Heat the milk and the cinnamon in a saucepan on the stove at MEDIUM LOW heat, stirring constantly, until it begins to steam and bubbles form around the edges of the saucepan. DO NOT LET IT BOIL!
Sprinkle the 1 Tablespoon of instant coffee granules over the top of the heated milk and stir them in. Make sure they are dissolved.
Pour the not-quite-boiling mixture over the white chocolate chips in the bowl. Stir once, and then cover it with a clean dish towel, a lid that’ll fit it, or a piece of heavy-duty foil tucked in around the edges of the bowl.
Let the bowl sit on the counter for 5 minutes.
Take off whatever you used for a lid and whisk briskly until the chips are melted and the mixture is smooth and creamy.
Hannah’s 1st Note: If the chips haven’t entirely melted, you can stick the bowl in the microwave and heat the contents on HIGH for 1 minute. Let it sit in the microwave for one more minute and then take out the bowl and attempt to stir it smooth. If that doesn’t do it, heat it again for 30-second intervals followed by 30-second standing times, until you can stir it smooth.
Pour the White Chocolate Mocha into mugs and top with sweetened whipped cream sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you like, you can serve this with a cinnamon stick in each mug for stirring. If you don’t feel like making sweetened whipped cream, you can simply drop a handful of miniature marshmallows on top of each serving.
Michelle’s Note: It was hot under the lights at the Food Channel competition so I didn’t have any trouble getting the white chocolate chips to melt, but Lisa told me that if she makes White Chocolate Mocha at home, she usually puts the white chocolate chips in her food processor and uses the steel blade to chop them up before she pours on the almost-boiling milk and coffee mixture. This takes less whisking than if you leave the chips whole.
Chapter Eighteen
“Perfect,” Hannah said as they left Sally’s kitchen and locked the door behind them. “We had plenty of time to do everything, Michelle.”
“I know. It was a lot easier than making all those long ropes of cookie dough and combining them into rolls. And I think the cookies showcase better the way we’re doing it now.”
“This way, Michelle.” Hannah guided her around the corner and knocked on Sally’s office door. “I want to see if Sally’s in yet.”
The door opened immediately, almost as if Sally had been waiting for them to stop by, and there was a smile on Sally’s face as she motioned them inside.
“I knew you’d stop by,” she said, pouring each of them a cup of coffee from the pot she kept on a stand under the picture window that overlooked the kitchen. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
Hannah nodded, but Michelle looked puzzled.
“Doing what?” Michelle asked Sally.
“Investigating,” Hannah answered her sister. “Sally knows that I can’t be hands-off when one of us is involved.”
“You can forget about the one of us part,” Sally told Hannah. “All you had to say is that you can’t be hands-off.”
“You’re right,” Hannah admitted. “We really need to figure out who killed him.”
“Yes, and the sooner, the better,” Sally agreed. “Every single one of my busboys is leery about going into the cooler. I watched them last night and no one wanted to be the first one in there.”
“What did you do?” Michelle asked.
“I marched in the kitchen and went into the cooler. That shamed them into it, but I have to admit that it was kind of creepy just knowing that Chef Duquesne had been murdered in there. Then I had them bring me buckets of hot water and I scrubbed the floor with bleach.”
Michelle shuddered. “You’re a brave woman, Sally. I don’t know if I could have gone in there again, especially alone.”
“I just kept repeating what my father used to say when my mother would say she’d seen a ghost. He’d tell her, The dead can’t hurt the living.”
“And that helped you?” Hannah asked.
“Not really, but it didn’t help my mother, either. I just kept telling myself that the killer wouldn’t come back to the cooler to commit another murder with all the busboys and waiters standing around in the kitchen watching me.” Sally paused and took a sip of her own coffee. “Anyway, you probably want to know my impressions of the judges and the contestants, and whether I saw anything pertaining to Chef Duquesne that I thought was unusual . . . right?”