A Holiday Episode for The Sand Family: What Would Be Their Perfect Holiday Drink?
Alright ya’ll, this had been a running late holiday episode I was supposed to post a few days ago, but I just got to finish finalizing the recipes and the drawings the other day haha. Either way, here it goes!
Temari starts off by finely chopping her pre-cooked, roasted and peeled chestnuts. She places the non-stick pan on medium low heat before pouring the chopped chestnuts in it, followed by the whole milk.
She then proceeds to chop the stick of vanilla bean into two pieces, takes 2/3 of it for the drink; with the remaining 1/3 of the stick to be set aside to flavor the whipped cream later. Temari splits the vanilla bean in half, lengthwise, and scrapes out the vanilla pulp inside and stirs it right into the simmering milk. The same step will be done later to the remaining vanilla bean. Temari prefers using vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract, as the vanilla extract contains unnecessary ingredients and tastes weaker compared to the vanilla bean itself.
Temari doesn’t like using ground cinnamon, as it doesn’t dissolve into the drink. To still have the cinnamon flavor, she throws in a small cinnamon stick into the milk.
Knowing from bad experience, Temari doesn’t leave the simmering milk unattended. She diligently scrapes the bottom of the pan every 1-2 minutes with a rubber spatula so it doesn’t form a film of milk solids that could burn if left neglected. She cracks up the heat a little to medium high to bring it to a boil. After so, Temari reduces the heat at the lowest setting to allow it to simmer, still stirring it occasionally for five minutes before taking it off the heat.
Temari likes using bittersweet chocolate instead of cocoa powder, as the butter content of chocolate allows for a richer taste. She chops the chocolate very finely to have it dissolve faster into the hot milk. Since bittersweet chocolate doesn’t taste as sweet, she adds two tablespoons of light brown sugar and stirs it to dissolve. After that, she takes out the cinnamon stick.
Temari prefers to blitz her hot chocolate in her high-speed blender as it allows her clean the counter and wash the utensils for the meantime as it blends. It leaves little to no trace of remaining chestnut pieces and usually results to a very smooth consistency.
After dividing the nutty, hot chocolate into her mugs and Shikamaru’s mug, she stirs in the Bourbon.
Temari prefers to whip her cold, heavy cream to a medium peak with a hand-held mixer alongside 2 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar and the scraped vanilla bean from the left stick.
She tops off the drink with a healthy amount of sweetened, vanilla whipped cream, roughly chopped roasted walnuts (as expected), and a drizzle of her own chocolate sauce on to finish it off.
Temari prefers homemade to store-bought if it doesn’t take much of her time to do it, one of the things she swaps for a homemade version is chocolate sauce, knowing it’s a one-pot no brainer recipe. So how does she do it?
Temari’s Homemade Chocolate Sauce
5) 1 stick of vanilla bean.
Pour in the water, sugar, cocoa powder and salt into the pan and heat it over low heat. Stir the mixture constantly until it thickens up and comes to a simmer. Take it off the heat and then stir in the scraped vanilla bean. You can serve it warm, or make it in advance and store in a container into the fridge until ready to be served.
Kankuro gets cold easily, and he likes to be experimental at times with the food he eats. Hot chocolate with Tequila and a little kick of cayenne? Yep, you got him intrigued. He would certainly give it a shot.
Kankuro usually goes for whole milk, but he decides to go for full cream milk this time to balance off the taste of alcohol and spice perfectly. He does find it resulting to a thicker, decadent hot chocolate, which is something he’s not shy to indulge himself upon.
He prefers to use both parts of milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate. There are times where he opts to not add sugar at all due to the sugars present in his chosen types of chocolate, but if he’s feeling a little kick of a sweet tooth, he would use light brown sugar.
He starts off by finely chopping his chocolates and placing them onto the bowl. Last year, he thought he could chop it at the same time as he allows the milk to boil, but he ended up losing his concentration as he found joy in the sound of chocolate being chopped by his freshly-sharpened knife. The milk boiled over, and the panic had him throwing the chocolate into the scalded milk; with the weight of the chopping board tipping over the pot and resulting to a hot chocolate-less night. Never again. He knew better now. He learns the best after his own mistakes.
To make his favorite hot chocolate, pour in the milk, sugar, salt, ground cinnamon and cayenne pepper into the pot and heat it over medium low. As he only makes this once a year, specifically for the holiday as a sort of little tradition for himself as he dons his holiday sweater, Kankuro is extra mindful to scrape the bottom of the pot until it reaches a gentle boil. He reduces the heat to the lowest setting before pouring in his finely chopped chocolate from his fancy little glass bowl. After stirring it to dissolve, he removes it off the heat and then uses a ladle for extra precaution to transfer it to the mugs.
Stirs in the tequila into the hot chocolate.
Kankuro likes to top it off with a thin layer of store-bought whipped cream. He then sprinkles a small amount of roughly chopped milk chocolate to sweeten the cream, and pinch of cayenne for an interesting contrast.
Note: I forgot to add cinnamon powder into the recipe image, but the recipe does call for it! I’m sorry for the error!
Gaara is not very keen on overly-indulgent, sweet drinks. Already thinking that chocolate is very rich itself, Gaara chooses to use low-fat milk. The lessened percentage of fat from his preferred type of milk is complemented by the butter content that the semisweet chocolate offers. The unsweetened cocoa powder packs in a deep, flavor of strong cocoa minus the fat content. This combination results to a less thicker form of hot chocolate, which Gaara prefers the most. To balance off the bitterness and the acidity, he adds a teaspoon of light brown sugar.
Same old step, Gaara combines the simple, yet the highest of quality products in his non-stick pan. Highest of quality meaning having it exposed less to commercialized practices, as Gaara opts to buy his commodities from Suna’s own, proud farmers as a form of his utmost support. Suna had propositioned to buy additional farmlands from Konohagakure, and their own agriculture business is now thriving for the better.
There are times where he visits the farmers himself, and they are more than happy to welcome their beloved Kazekage with an enormous feast of the freshest of their harvest. Gaara vowed to bring Shinki, Araya, and Yodo next time to introduce this practice he upholds in hopes of passing on the economical and moral importance of supporting their own people and own products to the next generation.
Since it is the holidays after all, he lets himself slide off a just a bit by topping his drink off with his own recipe of espresso whipped cream. It’s fairly simple, he whips the cold heavy whipping cream alongisde a small amount of vanilla bean and a teaspoon of instant espresso powder. It may come off as a surprise that he adds another shot of sugar into this as he wasn’t a person with a sweet tooth at all, but he does find that the molasses flavor of the brown sugar balances the concentrated caffeine flavor of the espresso perfectly.
He then proceeds to counter the sweetness from the brown sugar with a healthy sprinkle of sea salt on top, which Chojuro gave as a gift from the previous Five Kage meeting in hopes advertising it as an international product considering they were the ones who discovered it due to Kirikagure’s being surrounded by large bodies of seawater. It was still a new business, the Mizukage said with a chuckle, but the Kages, including Gaara himself, were intrigued and happy to try it.
Shikamaru loves coffee. It was what kept him going from the long, dragged afternoons spent in the office doing paperwork ever since he started working for the Sixth Hokage up to the Seventh Hokage. The holidays doesn’t faze him to try something entirely new, it’s got to have a punch of caffeine in it, no ifs, no buts. Alcohol and chocolate? Sounds great to indulge himself in once in a while, but the taste of coffee needs to roll familiarity in his tongue for him to enjoy it fully; so an alcohol-spiked mocha is the perfect stroke to tickle his spots.
It’s nothing too fancy, set up a kettle to boil water for the coffee later as he heats up the milk for the hot chocolate to a gentle boil on a very low heat so it’s less of a risk to burn in case he forgets to stir it now and then. Once it does, he tosses in the semisweet chocolate chips, as the whole chopping business thing was something he didn’t want to trouble himself with. Once fully melted and combined, he takes it off the heat.
Shikamaru then proceeds to dissolve the instant coffee powder and the light brown in the boiling hot cup of water.
The ratio he goes for is to fill the first 1/3 of the cup with hot chocolate, then other third of it with the fresh cup of hot coffee. He then stirs in the amaretto, and a tops it off with a thin layer of store-bought whipped cream or Temari’s leftover whipped cream if he runs out of the previous choice. A little dusting of sweetened cocoa powder for the taste and the aesthetic.
Enjoys his second round of Amaretto-spiked Mocha the best when Shikadai is already asleep upstairs, leaving him and Temari alone to accompany each other as they sit together in the couch, cuddled and laughing under the warm blanket as they savor the cold holiday night in Konohagakure together.
Shikadai would rather have a freezing milkshake than a hot chocolate because he doesn’t like waiting for the hot beverage to cool down as his mother and father had already gulped half of what they’re having.
Cookies and Cream milkshake was one of the specials that they only offered for the special milkshake month in Thunder Burger Restaurant during September. Since there was no way he could order it by the time the holidays arrive, he asked for Chocho and Inojin’s help to devise his own favorite milkshake recipe. Soon enough, he was able to perfect it; as approved by his own teammates, and Temari’s own highest standards.
Shikadai’s prefers to use skim milk, as he had discovered that the presence of egg yolks in his favorite french vanilla ice cream is what makes it creamier and richer than the usual vanilla ice cream. The lack of fat content in skim milk would balance off the french vanilla ice cream’s richness to prevent it from tasting too indulgent.
Shikadai allows the ice cream to soften up a bit to room temperature where it’s just a little melty. After that, he combines the ice cream, cold skim milk, half amount of the scraped vanilla bean, powdered sugar and chopped, seven pieces of oreo cookies into a high speed blender. He turns it off once he sees it is fully-blended.
He likes to drizzle the homemade chocolate sauce that his mother makes onto the milkshake glass, both for taste and aesthetic as a genetic nod to Shikamaru’s mentioned choice with the dusting of cocoa powder. One of his favorite parts in drinking this milkshake is whenever he uses his straw to scoop up the chocolate sauce that dribbled down onto the bottom of the glass.
Prefers to buy store-bought whipped cream to ease his job and just add the remaining half of the scraped vanilla bean to flavor it. He then proceeds to roughly crush 2 oreo cookies and mix it in with the vanilla-flavored whipped cream. After topping his milkshake with it, he likes to garnish it on top with a whole piece of oreo cookie.
Shinki’s disciplined behavior renders him uneasy in consuming so many indulgent foods in one night, considering every holiday within the Kazekage’s household had always been a feast. Braised stew and gizzard? Fine, everyone has their weakness, and he might find himself slipping up a little, but with his chosen drink, he would like to tone it down a bit.
Shinki’s health consciousness encourages him to try different healthier alternatives of the popular foods they consume on a daily basis. His latest endeavor was focused on the swelling trend of plant-based milks in the market. He studied the differences between a plant-based milk and regular milk, and he found notable information that he once shared with Gaara over dinner. Gaara smiled at Shinki’s interesting thought, and was now intrigued as well to try it, urging Shinki furthermore to give it a shot.
He went home once, paperbags filled with different cartons of different types of milk. He poured each one of it into small glasses for a taste test. Apart from the difference in the tastes, he also discovered that there were certain milks he thought would pair the best with a specific function. He liked oat milk the best if they are paired with cereal, and the notable creaminess and less nuttier taste of cashew milk paired well with coffee.
Coconut milk was better off for dishes where you naturally expect it to have a “coconutty” taste, since it was distinctly overpowering. Soy milk on the other hand… was an acquired taste for Shinki.
Now that he has the background information as to how it is supposed to taste like, he knew that he would increase its chances of being entirely healthy by making it himself. He wasn’t sure about it at first though, as he would opt to buy it if the recipe calls for professional skills and labor, but once he discovered how easy it was to make by the time he read the recipes Gaara printed for him, he was undeniably excited despite how stoic he looks like on the outside. If you look in close enough, you would see a curt, small smile on his lips.
Out of all the attempts of making almond, oat and cashew milk at home, Shinki found himself favoring cashew milk than the other two. Almond milk required straining it with a nut bag, and tasted prevalently nuttier, oat milk on the other hand ended rather a little slimy. Cashew milk was the easiest, as he didn’t need to do the extra job of straining it, and it resulted to a perfectly creamy milk with with a subtle, nutty note that goes well with his usual go-to drinks, such as coffee and tea. It was his perfect choice.
He might not make it as often as he wants to, but on the holidays, he makes it a day in advance prior to making his reverse whipped coffee.
Shinki pours in the overnight-soaked, softened raw cashews into the high-speed blender, alongside water, Gaara’s favorite sea salt, and the vanilla bean. Shinki likes to use preserved, pitted dates as a sweetener as it also offers another depth of flavor into the milk. He then starts it off by blending in low speed, and then cracking it up to a higher setting until it is fully smooth.
Shinki has his own labeled jar for his homemade cashew milk. To give it another depth of flavor, Shinki likes to throw in two small pieces of cinnamon sticks into the empty jar prior to filling it in with the cashew milk, allowing it to steep the spice’s flavor slowly as it stores in the fridge.
The next night, Shinki starts off by putting in the instant coffee powder, sugar, and hot water into a medium sized bowl. Shinki used to do it on the coffee mug itself, but the found out that it took longer to thicken up due to the lack of air circulation within the small area of the mug. He scrapes the bowl clean using a rubber spatula as he transfers the whipped coffee into his mug.
He then proceeds to heat up his cashew-milk to a gentle boil alongside one piece of cinnamon stick. Shinki leaves the other to steep in further into the left cashew milk. Shinki uses a fine mesh sieve to strain some small pieces of cinnamon from the stick as he would prefer the coffee to be thoroughly smooth.
The aeriated, whipped coffee adds a natural foam on top of the coffee. Shinki doesn’t like to add further garnishes.
Likes to keep it bitter and less sweet because he’s secretly eyeing the dark chocolate cake Gaara only buys during the holidays for later consumption.
Bonus recipes to try from Araya and Yodo!
A happy, happy holidays to all of you lovely people! :)
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