Novel Full Chapter 782 - 782: Making Mooncakes
Chapter 782: Chapter 782: Making Mooncakes
According to Xiaomai’s idea, she intended to turn Xiaomi into fried cakes. Filled with white sugar and deep-fried, this would be a delicacy for the villagers of Anping.
During lunch, Changshun learned about her idea and didn’t fully agree with it.
No matter the reason, everyone in the village had bitten their fingers and pressed their fingerprints onto the blood letter. The value of the letter, as Yang Ye had explained and the principal of the college had shown, had shocked the court and Emperor Yong’an had mentioned it during his verdict.
So, in Changshun’s view, the blood letter had played a significant role in winning the debate.
Moreover, this was not just to thank the villagers, but also to celebrate Tong Sanlang’s success in the imperial examination. The combined celebration was only marked with dried sweet potatoes and fried cakes in the goodie bag. Was this too stingy?
“It’s a bit too frugal…..” Xiaomai looked at Tong Sanlang.
…
Upon hearing this, Tong Sanlang looked up at her, “It’s your call. I’ll go along with it.”
Xiaomai rolled her eyes, spit out the bone in her mouth and proposed, “How about we make mooncakes?”
“Mooncakes?” Tong Sanlang questioned with confusion.
They didn’t celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival here, so he was understandably puzzled. Xiaomai nodded, “It’s a sweet biscuit that resembles the shape of the moon. It’s really delicious.”
“I already had this idea. Just been too busy recently to prepare. Now that I have some free time, I can slowly start making.”
“If they turn out good, we could even sell them for profit.”
Moreover, in Yang Ye’s letter, he specifically urged her to think of delicious foods. That has got to be mooncakes.
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The prospect of earning money.
These two words made Changshun’s eyes sparkle. He quickly agreed, “Great, great, let’s make these mooncakes.”
Xiaomai nodded in response.
After lunch, Tong Sanlang who originally planned on buying land, went to town to purchase the items necessary to make mooncakes.
For her first try, Xiaomai decided to make the most common filling of red bean paste.
Bean paste is easy to make. First, the red beans are soaked, then boiled until soft.
There was no juicer, so Xiaomai used a finely woven linen cloth. She put the cooked red beans inside it and squeezed. The fine bean paste seeped out through the cloth.
The squeezed out bean paste was stirred in a pot with oil and sugar to complete it.
As the paste was boiled with Spiritual Spring water, the texture was superior to regular red beans. Dami was happily eating some, wrapped into a steamed bun.
Xiaomai tousled his hair affectionately, and started making the mooncakes.
Making mooncakes requires alkaline water, which is a solution obtained by boiling vegetable ash in water for a day. But, Xiaomai didn’t plan on doing that. She directly mixed food-grade alkali with water to get an alkaline solution.
With the alkaline water made, she prepared the syrup, added the alkaline water and oil into it, then kneaded it into the flour to make the dough.
Once the dough was rested for a while, it was divided into equal small portions. Each was flattened, filled with bean paste, rolled into a ball, and put into a mold. Finally, it needed to be baked.
The mold was a temporary one made by Tong Sanlang and wasn’t beautiful, so the finished products didn’t look too appealing.
But that didn’t affect the taste of the mooncakes.
Changshun ate four in a row before he sheepishly stopped. He was not a gluttonous person, but these small, round mooncakes were so good that he ended up eating four without even noticing.