Mochi Master

When Chester woke up the next day, he started his usual morning routine. He ate some breakfast, brushed his teeth, scrubbed himself clean from the night sweat and looked into his mailbox. To his surprise, there was a letter from Dan. Chester sat at his Kitchen table and started to read. “Dear Chester, The Dango you made yesterday were really good and I see potential in you for making Mochi. If you're interested, come to my workshop on wednesday. - Dan” It was a short letter but written on a beautiful oriental patterned paper. Chester smiled happily, of course he was interested in making Mochi!

So on the next wednesday, Chester was heading to Dan workshop again. He was really excited that Dan wanted to teach him how to make Mochi! Dan awaited Chester and even smiled a little when he saw him. “Good Morning Chester.” he said in a friendly tone. “Hey Dan~” Chester purred and hugged the taller Bun. “So I see you are interested in learning the art of making Mochi?” Dan asked. “ Oh yes of course! It’s an honor that you want to teach me~” Chester said, smiling cutely. Dan leads Chester into his workshop, to the place where he pounds the rice into Mochi dough. “Making Mochis is harder than Dango because you can’t use Rice flour, you need to use so called ‘Sweet Rice’ which will be steamed and pounded with a Mochi Hammer into the dough. The pounding is very important to get the right texture.” Dan explained and handed Chester a Mochi hammer. “You need to slam that hammer asynchronously to me into this mold. It's very important that we don't slam the hammers into each other as they could break or we get hurt from the backlash.” Dan added and poured the steamed rice into the mold, then took his own hammer.

“I'll go first, you just copy what I am doing.” Dan explained further and started to pound into the rice. Chester followed Dan's lead and after a while both got into a nice rhythm, which made Dan hum in satisfaction. Chester really had talent even though he doesn't seem to be very strong. After a long while of rice pounding, Chester let the hammer sink and panted a little. “I am sorry Dan…I need a small break. This is really exhausting.” he said. “Oh don't worry about this, this dough is ready anyways.” Dan said and gathered a few more ingredients. “We will make Chocolate Sprinkled Mochi first, so now we need to add cocoa powder top the dough and knead it in. I will do that while you catch your breath.” Dan said, added the powder to the dough and started pounding it with the hammer again. Chester watched him and drank a little to refresh himself. It was really fascinating how long Dan can do this without getting visibly exhausted. After a little while Dan stopped, tested the dough and nodded. “Okay, we can now make the Mochis with this, We will add a chocolate cream filling. The filling is cooled down, almost frozen so it's easier to process.” Dan explained and put all needed ingredients on the counter. Chester joined him and started to make chocolate filled Mochis with Dan. After they used all of the dough, they added whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and chocolate sauce on the Mochis and Chester almost drooled. They looked so good!

Later, when Dan decided Chester helped enough, his arm felt like jello. “You can come here and help anytime Chester.” Dan said, smiling warm. “I will definitely visit more often! maybe my arm got used to this too then.” he laughed a little and even Dan let out a Chuckle.

At home, Chester managed to take a quick shower before falling into his bed, he will have sore arms for the rest of the week minimum.