Chapter 64: Baking Chocote Chunk Cookies

Lus looked around the kitchen and breathed a sigh. It was his first day back on regular duty after being released from the medical center. He hadn't had time for his extra cooking with all the work he had to catch up on today, but he needed more XP. Tired of cooking the same things over and over again, he opted to spend [500 XP] and get a new [Recipe].

[Famous Chocote Chunk Cookies]. So here he was, right when he should've been in bed. Instead, he got to cook. Or bake, as it were.

Calling up the screen, he clicked the [Recipes] tab and selected [Famous Chocote Chunk Cookies]. He began reading through the information. He skipped the paragraphs about the history, ingredients, substitutions, and accompaniments, stopping once he reached the part about the abilities.

"Famous Chocote Chunk Cookies live up to their hype while bringing you all the fame you could desire. These cookies give you a temporary boost of [+15 Charm], making everyone in your vicinity take notice of you in the best way. This ability can be very useful when you need to make a good impression on a group."

Lus nodded. He wasn't sure how much he needed a boost in popularity right now, but he could gain the XP at least. And maybe he'd just eat one cookie and save the rest for later.

With his plan set, he moved on to the ingredient list. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs, rising powder, salt, niva flavoring, and of course, chocote chunks. 

Assuming that there weren't just chocote chunks hanging around the kitchen, he'd taken some of the chocote he kept in his room for emergencies and chopped it up into chunks. He just hoped the System would count it the same as purchased chocote chunks.

The flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and salt were all easy to find. The rising powder was surprisingly close to the front of the seasonings cupboard.

The niva flavoring was harder to find. Lus had to dig to the very back of the seasoning cupboard, a stark reminder that he really needed to make some time to reorganize and familiarize himself with the contents of the cupboards.

Thankfully, he managed to find a small, clear bottle half-full of a dark liquid. He hadn't seen niva flavoring before, though he had had niva flavored desserts a few times in the past. They were sweet, but lighter and less rich than chocote desserts.

It took a few minutes to shove the contents of the seasoning cupboard back in, especially because he needed to make sure that the ones he used most often stayed near the front.

Finally, he closed the cupboard and turned to his pile of ingredients. He had never baked cookies before and his anxiety was almost back to pre-Leviathan cooking levels.

"But if I mess this up, it's not going to have any major consequences," he reminded himself.

"Except ammunition for me to use to remind you how truly stupid you are." Leviathan's familiar sneering voice filled the kitchen.

Lus thought about answering, but he didn't feel like engaging with the demon. Instead, he pointedly avoided looking at the interbox and ignored the taunt. He rearranged the ingredients on the counter and tried to focus on the recipe.

"Coward," Leviathan muttered grumpily.

Lus risked a glance over his shoulder and found the interbox screen dark again. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned his attention back to the system screen in front of him.

He needed a small bowl for dry ingredients and another, larger bowl for the wet. He grabbed the only two bowls in the cupboards that weren't huge and set them on the counter.

Into the smaller bowl, he quickly measured flour, salt, and rising powder. He almost added the chocote chunks, but a second read-through of the recipe stopped him. Apparently those went in at the very end.

Instead, he stirred the dry ingredients together with a large spoon, then set to work on the wet ingredients.

He first had to cream together the butter and sugar. Because apparently cream was a verb and not just a much thicker version of milk.

"What does that even mean?" he wondered aloud, then waited for a moment for the expected answer.

[Using a whisk or mixer, beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy]

His brows furrowed. Light and fluffy? That seemed strange, but he didn't have any reason to doubt it, so he shrugged and set to work.

He grabbed the butter that he had pulled out of the fridge and was about to put it in the bowl when another notification popped up.

[Soften butter first]

"Soften butter… how in Watcher's name am I supposed to soften it? I mean…" he trailed off. Obviously butter that sat out got soft, but there wasn't enough butter in the container that sat out for cooking use.

I can't just wait until tomorrow… so I just need to heat it up.

He glanced over at the microwave heater. He couldn't put the metal bowl in, so he pulled out the cold chunk of butter and put it in a small glass bowl used for eating and stuck it in the microwave heater.

Lus pressed a few buttons and watched the bowl turn. He was going to let it go for a full minute, but a notification popped up shortly after he started the microwave heater.

[The butter should not be melted]

"Oh no!" He quickly stopped the microwave heater and pulled out the bowl of butter. Thankfully, it wasn't melted. He poked it. It also wasn't really any softer.

Sticking it back in, he let it go for a few more seconds before checking again. This time, he felt a little give when he poked it, so he decided to call it soft enough.

Moving the butter back to the large bowl, he then measured in the sugar. He then grabbed a whisk and started trying to stir the butter and sugar together.

Apparently he hadn't softened the butter enough, because he couldn't seem to get the mixture smooth. It turned into large chunks of butter stuck inside the whisk.

Lus frowned in frustration, wondering what he should do.

[Use an auto-mixer]

His brows furrowed in confusion. He didn't even know what an auto-mixer was or where to look for it. Deciding it had to be better than what he was currently trying, he began to comb through the various cupboards of appliances.

He found a variety of things that he didn't recognize, including a few appliances that he made mental notes to check into later.

Near the back, he found something promising: it had a small body and two sturdy whisks sticking out of it. Is this an auto-mixer? He wondered.

[Yes]

He smiled, glad that his [Chef's Intuition] had provided the answer yet again. It was like having his own little helper constantly in his mind when he needed help with something. As long as that something was cooking related, of course.

Heading back to the bowl, he used a spoon to scrape the butter chunks out of the whisk, then set to work with the auto-mixer. It broke the butter up in moments, quickly turning the stick into a smooth mixture.

Once the butter was smooth, he measured in the sugar and the niva flavoring. Because he was curious, he licked the last few drops of the brown liquid out of the measuring spoon and nearly gagged.

"That doesn't taste like niva at all," he choked, hurrying to the sink to rinse his mouth out. Once he had washed away the nasty flavor, he returned to the bowl. Has it gone bad? He wondered.

"Does it just always taste this bad?" He asked, thinking of other ingredients he'd used in the past that tasted awful by themselves but surprisingly delicious when used in a recipe.

[Yes, it always tastes this bad]

Even though his [Chef's Intuition] didn't have a tone, he almost felt like it was mocking him. He sighed and set back to work, using the auto-mixer to quickly mix the sugar and niva flavoring into the butter.

Once the contents of the bowl were smooth and fluffy, he turned off the auto-mixer and glanced back at the instructions.

Next the eggs went in. The fluffy mixture turned into something wetter and it was time to turn his attention to the dry ingredients. He used a spoon to stir the dry mixture again then scooped some into the wet batter.

It took a while to mix the dry and wet ingredients together. Because the instructions just said to add the dry ingredients gradually, he went slowly, one heaping spoonful at a time.

He was able to continue using the auto-mixer, though it got more difficult the thicker the dough got.

Finally, he had everything in. The dough was a pale tannish/cream color. He double-checked the recipe before finally dumping in the chocote chunks.

They were hard to mix in, even with the auto-mixer, but he kept it going until he felt like the chocote was fairly evenly distributed.

With the dough finished, he still needed to get it baked. He had never baked cookies before, so he read through the instructions twice to make sure he felt confident about what he needed to do, then he turned on the oven.

While the oven heated, he pulled out a sheet pan and a measuring spoon. He used the spoon to scoop out a chunk of dough, then tried to drop it on the sheet. 

It didn't come out.

Lus tried to get it out, waving the spoon up and down to try and flick it onto the pan, but no luck. His eyes skimmed the instructions again.

"Drop by rounded tablespoons onto the pan," he read aloud. Glancing at the tablespoon full of cookie dough that wouldn't come out, he sighed and decided to take matters into his own hands- literally.

Using his fingers, he pried the chunk of dough from the spoon. It was pretty malformed, so he rolled it in his palms until it was nice and round, then set it on the baking sheet.

Since that seemed to work well, he continued the pattern with the rest of the cookies. He kept them the full 5 cm apart that the recipe recommended, which meant that he could only fit 15 dough balls on the pan.

Once the pan was full, he slid it into the oven and set a timer. While he waited, he pulled out another sheet pan and set to work filling it with dough balls. Now that he had a rhythm, he could move pretty quickly and he had the pan full by the time the timer went off.

Lus pulled out the finished cookies, breathing in the sweet smell as he set them on a counter to cool. He popped the next sheet into the oven and set another timer, then began filling a third sheet pan.

The third sheet pan went quickly, so he had a couple minutes to check on the now-cooled cookies. He used a spatula to scoop one off the tray and quickly ate it.

It tasted sweet with a hint of the salt. It was perfect, and he looked down in wonder, unsure how the bitter niva flavoring hadn't ruined this masterpiece.

Lus was so focused on the taste, he'd nearly forgotten that these cookies came with an ability until the notification popped up.

[+15 Charm]

Thankfully, since he was going to be heading right back to bed after this, he didn't have to worry about how it would affect him.

He ate two more of the warm, gooey cookies before he managed to stop himself. The extra cookies didn't increase his charm, thankfully. Though [+45 Charm] would have been quite something.

Instead, he worked his way through the rest of the dough and then spent twenty minutes putting the cookies into a large container and hiding it in the nitrobox. Once the cookies were taken care of, he moved all the baking dishes to the empty sink.

Lus hadn't even considered that he would have to do his own dishes. The cleaning golems had retired for the night with everyone else. With a sigh, he set to work and spent another half hour getting the kitchen back to the pristine clean that the cleaning golem had left. Or at least, it was close. Close-ish.

With a shrug and an internal good enough, he turned off the lights and headed back to bed, grateful that he didn't run into anyone on the way.

Someday, he'd have to try the cookies out during the day, though, and see what [+15 Charm] changed.