On the fifth day of Christmas, Fatima gave to meee....
An 8059 fic about hot cocoa for genkitozuku [ETA: Plus a recipe!]
Title: The Perfect Cup
Author: Fatima
Characters/Pairings: 8059, plus appearances by Tsuna, Haru, Dino and Romario.
Rating: PG
Warnings: writing while under the influence of powerful prescriptions???
The Perfect Cup
Gokudera was always doing things with food that surprised him--like taking a perfectly good maki-zushi, dunking it in tempura bater and panko, and deep frying it. He said that it was too cold outside for normal sushi, anyway, and in spite of the strangeness of it, Yamamoto had to admit that it was actually quite tasty. Gokudera put honey in green tea. He also poured soy sauce on his rice, or he put butter and parmesan cheese on it--"because, how can you just eat plain white rice?"
Then there was pizza. Gokudera absolutely refused to let him mention corn, shrimp and/or mayonnaise in the same breath as pizza. However, bits of melon, basil and cheese wrapped up in ham and drizzled with a bit of olive oil over pizza dough was somehow OK. Of course, Gokudera had grown up with Bianchi for a sister--and she was arguably the worst cook in the world--so Yamamoto was rather inclined to excuse his offenses against Japanese cuisine. Also, he knew--being the son of a restaurant owner--that the quickest way to anyone's heart was through his stomach. If things were going to work out between him and Hayato the way that he wanted them to, he'd have to learn how to appeal to Gokudera's tastes--no matter how weird they might be.
His latest experiment was with cocoa--hot cocoa to be specific. No matter what brand they tried or what restaurant they visited, Gokudera never seemed to be satisfied with the cocoa, even though it was his favorite winter drink. Oh, he'd put up with milk-tea if he had to, but he complained that most places made it too weak and not sweet enough for his tastes. Plain hot tea with sugar was only consumed in dire emergencies and often bore a stronger resemblance to syrup than tea. Yamamoto knew that if he could just master the secret of the perfect hot cocoa, he'd be just that much closer to conquering Gokudera's wild and rebellious heart.
Like any good scientist would tell you--or at least the ones on TV might--frequent testing was required. Luckily, he ate together with Tsuna and Gokudera every day, up on the roof, regardless of the weather. Honestly, on sunny days, it was pleasant up there in spite of the cold, but it was still nice to have a hot lunch and a hot drink to go along with it. At first, he tried making the regular mix with milk instead of water, and while it went over generally well, it still didn't escape Gokudera's observation that Japanese cocoa just wasn't the same as what he remembered.
The next incarnation was an attempt to add actual chocolate to the liquid, but it only ended up being lumpy and garnered him all manner of biting insults from Gokudera, though Tsuna, as always, grinned and said it was wonderful. Then, he found a recipe online and made at least seven different attempts to get it right--turns out you really did need Dutch process cocoa!--none of which, however proved to be the one he needed.
"You really must like hot cocoa, Yamamoto-kun," Tsuna observed one day. "You always bring it with your lunch."
"Too bad it's the crappy kind," Gokudera muttered, as if nobody could hear him.
"Well," Yamamoto grinned and said, "I'm trying to find a way to make it just right, but so far I haven't been successful. Still--practice, right?"
"Right!" Tsuna agreed.
"Yeah, but knowing you, you'll still find some way to screw it up," Gokudera commented.
The little jabs and barbs hurt sometimes, Takeshi had to admit, but then he reminded himself that Gokudera was just like that, and that it would be all the better when he finally did succeed. If only he could taste the kind of cocoa that his friend described. He could figure it out by texture and balance of flavor. He was good at that.
"Why don't you ask Dino-san?" Haru offered, after he'd confided in her one morning while the both of them waited at the corner for Tsuna and Gokudera to arrive. "He's sure to know a good recipe."
"But is he even in town?" Yamamoto wondered aloud.
"I think he is," the girl said. "There was a red Ferrari parked in front of your school yesterday, and Dino-san is the only person I know who has one of those."
Sure enough, that afternoon, Dino (and about thirty of his men) showed up at Tsuna's house for dinner. Naturally, Nana Sawada invited them all--Gokudera, Sasagawa and his sister, Haru, and himself--to share in the meal. While Hayato busied himself with chasing Lambo and I-Pin around the house, Yamamoto attempted to catch Dino somewhat alone--at least out of earshot of the others.
"Of course, Yamamoto-kun," Dino smiled. "Anything to help one of Tsuna's friends!"
"Well," Takeshi began. "It's about hot cocoa."
"What about it?"
"I can't seem to get it right," the tall boy answered. "At least, Gokudera-kun always says it tastes nothing like what hot cocoa is supposed to taste like."
Dino smiled. "What you've got to understand is that there's no one way to make it. My way is completely different from the way Tsuna's mama makes it. Her way is probably different from the way you make it. It's all a matter of taste--what you like, and what you don't."
"If you don't mind," Romario chimed in, "I can give you a secret that my mama taught me when I was younger."
"Anything, please!" Yamamoto answered, eager to be getting somewhere at last.
"When you drink hot chocolate," the older man said, "it's because you want to feel warm. And when your mama makes hot chocolate for you, she makes it thick and rich and sweet, so it will--how do you say?--stick with you and fill you up--almost like a hug from the inside. The problem lies in how to make that warm feeling last."
"So how do you? Make it last, I mean?"
"Chile pepper and cinnamon," Romario answered. "Just a touch. Just enough to make the chocolate sing a little, to make it a little spicy, so when it goes down, you feel the heat settle in your belly and spread out to your fingers and your toes."
"Gokudera-kun never said anything about pepper," Yamamoto mused.
"He's trying to make a hot cocoa that Hayato won't complain about," Dino explained when Romario raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Something to remind him of the hot chocolate he had before he came to Japan," Takeshi added.
Romario nodded, considered the young man for a moment. "If I were you, I'd forget about trying to make something to compare to his memories and focus instead on making something so magnificent, his memories will seem pale by comparison."
"I think he's saying, try the pepper, Yamamoto-kun," Dino said.
It wasn't a half-bad idea. Yamamoto spent that evening looking up hot chocolate recipes with pepper in them, and he was surprised to find a significant number. Only one, however, seemed to match Romario's checklist of things that a good cup of hot cocoa should provide. Some of the ingredients were expensive, but he was sure that if he worked extra hard in the restaurant over the weekend, he'd make enough money to get what he needed. He also decided that, until he could finally achieve his perfect recipe, he wouldn't bring any more hot chocolate with him to school.
Tsuna, of course, didn't complain. Yamamoto figured he was happy to have any food or drink that didn't carry the possibility of being life-threatening. Gokudera, however, did seem the tiniest bit disappointed upon seeing milk tea instead of the usual offering of hot cocoa. After about a week, he even remarked, "Where's the hot chocolate? What's with this hot tea crap? Even sucky cocoa is better than this!"
At last, on a cold Friday night, Takeshi did it. Never in his life had he imagined that so many things might go into a cup of hot cocoa--not just the obvious ones like milk and cocoa powder and sugar, but non-obvious ones like vanilla, and a pinch of salt, and the slightly sweet whipped cream that you dolloped on top and folded in, the pinch of powdered corn meal, and--of course--the fresh grated cinnamon and the dash of cayenne pepper. It was the wackiest cup of hot chocolate he'd ever made--and his father said it was the best he'd ever tasted. But Gokudera-kun--he was the real test.
Yamamoto got up a full two hours earlier to make enough of the magical elixir to fill his father's largest thermos--after all, bringing food or drink to Tsuna's house meant bringing enough to share with at least seven people--plus a smaller one that he tucked into a pocket of his baseball windbreaker. Then he trudged through the biting cold to Tsuna's where, as he'd predicted, Gokudera sat waiting for someone to wake up, notice him outside and let him in.
"Ohayo," Yamamoto, greeted.
"Hey," Gokudera said in response. "What are you doing here so early? Don't you have baseball practice or something?"
"Yeah, there's practice," the dark-haired boy admitted, "but it's optional, since it's so cold."
"So why are you here?"
"Same as you," Takeshi smiled. "I figured I'd hang out with you and Tsuna today."
"Well, in case you hadn't noticed," Gokudera quipped, "it's pretty damn cold right here, too."
Yamamoto's heart leapt in his chest. Now was his moment. He pulled the small thermos out and offered it his friend. "I brought some cocoa."
"Not your crappy cocoa, again!" Gokudera exclaimed--but he took the thermos nevertheless. To Takeshi, it seemed like it took Gokudera an eternity to unscrew the top and pour some of the rich, creamy liquid into the little plastic cup. The aroma hit both of them like a warm, chocolatey wave.
"Wow!" Gokudera whispered, obviously unaware that he'd spoken aloud. "This smells amazing!"
"Go on and try some!" Yamamoto prodded.
The ash haired boy sipped, tentatively at the cup, and then his eyes grew large with surprise. "Did you make this?"
"Yeah. This morning."
"This is..." Gokudera took a larger sip. "This is... It's really... I've never tasted anything like this. What did you...? Did you put pepper in here?"
"Just a little, yeah," Yamamoto answered, his cheeks coloring a deeper shade of pink. He held his breath, certain that the other boy was about to unleash a string of insults and digs at his cooking.
"That's amazing!" Gokudera exclaimed, still sipping at the hot liquid. "That's...it's perfect! This is it! This is what hot chocolate is supposed to taste like!"
"I made it for you," Yamamoto mumbled, blushing furiously at that point.
"What was that?" Gokudera asked and paused in the middle of pouring himself a second cupful. "I didn't hear you."
"I said...um...I...ah...made it...for you, Gokudera-kun," he replied and dragged a hand through his thick black hair. "I know you love hot cocoa, and I wanted to make it the way you like it. It was really hard, and...well, I'm glad you like it."
All pretense of tough, cool-headedness drained out of Gokudera's face, and he stared at Yamamoto as if seeing him--really seeing him--for the first time. Then the tops of his ears turned bright scarlet, followed by his face, and he dropped his eyes into the cup of hot chocolate and took a long sip. "Thanks," he breathed without looking up.
"I can bring more to school on Monday if you want," Takeshi offered.
"Won't that be expensive?" Gokudera asked. "I mean, it tastes like it's expensive."
"A little, yeah," Yamamoto was forced to admit.
"Then..." Gokudera paused and took a breath, took another sip of the cocoa. "Then I could come over for dinner some time, and you can make it--for just the two of us."
"Okay."
"But no sushi," Gokudera interjected. "It's too cold for sushi. Have you ever tried making home-made meatballs and sauce?"
He hadn't, but now that he'd won this first food battle, Yamamoto was willing to try anything if it meant getting that much closer to the person he cared about more than any other in the world.
The recipe that Yama-kun uses is based on a blending of a recipe I got from this little Peruvian woman who used to live in my apartment building and something called melange that I used to drink in Vienna. This makes 2 large cups, but with some simple math, you can expand it easily enough. Sometimes, I make up the dry ingredients into my own cocoa mix. It keeps its flavor in an airtight container for about 3 months--if it lasts that long...
Dry Mix
8 tablespoons cocoa powder (Use the best you can find, and don't skimp! Good chocolate MAKES a good cocoa!)
4 tablespoons fine granulated sugar or powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon corn meal
With a mortar and pestle, grind your 1 tsp of corn meal until it has a fine grain or is mostly powdery. In another bowl, blend cocoa powder, sugar, and salt with a fork. Add in powdered corn meal and mix until well blended.
Whipped Cream
Before you work with cream, you want to make sure your utensils are very clean and very COLD, so about an hour before you want to whip your cream, wash your beaters and your bowl very well, dry them completely and then pop them in the freezer (or the refrigerator if you don't have freezer room).
Use a small carton of heavy whipping cream. With an electric mixer (because using a whisk takes too darn long!) beat the cream until soft "peaks" form when you lift your beaters up (i.e. the whip doesn't stand up stiffly, but sort of schlumps over like marshmallow). At this point, add about a tablespoon of powdered sugar to the bowl and continue to beat until the cream gets just a little bit stiffer (but you don't want it too stiff---you want it a little "schlumpy") Set this aside in the refrigerator in an airtight container. You will use it for the cocoa, but it's also great for coffee!
Making the Cocoa
If you've made your whipped cream ahead of time (i.e. if it's been in the fridge for a while), then take it out before you start so it can get closer to room temp.
3 or 4 cups of WHOLE milk
(That's right, I said whole milk. Don't EVER use anything less than 100% milkfat with this recipe. If anything, most people use half milk-half cream with this, but that's a bit rich, even for me!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon strong hazelnut coffee (Optional)
In a heavy saucepan, heat milk on LOW heat until it begins to steam or gets hot enough to your tastes. Be careful not to scald the milk. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and add in the vanilla and the hazelnut coffee (if you're using it).
Take one cup of the milk and add it to your bowl of dry mix. With a whisk, combine this into a smooth "slurry". Make sure you get all the lumps out. Then, stirring as you go, add the slurry back into the remaining milk in the saucepan, and whisk until frothy and fully combined.
Remove the saucepan from the heat, and pour your cocoa into two large mugs, leaving about an inch of room at the top of each mug. Into each cup put a pinch of ground cinnamon (or nutmeg, if you prefer) and a TEENY pinch of cayenne pepper--you don't need much! Then put a dollop of your whipped cream on top and serve with a spoon so you can mix in the spices and the cream.
**NOTE: When I make up the "mix" in advance, then I use about 3 or four big spoonfulls per mug. Really, it's best to experiment and see what tastes good to you. Some people like more sugar, while others like a stronger cocoa flavor.
If you're making this to take with you in a thermos, as Takeshi does, then before you pour the cocoa out of the saucepan, you can add the spice and you can fold in a dollop of cream for each serving of cocoa that you are making.
Enjoy!
Title: The Perfect Cup
Author: Fatima
Characters/Pairings: 8059, plus appearances by Tsuna, Haru, Dino and Romario.
Rating: PG
Warnings: writing while under the influence of powerful prescriptions???
The Perfect Cup
Gokudera was always doing things with food that surprised him--like taking a perfectly good maki-zushi, dunking it in tempura bater and panko, and deep frying it. He said that it was too cold outside for normal sushi, anyway, and in spite of the strangeness of it, Yamamoto had to admit that it was actually quite tasty. Gokudera put honey in green tea. He also poured soy sauce on his rice, or he put butter and parmesan cheese on it--"because, how can you just eat plain white rice?"
Then there was pizza. Gokudera absolutely refused to let him mention corn, shrimp and/or mayonnaise in the same breath as pizza. However, bits of melon, basil and cheese wrapped up in ham and drizzled with a bit of olive oil over pizza dough was somehow OK. Of course, Gokudera had grown up with Bianchi for a sister--and she was arguably the worst cook in the world--so Yamamoto was rather inclined to excuse his offenses against Japanese cuisine. Also, he knew--being the son of a restaurant owner--that the quickest way to anyone's heart was through his stomach. If things were going to work out between him and Hayato the way that he wanted them to, he'd have to learn how to appeal to Gokudera's tastes--no matter how weird they might be.
His latest experiment was with cocoa--hot cocoa to be specific. No matter what brand they tried or what restaurant they visited, Gokudera never seemed to be satisfied with the cocoa, even though it was his favorite winter drink. Oh, he'd put up with milk-tea if he had to, but he complained that most places made it too weak and not sweet enough for his tastes. Plain hot tea with sugar was only consumed in dire emergencies and often bore a stronger resemblance to syrup than tea. Yamamoto knew that if he could just master the secret of the perfect hot cocoa, he'd be just that much closer to conquering Gokudera's wild and rebellious heart.
Like any good scientist would tell you--or at least the ones on TV might--frequent testing was required. Luckily, he ate together with Tsuna and Gokudera every day, up on the roof, regardless of the weather. Honestly, on sunny days, it was pleasant up there in spite of the cold, but it was still nice to have a hot lunch and a hot drink to go along with it. At first, he tried making the regular mix with milk instead of water, and while it went over generally well, it still didn't escape Gokudera's observation that Japanese cocoa just wasn't the same as what he remembered.
The next incarnation was an attempt to add actual chocolate to the liquid, but it only ended up being lumpy and garnered him all manner of biting insults from Gokudera, though Tsuna, as always, grinned and said it was wonderful. Then, he found a recipe online and made at least seven different attempts to get it right--turns out you really did need Dutch process cocoa!--none of which, however proved to be the one he needed.
"You really must like hot cocoa, Yamamoto-kun," Tsuna observed one day. "You always bring it with your lunch."
"Too bad it's the crappy kind," Gokudera muttered, as if nobody could hear him.
"Well," Yamamoto grinned and said, "I'm trying to find a way to make it just right, but so far I haven't been successful. Still--practice, right?"
"Right!" Tsuna agreed.
"Yeah, but knowing you, you'll still find some way to screw it up," Gokudera commented.
The little jabs and barbs hurt sometimes, Takeshi had to admit, but then he reminded himself that Gokudera was just like that, and that it would be all the better when he finally did succeed. If only he could taste the kind of cocoa that his friend described. He could figure it out by texture and balance of flavor. He was good at that.
"Why don't you ask Dino-san?" Haru offered, after he'd confided in her one morning while the both of them waited at the corner for Tsuna and Gokudera to arrive. "He's sure to know a good recipe."
"But is he even in town?" Yamamoto wondered aloud.
"I think he is," the girl said. "There was a red Ferrari parked in front of your school yesterday, and Dino-san is the only person I know who has one of those."
Sure enough, that afternoon, Dino (and about thirty of his men) showed up at Tsuna's house for dinner. Naturally, Nana Sawada invited them all--Gokudera, Sasagawa and his sister, Haru, and himself--to share in the meal. While Hayato busied himself with chasing Lambo and I-Pin around the house, Yamamoto attempted to catch Dino somewhat alone--at least out of earshot of the others.
"Of course, Yamamoto-kun," Dino smiled. "Anything to help one of Tsuna's friends!"
"Well," Takeshi began. "It's about hot cocoa."
"What about it?"
"I can't seem to get it right," the tall boy answered. "At least, Gokudera-kun always says it tastes nothing like what hot cocoa is supposed to taste like."
Dino smiled. "What you've got to understand is that there's no one way to make it. My way is completely different from the way Tsuna's mama makes it. Her way is probably different from the way you make it. It's all a matter of taste--what you like, and what you don't."
"If you don't mind," Romario chimed in, "I can give you a secret that my mama taught me when I was younger."
"Anything, please!" Yamamoto answered, eager to be getting somewhere at last.
"When you drink hot chocolate," the older man said, "it's because you want to feel warm. And when your mama makes hot chocolate for you, she makes it thick and rich and sweet, so it will--how do you say?--stick with you and fill you up--almost like a hug from the inside. The problem lies in how to make that warm feeling last."
"So how do you? Make it last, I mean?"
"Chile pepper and cinnamon," Romario answered. "Just a touch. Just enough to make the chocolate sing a little, to make it a little spicy, so when it goes down, you feel the heat settle in your belly and spread out to your fingers and your toes."
"Gokudera-kun never said anything about pepper," Yamamoto mused.
"He's trying to make a hot cocoa that Hayato won't complain about," Dino explained when Romario raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Something to remind him of the hot chocolate he had before he came to Japan," Takeshi added.
Romario nodded, considered the young man for a moment. "If I were you, I'd forget about trying to make something to compare to his memories and focus instead on making something so magnificent, his memories will seem pale by comparison."
"I think he's saying, try the pepper, Yamamoto-kun," Dino said.
It wasn't a half-bad idea. Yamamoto spent that evening looking up hot chocolate recipes with pepper in them, and he was surprised to find a significant number. Only one, however, seemed to match Romario's checklist of things that a good cup of hot cocoa should provide. Some of the ingredients were expensive, but he was sure that if he worked extra hard in the restaurant over the weekend, he'd make enough money to get what he needed. He also decided that, until he could finally achieve his perfect recipe, he wouldn't bring any more hot chocolate with him to school.
Tsuna, of course, didn't complain. Yamamoto figured he was happy to have any food or drink that didn't carry the possibility of being life-threatening. Gokudera, however, did seem the tiniest bit disappointed upon seeing milk tea instead of the usual offering of hot cocoa. After about a week, he even remarked, "Where's the hot chocolate? What's with this hot tea crap? Even sucky cocoa is better than this!"
At last, on a cold Friday night, Takeshi did it. Never in his life had he imagined that so many things might go into a cup of hot cocoa--not just the obvious ones like milk and cocoa powder and sugar, but non-obvious ones like vanilla, and a pinch of salt, and the slightly sweet whipped cream that you dolloped on top and folded in, the pinch of powdered corn meal, and--of course--the fresh grated cinnamon and the dash of cayenne pepper. It was the wackiest cup of hot chocolate he'd ever made--and his father said it was the best he'd ever tasted. But Gokudera-kun--he was the real test.
Yamamoto got up a full two hours earlier to make enough of the magical elixir to fill his father's largest thermos--after all, bringing food or drink to Tsuna's house meant bringing enough to share with at least seven people--plus a smaller one that he tucked into a pocket of his baseball windbreaker. Then he trudged through the biting cold to Tsuna's where, as he'd predicted, Gokudera sat waiting for someone to wake up, notice him outside and let him in.
"Ohayo," Yamamoto, greeted.
"Hey," Gokudera said in response. "What are you doing here so early? Don't you have baseball practice or something?"
"Yeah, there's practice," the dark-haired boy admitted, "but it's optional, since it's so cold."
"So why are you here?"
"Same as you," Takeshi smiled. "I figured I'd hang out with you and Tsuna today."
"Well, in case you hadn't noticed," Gokudera quipped, "it's pretty damn cold right here, too."
Yamamoto's heart leapt in his chest. Now was his moment. He pulled the small thermos out and offered it his friend. "I brought some cocoa."
"Not your crappy cocoa, again!" Gokudera exclaimed--but he took the thermos nevertheless. To Takeshi, it seemed like it took Gokudera an eternity to unscrew the top and pour some of the rich, creamy liquid into the little plastic cup. The aroma hit both of them like a warm, chocolatey wave.
"Wow!" Gokudera whispered, obviously unaware that he'd spoken aloud. "This smells amazing!"
"Go on and try some!" Yamamoto prodded.
The ash haired boy sipped, tentatively at the cup, and then his eyes grew large with surprise. "Did you make this?"
"Yeah. This morning."
"This is..." Gokudera took a larger sip. "This is... It's really... I've never tasted anything like this. What did you...? Did you put pepper in here?"
"Just a little, yeah," Yamamoto answered, his cheeks coloring a deeper shade of pink. He held his breath, certain that the other boy was about to unleash a string of insults and digs at his cooking.
"That's amazing!" Gokudera exclaimed, still sipping at the hot liquid. "That's...it's perfect! This is it! This is what hot chocolate is supposed to taste like!"
"I made it for you," Yamamoto mumbled, blushing furiously at that point.
"What was that?" Gokudera asked and paused in the middle of pouring himself a second cupful. "I didn't hear you."
"I said...um...I...ah...made it...for you, Gokudera-kun," he replied and dragged a hand through his thick black hair. "I know you love hot cocoa, and I wanted to make it the way you like it. It was really hard, and...well, I'm glad you like it."
All pretense of tough, cool-headedness drained out of Gokudera's face, and he stared at Yamamoto as if seeing him--really seeing him--for the first time. Then the tops of his ears turned bright scarlet, followed by his face, and he dropped his eyes into the cup of hot chocolate and took a long sip. "Thanks," he breathed without looking up.
"I can bring more to school on Monday if you want," Takeshi offered.
"Won't that be expensive?" Gokudera asked. "I mean, it tastes like it's expensive."
"A little, yeah," Yamamoto was forced to admit.
"Then..." Gokudera paused and took a breath, took another sip of the cocoa. "Then I could come over for dinner some time, and you can make it--for just the two of us."
"Okay."
"But no sushi," Gokudera interjected. "It's too cold for sushi. Have you ever tried making home-made meatballs and sauce?"
He hadn't, but now that he'd won this first food battle, Yamamoto was willing to try anything if it meant getting that much closer to the person he cared about more than any other in the world.
The recipe that Yama-kun uses is based on a blending of a recipe I got from this little Peruvian woman who used to live in my apartment building and something called melange that I used to drink in Vienna. This makes 2 large cups, but with some simple math, you can expand it easily enough. Sometimes, I make up the dry ingredients into my own cocoa mix. It keeps its flavor in an airtight container for about 3 months--if it lasts that long...
Dry Mix
8 tablespoons cocoa powder (Use the best you can find, and don't skimp! Good chocolate MAKES a good cocoa!)
4 tablespoons fine granulated sugar or powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon corn meal
With a mortar and pestle, grind your 1 tsp of corn meal until it has a fine grain or is mostly powdery. In another bowl, blend cocoa powder, sugar, and salt with a fork. Add in powdered corn meal and mix until well blended.
Whipped Cream
Before you work with cream, you want to make sure your utensils are very clean and very COLD, so about an hour before you want to whip your cream, wash your beaters and your bowl very well, dry them completely and then pop them in the freezer (or the refrigerator if you don't have freezer room).
Use a small carton of heavy whipping cream. With an electric mixer (because using a whisk takes too darn long!) beat the cream until soft "peaks" form when you lift your beaters up (i.e. the whip doesn't stand up stiffly, but sort of schlumps over like marshmallow). At this point, add about a tablespoon of powdered sugar to the bowl and continue to beat until the cream gets just a little bit stiffer (but you don't want it too stiff---you want it a little "schlumpy") Set this aside in the refrigerator in an airtight container. You will use it for the cocoa, but it's also great for coffee!
Making the Cocoa
If you've made your whipped cream ahead of time (i.e. if it's been in the fridge for a while), then take it out before you start so it can get closer to room temp.
3 or 4 cups of WHOLE milk
(That's right, I said whole milk. Don't EVER use anything less than 100% milkfat with this recipe. If anything, most people use half milk-half cream with this, but that's a bit rich, even for me!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon strong hazelnut coffee (Optional)
In a heavy saucepan, heat milk on LOW heat until it begins to steam or gets hot enough to your tastes. Be careful not to scald the milk. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and add in the vanilla and the hazelnut coffee (if you're using it).
Take one cup of the milk and add it to your bowl of dry mix. With a whisk, combine this into a smooth "slurry". Make sure you get all the lumps out. Then, stirring as you go, add the slurry back into the remaining milk in the saucepan, and whisk until frothy and fully combined.
Remove the saucepan from the heat, and pour your cocoa into two large mugs, leaving about an inch of room at the top of each mug. Into each cup put a pinch of ground cinnamon (or nutmeg, if you prefer) and a TEENY pinch of cayenne pepper--you don't need much! Then put a dollop of your whipped cream on top and serve with a spoon so you can mix in the spices and the cream.
**NOTE: When I make up the "mix" in advance, then I use about 3 or four big spoonfulls per mug. Really, it's best to experiment and see what tastes good to you. Some people like more sugar, while others like a stronger cocoa flavor.
If you're making this to take with you in a thermos, as Takeshi does, then before you pour the cocoa out of the saucepan, you can add the spice and you can fold in a dollop of cream for each serving of cocoa that you are making.
Enjoy!