pushing it into Luhan’s mouth, which opened up quickly once the older realized what was going on. “Happy now?” asked Sehun quietly.

            Luhan hummed, a smile on his face as he tasted the gooey caramel mix with the flavor of the sweet chocolate, “Very happy.”

            The corners of Sehun’s lips twitched upwards, “Good.”

            “Now that Luhan is handled and content, let’s go on to my pudding lesson!” announced Chen as he grabbed a few more pieces of chocolate to eat, along with Luhan who was no longer held back by Sehun (although the younger was still keeping an eye on his boyfriend, wary over the same thing happening with the bonbons as with the cream filled pastry desserts) while Lay cleared up the station area and helped Chen with getting his supplies out.

            “Okay,” garbled Chen a bit as he swallowed the chocolate bonbons in his mouth, grabbing a saucepan and placing it on to the stove top “I’ll show you guys tips on making tapioca pudding.”

            Luhan nodded with puffed up cheeks, which Sehun would have normally thought to be very adorable but he knew the only reason Luhan looked like that was because the older stuffed his mouth with chocolate bonbons. Sehun resisted th