Peppermint Mousse and Other Amusements
-by-
The Blue Spanch
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A/N: This one was just by Spanch, though both of us laughed at the original idea. Also, the author's note at the end of this fic is Spanch, not me. This is also the last in the Harlequin series. There are another couple fics we wrote together that I'll be putting up, but this was the last of the YYH fics. Thanks to all those who read our works and encouraged us, both then and now.
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Kurama shifted the grocery bags he carried into a more comfortable position and smiled surreptitiously at Hiei from between them. Hiei was far too busy to notice; not only was he juggling a couple of bags of veggies, but he was looking at every sign and billboard- and reading them.
Hiei's illiteracy had been preying on Kurama's mind; fortunately, his caustic little lover did not object to picking up a new skill. At least, not too much. Nonetheless, Hiei had picked it up quickly and was now puzzling out a shop sign with a slightly smug look in his face. Hiei was very proud of himself, though he would rather shave himself bald than admit it.
"What does that one say?" He asked, jerking his chin at a particularly flashy placard in one storefront.
"'Adult books and video- For sale cheap!'" Kurama replied with a chuckle.
"Hn." Was Hiei's rather thoughtful reply.
"Forget it, Hiei," Kurama warned him, "you'd never be able to convince the store owner that you are over eighteen."
Hiei didn't bother to reply.
ooooo
They arrived back at Kurama's apartment and began to put the groceries away, but stopped when Hiei opened up the fridge. He didn't know what all that stuff used to be and he wasn't too sure of what it was now; all he knew was that food shouldn't be yellow-brown, runny, and half-sentient. It oozed menacingly at him and blew a few foul-smelling bubbles. "Kurama, how long has it been since you cleaned this thing out?"
Kurama took one look at the contents of his fridge and winced. "Urgh. Sorry, Hiei. Between school and my job, I've been too busy to pay much attention to things like this. Oh, well. This whole kitchen could use a thorough cleaning, anyway. Break out the trash bags, will you, and some sponges and hot soapy water."
Three extremely stinky garbage bags and a lot of scrubbing later, the fridge was sanitary enough to put food in again, but Kurama didn't stop there. The rest of the kitchen underwent a savage cleanout; not even the smallest cupboard escaped his scrutiny, and a lot of very peculiar things were unearthed. Some of Hiei's treasure hoards from when his dragon was in dire need of a date, a basket full of very old dried mushrooms, a lost roll of toilet paper, several snowglobes, and, for some reason, a Beanie Baby ferret, among other things.
Hiei did not share his lover's "clean kitchen or bust" mood- after picking the good bits out of his hoards, he settled down on a counter for a bit of light reading with one of Kurama's old cookbooks. One in particular caught his eye; it featured chocolate. Hiei liked chocolate. He found it hard not to dribble as he flipped through the book. On page 284, he found the motherlode. "Hey, Kurama? What does m-o-u-s-s-e spell?"
"Huh?" Kurama sounded rather muffled; he was chasing a tribe of feral dustbunnes out of one of the lower cabinets. "Oh, you've found the dessert book. My mom gave me that. Almost ruined my teeth."
"M-o-u-s-s-e, Kurama, what is it?" Hiei insisted.
"Oh! Mousse." Kurama grinned. "And no, it is not a large animal. It's a very light, fluffy dessert served at fancy parties."
"This book has a recipe for chocolate peppermint mousse." Hiei said thoughtfully, giving Kurama his very best bedroom eyes. "The author wrote that it's the sexiest dessert in the book. It looks really simple. Wanna try it?"
Kurama started to protest, but stopped. Hiei + chocolate mousse + Kurama = hot time tonight. "Just let me take a shower first, okay?"
"Fine."
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Fifteen minutes later, a much cleaner Kurama spread the book out on the counter and called out the ingredients to Hiei, who was checking to see if they had enough. "Eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate?"
"Check."
"Peppermint extract?"
"Check."
"Five large eggs?"
"They look normal-sized to me, but check."
"Salt?"
"Yup."
"And some boiling water. No, not like that, Hiei, on the stove please, thank you."
"Queep!"
"What?" Kurama turned around to face the window. Sure enough, they had a small furry visitor.
"Queep!" Norkie said, bounced down from the windowsill, and picked up a measuring spoon. "Queep!"
"He wants to help us cook." Kurama translated. "Why not? Now, where's the mixer gone to..."
Hiei muttered something rude about dustbunnies in his chocolate, but dug the mixer out of its cabinet.
Norkie was set to breaking up the chocolate (which he did with extreme enthusiasm, spraying chips everywhere) while Kurama carefully separated the egg whites from the yolks. Hiei sat on the counter with the cookbook on his lap, proudly reading the directions aloud to anybody who would pay attention. All this mixing and separating and pouring and measuring was fun to watch, but it bored him slightly. Plus, there was that bottle of peppermint extract just sitting there... Hiei had become very fond of mint recently; Kurama's mutant mint especially. Once again, his curiosity got the better of him and he opened the bottle and sniffed the contents. Delicious. He decided to take a taste.
"Hiei!" Kurama said, looking up from stirring the chocolate. "Don't drink that!"
Too late. Hiei took a healthy slug of the stuff, and then fell off of his perch as the extract forcefully cleared out his sinuses, chilled his lungs, and melted his ear wax. "Whoa!" He muttered happily from floor level. "Peppermint!"
"Freshens your breath while you scream, huh?" Kurama teased. "There had better be some of that left."
"Queep!" Norkie admonished from the egg rack.
"And what are you doing in the eggs? Hey! You're eating my eggs! Get out of that!"
"Queep!"
"Hiei, would you please get rid of that furball? I can't let the chocolate overheat!"
Hiei was only too glad to help. Snatching Norkie up out of the egg rack, he hurled the little fuzzball out the window. A burst of furious queeping told them that he'd landed squarely in the rosebushes.
Humming a happy tune, Kurama mixed the melted chocolate in with the beaten egg yolks, with one brief struggle with Hiei for the possession of the peppermint. A generous half-teaspoon of that made the mix smell very good, indeed. Setting that bowl aside, he turned to the egg whites to beat them into fluffy perfection, only to find that the fuzzball had beat him to the bowl. "Get out of that bowl!" Kurama shouted angrily. "Hiei! If you would eject him please, and pass me another egg."
Hiei complied cheerfully, once again hurling Norkie into the roses with one hand while handing Kurama a replacement egg with the other. Once the eggwhites were stiff and fluffy, he folded them gently into the chocolate mix, poured the result into a bowl, covered it with tinfoil, and shoved it into the fridge. "What are you doing that for?" Hiei asked.
"It's right there in the recipe, Hiei, the mousse needs to sit for a few hours before we can eat it."
"Drat." He muttered, disappointed. "What are we going to do until then?"
"For starters, you can help me clean up the mess."
ooooo
Three hours later, they pulled their concoction from the fridge. It looked good and smelled better, and made a lovely sight as Kurama flotched a generous helping onto their plates. "Whipped cream?" He offered Hiei the can.
"Queep!"
"Oh, no, not you again!" Kurama groaned as Norkie hauled himself up onto the table. "You've already had most of the eggs in the house, you can't expect to get some of the mousse, too?"
"Queep?" Norkie said, turning the most expressive set of Bambi eyes on Kurama that he had ever seen in his life. "Queeeep?"
Hiei rolled his eyes. He could see where this was heading. "Just give him some, Kurama, or we'll be chasing him out of the house all night."
With a startled glance at Hiei (who did not share things often), he fetched out a small finger bowl and served their furry guest a helping of mousse. Now for the taste test. Kurama tried the stuff and found it very, very good. When he looked across the table to ask Hiei what he thought of it, he saw the little Koorime snarfing the stuff down with both hands. Apparently, he approved. Once finished with his plate, he made a lunge for Kurama's, a poorly-executed action that knocked over the table, spilling the mousse all over Kurama and landing them both on the floor in a heap. "Hiei!" Kurama complained, "You get to clean this up, too, I hope you know."
Hiei only shrugged and started licking the mousse off of Kurama's front. As you might imagine, things progressed from there rather predictably. Sexiest recipe in the book, indeed!
As for Norkie, he picked up his bowl and politely left the room. It was very difficult to enjoy one's dessert while that sort of thing was going on.
Kurama and Hiei, however, were managing just fine.
EPILOGUE
A few days later, Yuusuke stomped up to Kurama's door and pounded angrily on it until Kurama opened the door. As he did so, he noticed that Yuusuke smelled heavily of peppermint. Uh oh... "Hello, Yuusuke, can I help you with anything?"
"Yes." Yuusuke snarled. "I want to know who sent Keiko that recipe for that chocolate mint stuff. Yeesh! One spoonful of that and she goes bats!"
"Um," Kurama said, rather taken aback. "I haven't sent Keiko anything lately."
"Then how come both you and Hiei smell like it?" Yuusuke demanded. "She's been passing that recipe to all of her friends, too."
Kurama shot a suspicious glance at Hiei, who was watching them smugly from the couch. Come to think of it, a pen, a stamp, and an envelope had gone missing earlier... Yuusuke interpreted that look just fine.
"You little bastard!" He growled. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't-"
"Hello, guys!" Kuwabara had shown up at the door just in time, reeking of mint and looking very happy with himself. " Yukina sent me to say thanks for the mousse recipe she got from Keiko. It's great stuff!"
Hiei's smile had soured somewhat. Kurama nudged him gently in the ribs. "Joke's on you, eh?"
"Shut up, fox." Hiei growled.
END
Author's Note:
This recipe actually exists. My sister and I found it in a 21-year old cookbook called Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts while clearing out the pantry. It is, in fact, labelled as the "sexiest recipe in the book", and having made it, I know that to be true. Thusly, I include it here in this fic, so that all you ficfen out there may have a pleasant accompaniment to one's Yaoi and Lemon fics.
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1/3 C boiling water
1/2 t peppermint extract
5 large eggs, separated
pinch of salt
1.) Break up the chocolate into coarse chunks and place in a small, heavy saucepan.
2.) In another pan, boil some water and pour 1/3 cup of it over the chocolate.
3.) Place the chocolate over low heat and stir with a small wire whisk until smooth, and then set to cool for 5 minutes.
4.) In an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks on high speed until pale yellow. Slowly add cooled chocolate and 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract, and beat until smooth. Remove and set aside.
5.) In the other bowl of the mixer, add a pinch of salt to the eggwhites and beat then until they are stiff enough to hold a definite shape.
6.) Fold one-quarter of the eggwhites into the chocolate until they disappear, and repeat until all the whites are folded in.
7.) Pour the mix into a bowl (or wineglasses, or whatever), cover with tinfoil, and place in fridge for three to six hours to let it set.
Served with whipped cream, fresh berries of your choice, or just plain, this stuff is excellent. It can last a day or two in the fridge before going bad, but who am I kidding? You'll gobble the lot.
*Just fair warning, though. Swigging peppermint extract like Hiei did will very likely have the same effect on you as it did on him. That is powerful stuff.