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Her hair wasn't in her eyes. That was so rude! Phoebe paused and tried to stare up into her own hair, which was absolutely in her eyes when she didn't make a concentrated effort to pull it back (and why would she do that for Potions?). Okay, maybe it was a bit in her eyes, whatever. She poured their milk into the cauldron and set it over low heat. Thermometer? Was there one in the kit, or... maybe nerd!cute professor man had some provided? She glanced around vaguely, since things tended to work out the way they were supposed to. "You seem sort of down, Flynny. If you're worried about not outshining me in class today, I can assure you that you are gonna be impressive. Because I blow up cauldrons like no one's business. This one probably won't blow up; I bet it just melts all the stuff into a goop that stinks like the bottom of a bin." |
Violet had gotten the milk warming in her cauldron and then added the mixture of water and citric acid to it and started stirring it gently as she listened to the class go on around her. A stirring spell? Yes, Violet supposed that would make things go faster, but why would you want to go faster? Violet could brew potions all day, she didn't want to get through faster, and besides, she was not convinced that a stirring potion worked quite as well as stirring by hand. Finally she was satisfied with her mixture and left it to heat up to 40 degrees C while she turned her attention to dissolving the rennet in the remainder of her water. |
mini-activity pt. 1.....I think Text Cut: Replies! Well, no one had guessed the spell yet and that was fine. David just assumed no one had checked out Charm Your Own Cheese for a bit of light reading then. Perhaps someone would after this seminar? "The spell we'll be using is caseum celeri, the cheese charming spell used uniquely in magical cheesemaking," he explained, flicking his wand over his shoulder toward the board so that the incantation and an illustration of the wand movement would appear there. It was a simple circular motion, a bit like a spiral that should be cast over top of their cauldron. "Now normally, we would need to let your warmed milk set for thirty minutes for curds to form. But today we're going to speed up the process." They were, after all, on a schedule for their seminar. "First, check the temperature of your milk so far. It should be nearly 40°C ." He demonstrated temping his own cauldron contents. Thermometers should have been a standard part of their school potion-making kit, no? "Turn off the flame entirely. Then stir in your diluted rennet and stir for two minutes." David again demonstrated this, using his wand and a nonverbal to get the potion stirring itself. After two minutes, he cleared his throat. "Here's where we want to use our spell. The pronunciation is caseum celeri, cas-e-um-cel-eri, and as you can see from the board, you're making a spiral with your wand over your cauldron." Again he demonstrated this as he spoke. "If you do it properly, your milk should set into curds before your eyes, and then you can use your potions knife to cut a cross-hatch pattern into the curds." Magic, right? It was dead useful. "I'll walk around to assist you with the spell, but I do recommend practicing the incantation and movement before casting it over your cauldron." Because they did only get one shot at that, after all. |
Ashley smiled. "Cool." This dude would make a good professor. Or at least a better one than the headmaster. He didn't even say 'really, fox. How useless are you?' in a stupid voice. She practiced the spell. "cas-e-um-cel-eri" Once she figured that she could cast the spell, she did all the required steps. And she did them just fine. Take that, Trent. "Professor, do we have to actually ingest the cheese we're making? Like in a potion, or by just eating it or whatever?" Because she wasn't too keen on drinking random potions, or eating cheese. Still, it was far from the grossest thing that she'd ingested. |
Claudine thought that she saw Flynn’s head bobbing to her answer. If that was the case, then he obviously was in agreement to her reasoning. She herself wasn’t sure as she had only given a guess. Unfortunately it was wrong. [i]Whatever.[i] At least now she and the others knew what it was. Moving on. Claudine quickly made a note of the new information on the board then rushed to check the temperature of the cauldron’s contents. Merlin knew that she didn’t want to overdo the temperature because that would mean there would be time spent waiting for it to drop back to forty. Following Truebridge’s lead, the girl tested her cauldron. Yes, 40 degrees. This meant that the flame got put out before the diluted rennet was added. As before, she used her stirrer to stir for two minutes, keeping her dark gaze on the contents and listening for her timer to go off. “Cas-e-um-cel-eri. Cas-e-um-cel-eri. Caseum celeri.’’ Reaching for her wand, Claudine braced herself to try the charm. But only after the movement was practiced a few times. “Caseum celeri.’’ Cue the appropriate movement and as much concentration that could be mustered. Oh wow. Curdling really did happen and Claudien was super amazed as she watched it happen. It was really that fascinating. What came next? Oh yes. Cutting the curds in a cross-hatch pattern. |
Had Phoebe sanitized the cauldron? Flynn just kind of assumed, mostly because he had no plans on trying what they made so it didn't really matter to him and she could probably survive anything. He added the citric acid and water mix into the milk and gave it a stir. "I'm not down." he assured Fifi, wondering when he would need to know how to brew cheese. It was a welcome distraction from his distractions. Another distraction: finding out what rennet was. Did he look grossed out? Because it sounded gross. An enzyme from a stomach. Okay. Who even found out that could be used to make cheese? Maybe his mum was into something with restricting this kind of food at home. It was about 40 degrees right? Flynn checked. 39. Close enough? He would just keep stirring. Stir duty. |
Of COURSE she'd sanitized the cauldron. She almost always remembered to do that, obviously. Phoebe clucked over their cauldron, watching as Flynn checked the temperature, and then dousing their flame and adding the rennet while he stirred. It was nice to do this with a partner, since she always sort of felt like she was short a few hands in this class. "You're not up either. I think that professor is in love with me, don't you? Look at how he stopped to make sure I wasn't blown up yet," Phoebe whispered, her tone playful. She was JOKING, but she wanted him to smile, just once. Just the one time. For her. "Was that two minutes? I lost track. You were counting, right?" She grinned at him and spun her wand in a spiral over the top of the cauldron. JUST KIDDING. "Caseum celeri." |
Violet was peering at the thermometer at the moment and saw that it had just reached 40 degrees, so she cut off the flame. Then she took her dissolved rennet mixture, added it to her cauldron, and set her timer for two minutes as she began to stir it. A cheese-making charm, who knew? Violet had never heard of such a thing, though her grandfather didn't like her to hang around in the kitchens much, so she didn't know that much about cooking and housekeeping spells. See, now she needed that--she'd be sure to write him and tell him so. 'Caseum celeri,' she repeated in her head, to make sure she remembered the pronunciation. |
“2 minutes." Probably. He just kind of.... rolled with it but then he next comment caught his focus. In love with her? What? It was only now that Flynn looked around that he noticed there were a few moon eyes in the direction of the seminar professor. He told himself he wasn't going to look close enough to check if they were right on the money because the last thing he needed was more of that. "One day you'll joke like that but it will turn out to be true, Fifi." Flynn managed a bit of a smile since she was trying so hard for his benefit, and in spite of himself, snuck a searching, curious look at the man teaching them. He had No Opinion™ and Wasn't Looking Like That Anyway™. Was she going to pra--nope. Still, Fifi was better with spells than he was. If Flynn practiced it twenty times it would likely still be a disaster. He did make a slight effort to repeat the incantation and echo the wand movement a few times but he would need to go and work on it outside of class if he had any hope of doing it right. What he could do though, was the cross hatching. He picked up the silver knife once Phoebe was done making curds and obligingly cut cross hatches in the top. He was glad the spell worked and all but..... it was cheese, how exciting could cheese be? But they were caught up, weren't they? At least? |
Kinsay needed to know if they could use the cheese for eating too and not just potions. Unfortunately she had very little time to raise her hand and ask the question though because they were moving on very quickly. She spared a look at Emm before reaching to warm their milk over low heat. Since Kizzy had taken the liberty of grabbing extra ingredients (thinking they were making glitter), she shrugged and added all the citric acid and water into the milk even though it wasn’t the actual proper amount. Um. Grabbing a thermometer, she began impatiently checking the temperature (which did not change as quickly as she would like). It was nice that they had other things to keep them busy though. Dissolving the rennet was a good way to pass time. Since she had extra of that too, she decided to use more than 10 mL of water. See? Smart. Everything was going fine until she heard they needed to use spells. Kizzy deflated a little bit at that. She wasn’t very good at those. So after turning off the flame, she stirred in ALL the diluted rennet and stirred for more than two minutes (because at this point she had to take her own liberties with the instructions). She also only pretended to try the spell. This was something she had become an expert at. Pretending to do the practical part of lessons and getting away with it. “Cas-e-um-cel-eri,” she mumbled. She even pretended to practice the wand movement! |
The timer signalled that the two minutes were up. Violet had practised the incantation and she had practised the spiral wand movement, and she thought she was ready. She carefully pointed her wand over the cauldron, made the spiral, and pronounced: "Caseum celeri" in a confident voice (incantations always worked better if you sounded confident, even if you weren't, or at least Violet thought so). And in this case, that seemed to be the case, because before her eyes her milky potion begin to form into curds--just like magic! (Well, Violet supposed that was because it was magic). This was nearly as much fun as watching that caterpillar come out of a cocoon transformed into a butterfly. Contentedly, she picked up her potions knife and began cutting the completed curds into a crosshatch pattern. |
mini-activity pt. 2 and taking some wizardy liberties here heehee Text Cut: Reacts & Replies Speaking of time.... David checked his watch as he returned to the front of the room again. Twas high time they got on to the last bit of the spell. "Alright, once you have your curds, you need to heat them up again and separate the curds from the whey--- the whey is that watery substance you should see beneath your curds if you give them a stir." Again he used his wand to nonverbally flit about here and there, the instructions appearing on the board as he spoke, a small flame lighting beneath the cauldron again, and the curds starting to stir themselves gently as they bobbed around the cauldron. "We're going to cheat time by again casting the cheesecharming spell, but not until your curds have reached 40°C again. You'll see them start to look like they're on the verge of melting." But this wouldn't take long, maybe five minutes. "And please stir your cauldron occasionally but gently as it warms up again." After a few minutes, David checked the temperature of his pot, and decided it was time to cast the spell. "Caseum celeri." He again moved his wand in a spiral over the top of the cauldron, this time watching as the whey began to evaporate in a way, just leaving the cottage cheese looking curds behind. "Don't be alarmed if your curds break up a little and start to look like cottage cheese. That's a sign you've done it properly. Once all your whey has drained, turn up your flame, and bring your cheese up to 80°C. We're going to melt it slightly so we can get to the fun part of streeeeeeeetching the cheese." He paused to give the class a cheeky grin. "I hope you're having as gouda time as I am here." Ha! ooc: for a fun link on how to do this IRL, click here or here; if you're following along on the kitchn site, we're on like step 12/15 but using magic instead of mircowaves. :upside: |
Ashley nodded. Good. She would probably give it to someone else. It was done right, so she assumed that it would be edible. Even if it did involve rennet. She was following instructions. Doing all the stuff to make cheese. Etc. And then she made a very strange sound at the professor's pun. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to laugh or snort, so what happened was something akin to choking. She coughed a couple times until she was fine, died of embarrassment, and pretended she hadn't just done that. She went back to doing the cheesemaking stuff. |
If Mr. Truebridge must know, Potions was one of Claudine’s stronger subjects but not as strong as CoMC or Charms. It also helped that she was good at following directions. She acknowledged Truebridge’s nod with one of her own, very pleased with herself. However, just because she was good at Potions, it didn’t mean that she got confused at times. For the next set of instructions, this was exactly as to how the fourth year felt. A small frown appeared on her face. Did she have curds and whey? Check and check. Small flame? Using magic, the burner was relit and adjusted appropriately. Check. After ensuring that the thermometer was nearby, the contents of the cauldron were occasionally stirred. Finally, it all seemed to be approaching the 40 degrees {plus the curds did look like they were melting}. "Caseum celeri,’’ Claudine commanded, doing all the things to make the spell happen correctly. Colour her amazed as the whey evaporated. And yes, the remainder did look like cottage cheese. Next step? The heat. Up it went. All she had to do was keep an eye on the temperature. Was she having a good time? Um… it was no CoMC lesson but it was alright. At least the frown had left her face. |
asdfjkl!!! *catches up on all the things* SPOILER!!: pre-mini activity catchup Oh, they were using a cheesemaking spell? Heath supposed he should’ve seen that coming! He wasn’t sure he’d ever use that spell outside of a classroom setting, but he supposed it was good to know anyway. At least he was learning a spell that he didn’t already know! He quickly jotted down the incantation, pronunciation, and wand movement in his notes before turning his attention back to the thermometer, which now read 40 degrees exactly. He turned off the burner and after setting his timer, he added the diluted rennet and stirred for two minutes. As he stirred with his left hand, he used his right to practice the spiral wand movement. “Cas-e-um-cel-eri,” he said under his breath. “Cas-e-um-cel-eri, caseum celeri…” He kept practicing the spell and wand movement separately until his timer went off. Had it been two minutes already? Wow, that was fast! Time to do the spell for real now… Aiming his wand at the mixture in the cauldron, he made the spiral shape and cast, “Caseum celeri!” For a fleeting instant, Heath worried that his spell wouldn’t work, but as he looked into the cauldron, he saw curds forming. Good, it worked! Now what? He glanced at the board. Oh, right… cut the curds in a crosshatch pattern. He picked up his knife and made a series of careful, decisive cuts forming a crosshatch pattern in the curds. By the time Heath had finished doing that, it was time to move on to the next steps. He blinked, slightly confused as he listened to the instructions. So they were to heat the curds to 40 degrees, then cast the cheesemaking spell again? Okay, then… He reignited the burner, adjusting the flame to low. As the mixture reheated, he stirred occasionally, peeking at his thermometer as he did so. Almost there… and 40 degrees exactly! “Caseum celeri,” he cast, again making the spiral wand movement. He watched the curds break up into a cottage cheese-like state and the whey drain. Once all the whey had drained, he turned the flame up, watching the thermometer as the temperature climbed. A slight smile appeared on his face as he heard Mr. Truebridge’s last sentence, Nice pun, sir! |
So, back in the cauldron went the curds, to be heated up again to 40 degrees. Violet watched the thermometer carefully, and when it was time, she got out her wand. "Time to drain away the whey!," she said to herself--hey, it rhymes! This time she felt more confident when she cast Caseum Celeri, since it had worked before, and indeed, so it did again. Magic was wonderful, wasn't it? She watched as all the whey began to drain away. Soon it would be time for the last step. |
"Oh, he hmm'd at you," Phoebe muttered quietly, keeping her face over the cauldron to watch exactly what their potion!cheese was doing. "I think that means he's in love with you, actually. You can say what you want, Flynny, but I have no hope of inspiring great love and admiration in anyone, now or ever." She was always second choice. Sometimes third. And it was okay. "Oh, we have curds. How exactly are we meant to separate it from the whey? Why don't they call it cheese juice? That's what it is, right?" She fussed with the fire so the whole concoction could start reheating. "How about I take over stirring and you can do the casting this time? And the separating, however we do that. Just pour it off, do you think?" Her attention caught on Kizzy being quietly instructed by the professor, and she went still and watchful to make sure she wouldn't have to punch the man or something. |
Flynn did not like that. He did not. "Don't say that." He said, shooting a disconcerted look down at his much shorter friend and tucking his chin in with an air of self-conscious discomfort he rarely exhibited. He even missed the cue to reassure Phoebe of her epic and lovely worth, something he usually did to a fierce degree, he was so thrown. ".... Yeah. Cheese juice." He agreed vaguely. "You're better at spells. I'll just stir." that way, also, he could just stare deeply into the cauldron and nowhere else at all while gently stirring. Did they need a ladle? |
main activity you could say Text Cut: Replies! A short while later, David returned to the front of the room. "Alright, so the last step is to streeeeeeeetch and fold your cheese. Once it reaches 80°C, you can sprinkle the salt over it and then massage it in. You might want to put gloves on for this step, because now you're going to pull the cheese and fold it in on itself until it's smooth and shiny." David demonstrated, snapping on a pair of gloves of his own and beginning to work the mozzarella in his cauldron. "If you wanted to flavour your cheese, you could also do so at this point. Some people use olive oil, tomatoes, herbs...." And those options were laid out in little containers along the counter where they had gathered their original ingredients. As for his mozzarella, well, he was leaving it plain to use in a potion. "If you finish your mozzarella, you can leave it in one ball or break it up into three or four. I'd like for us to try each other's cheeses, if you all are willing. I think they could be... grate?" He couldn't help grinning a bit at that one. "If you want us to sample it, bring a bit up to the front and put it on my cheeseboard here. If you want to keep it, there are containers over by all the seasonings." |
So no one had noticed her choking on air. Good. That would be... embarrassing to say the least. Ashley got to the flavoring part. Should she put anything on it? Nah, what was she gonna do, eat it? She left the cheese plain. No. Thank. You. And she left it in one ball. She brought it over to the cheeseboard. She didn't wanna keep it. "This is definitely edible. I didn't season it though." Then she walked away, having no intention of trying anyone else's cheese unless someone she tolerated and semi-trusted asked her to. Goodbye, plain blob of mozzarella cheese that I made perfectly but didn't season because I wasn't planning on eating it. |
Violet had finally gotten her mixture back up to 80 degrees and then sprinkled on the salt. Looking up for a minute at the teacher, she copied his movements and began folding and stretching the mixture--it was cheese now, she guessed. This was fun! But wait--other flavorings? They were supposed to have flavorings? Violet wasn't sure what you would flavor mozzarella cheese with. Wait--she had some basil leaves in her pocket; she'd picked them when she was on that walk the other day. She pulled them out--they were rather dry by now, but that would be fine, she could crumble them up and add them to the cheese. Violet worked and worked on her cheese until it shone and the texture felt just right. Then she cut off a small corner and put it in her mouth--it felt weird eating potions experiments! And what do you know, it tasted pretty good! So she cut a nice-sized slice from the other end and brought it up to the front of class. "I think mine is ready, Mr. Truebridge." |
So Truebridge hadn’t said anything to her which meant that she was doing okay so far. His nod confirmed it. Confident in herself, Claudine was all set to stretch and fold the cheese. But how did she do this? With Truebridge’s instructions, of course. Eighty degrees? Check. Gloves? Also a go. Once the salt was sprinkled on, the fourth year did her best to copy Truebridge’s actions. Did she want to flavour her mozzarella? Um… yes. Claudine opted for olive oil and herbs, which she collected from the counter. Carefully, the olive oil was added first then rubbed in. The same pattern went for the herbs. The entire cheese was once again folded and folded repeatedly until her hands hurt. At least it was smooth in the end. Claudine hearty sliced a bit for the others and Truebridge [s]and his bad pun[/i] to try. So, um… it was okay to try the few that were up there already, yes? After adding her slice to the mix, the Slytherin proceeded to take tiny chunks of a few of her classmates’ cheeses. |
Phoebe grinned HUGELY at the teacher man, pleased that he felt the need to stop and give them his extra attention, since apparently they were just being ignorant about how the spell interacted with the cheese juice. Ahem, the whey. She didn't stop giving him a big, charming grin, even as she pointed her wand at the cauldron and gave it a little spiral motion. "Caseum celeri. Check on the cheese juice, will ya, Flynny?" Did it bring her joy to annoy adults? Yes. Yes, it certainly did. Phoebe leaned in herself, giving the fire another nudge upward, since they needed to get the whole thing nice and toasty (cheese toasty) before it was ready for stretching. "I'm sorry if I offended you, Flynny. How about I have to give it the salt and stretching to apologize properly?" |
Although Morgan was pretty terrible at potions, or pretty much anything that took an extended amount of focus, he was rather keen on making his own food today. Of course he'd be eating it rather than save it for any future potions. If it ended up edible, of course. He'd stirred and stirred and stirred, then cast the cheesecharming spell. Oh, look at that! Morgan watched as the milk solution started breaking up and curdling. He watched another moment before remembering he needed to heat this up again (unintentionally forgetting the crosshatching cutting). He stirred and stirred as it heated - probably a little too much stirring, but that was partially out of boredom. It took a long time to get to the right temperature, okay? But by the time he looked at the thermometer again, it was past 40 degrees, so that was probably good enough. Morgan cast the spell again and watched as the watery stuff evaporated away and he was left with all the chunky milk bits. He was kinda fascinated with how gross it looked. But would it taste okay? He turned up the heat and started stirring more. Was he supposed to stir more? He wasn't sure, but it was getting harder and harder to stir. He let out a chuckle as he heard the instructor's pun. "Good one, Mr. Truebridge! Do you have a lot of kids?" He eyed him a moment. The man looked older, but not like old enough to have many kids. How many kids did one need before they started telling dad jokes in public? It sounded like something his own dad would say and he had five kids. He was getting distracted again because when he looked down at his thermometer, it was over 80 degrees. Oops. Time to take that off the heat and get some gloves on. Morgan sprinkled plenty of salt over the dough-like substance and started to streeeetch it out. He stretched and pulled and folded it in on itself, over and over, soon forming it into a shiny ball. In fact, it looked so much like a giant bouncy ball that he wonder if it would actually bounce. Without missing another beat, Morgan picked up his cheese ball and bounced it against his table, only to see it bounce high into the air. "Whoa!" That was SO cool. |
Heath’s eyes flicked from the contents of his cauldron to his thermometer. Was he doing this right? He had no idea, but the nod he received from Mr. Truebridge was an encouraging sign. He liked this teacher! He wasn’t loud or chaotic, and a teacher who threw out cheesy (see? He could make puns too!) puns was much better than one who threw out insults! Could Mr. Truebridge be their permanent potions master? Please? He looked up as Mr. Truebridge spoke again, making a note of the next instructions. Okay, massage salt into the cheese when it reaches 80 degrees, pull and fold until smooth and shiny, add flavor if desired. Got it! But what flavor should he add? As he thought, he remembered a tomato basil cheese his grandma had served as an appetizer last Christmas. Maybe he could try to recreate that! He was so focused on picking the right flavor combination for his cheese that he almost missed Mr. Truebridge’s next cheese pun. Hehe, good one, sir! By the time Heath finished listening to the directions and picking a flavor for his cheese, his thermometer read exactly 60 degrees. He quickly turned off the burner and put on his gloves - because no way was he doing the next part without gloves! He didn’t want to accidentally flavor the cheese with germs! He sprinkled the salt on and massaged it into the cheese. When that was done, he went to the counter to retrieve some dried tomatoes and basil. Once those had been added to the cheese too, Heath began to work the cheese. Pull, fold, pull, fold… As he worked, he wondered if different flavors of cheese produced different effects in potions? For that matter, were some types of cheese better for certain potions than others? Did all cheese-based potions use mozzarella or did some call for other kinds of cheese? Asdfjkl! He had so many questions, but none that he could ask at the moment, as he didn’t have a hand free to raise. Maybe he’d check out Charm Your Own Cheese from the library later. Heath lost track of how much time had passed until his cheese became smooth and shiny. He carefully broke it up into three good-sized balls; two of which were placed into containers to keep for later. He already had an idea about what to do with that cheese! He broke a tiny piece off the third ball to taste. He had to make sure it was edible before letting his classmates sample it. Hmm… it wasn’t exactly like the tomato basil cheese from Christmas, but it was pretty close. Anyway, it tasted better than he expected! Satisfied with his work, he placed his ball of cheese on the cheeseboard up front, breaking off a small piece to take back to Claudine, and took samples from the other cheeses. “Here, want to try mine?” he asked upon returning to his station, offering Claudine the piece of cheese he’d saved for her. |
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