Chapter 113 Chapter 113 Returning home, Shen Xuan fiddled with it…
After returning home, Shen Xuan started to make marshmallows.
Marshmallows are not difficult to make. They only require starch, sugar, agar, egg white and other ingredients. Sarawak is located on the coast and does not have many other supplies, but it has no shortage of agar powder.
As soon as Shen Xuan entered the kitchen, he started tinkering with it, carefully studying the proportions of the ingredients for the marshmallows. Finally, after three days, Chen Xuan perfectly reproduced the marshmallows with a taste and shape similar to those in the modern world.
The white and soft marshmallows are sweet and fragrant, as soft as clouds.
Even though Jin Zhi Jingui had seen many snacks in the Marquis' Mansion, she had never seen such candy.
"Brother Chen, this cotton candy is really rare. It looks very appealing and has a very special taste. If it is sold in Beijing, it will definitely be very popular." After tasting one piece, Jinzhi couldn't help but take another piece and said while eating.
"Yes, we have learned a lot from following you, Brother Chen. What kind of cakes and candies have we not seen in Beijing? This marshmallow is one-of-a-kind. It will definitely be very popular once it is sold!" Jin Gui nodded.
Seeing this, Shen Xuan smiled calmly and said, "This cotton candy looks strange because no one has ever made it. But its production method is actually very simple. It won't be long before it is sold. I'm afraid that other sugar-making workshops will copy it."
"If we want to gain a foothold in Dajin at once, we can't just make such simple candies. We have to come up with some tricks to make these marshmallows more rare."
"Ah? There can be more varieties? How many varieties can this candy have?" Jinzhi opened her eyes wide with an expression of disbelief when she heard it.
"Chen'er always has many ideas in his head that others would never think of." Jin Gui said to Jin Zhi, "He said there are more tricks, so there must be. Just like the soap, if Chen'er hadn't opened Xuan Zi Fang, who in the world would have thought that a bath could be so particular?"
Jin Zhi Jingui has been following Shen Xuan these days and has long admired him and follows his lead.
In their minds, Shen Xuan's intelligence and talent are no less than that of the prince, and he is simply a genius in making money!
Take fried chicken, soap and other things for example, the prince couldn’t invent them, let alone marshmallows.
Ordinary white marshmallows are easy to copy, and folk sugar-making workshops just follow the trend and make whatever is popular.
If you only make ordinary white marshmallows, they will be popular for a while at first, but others will soon learn from them and you will lose your competitive advantage.
But today's sugar-making workshops in Dajin are all small folk shops, the size of private workshops. It is not as large as the sugar factory built by Shen Xuan.
What Shen Xuan can do is to make the marshmallows more exquisite, so that small folk workshops can't replicate the more complicated craftsmanship except for white marshmallows.
Just like soap, instead of competing in the market with cheap low-end soaps, it goes the high-end route and earns the money of rich people!
After all, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in Dajin, and 80% of the silver is controlled by 20% of the people. These people have no worries about food and clothing, so they have extra money to buy candy and snacks. They are the main force of candy consumption.
Thinking of this, Shen Xuan secretly began to think about how to make the marshmallow more distinctive.
In addition to adding more layers to the taste, Shen Xuan thinks that the color and packaging can also be used.
Since he had planted a lot of tropical fruit crops such as bananas and pineapples, Shen Xuan decided to puree these fruits and make them into marshmallows with fillings.
In addition to marshmallows with jam filling, he also added chopped nuts and other ingredients to make a variety of snowflake crisps.
In addition, Shen Xuan also tried to add some juice with natural pigments to change the color of the marshmallow and made colorful marshmallows.
Shen Xuan even asked someone to carve a few molds, all of which were festive and cute images of small animals. Then he squeezed marshmallow syrup with different pigments into them and baked them into marshmallows in the shape of small animals!
These marshmallows were so exquisitely made that Jinzhi Jingui, who had never seen such candies before, was completely dumbfounded.
Marshmallow is just a kind of candy, but Shen Xuan has made it into something very special, like a work of art.
"This marshmallow is so beautiful that I can't bear to eat it." Once again, after getting the finished marshmallow made by Shen Xuan, Jin Zhi couldn't help but say as she looked at the round and plump piece of marshmallow with a "puppy" pattern in the palm of her hand.
In order to make the marshmallows look better, Shen Xuan also used glutinous rice paper to pad the marshmallows. The transparent rice paper paired with the cute round marshmallows looks a bit like dough figurines made by craftsmen.
But the dough figurines were not tasty, but the marshmallows were soft, sweet and had a fruity filling.
In addition, sugar itself is a natural preservative and is not easy to spoil. As long as it is stored properly, it can be kept for one or two years without deteriorating.
After these marshmallows are uniformly produced in the factory, they are sold to various places in Dajin. The transportation is very convenient and there is no particular requirement for the shelf life. It is really the most suitable product!
When Xue Fenglin came back in the evening, Shen Xuan showed him the marshmallows he had secretly made in the past few days.
"What is this?" Xue Fenglin's eyes lit up and he asked curiously at the marshmallow in front of him.
"Xuanji Cloud Candy." Shen Xuan thought about it and gave these marshmallows a name.
Even Xue Fenglin, who is well-informed, couldn't help but pick up a piece and praised it after hearing the name: "This candy looks soft like a cloud, so it's not bad to call it cloud candy."
"There is also such a playful puppy shape. Not to mention the children, even I am quite moved when I see it. If I bring it to the capital, my aunt and Mi Ge'er will probably like it very much when they see it."
"Try it and see which flavor is better?" Shen Xuan said, pointing to the different colors of cloud candies in front of him.
Xue Fenglin also took a piece and tasted it, then said: "The flavors are different, and they are all very good. But compared to the good-looking ones, I still prefer the ones with fruit flavors, which are sweet and sour. And the ones with nuts are also delicious."
As a man, Xue Fenglin is more pragmatic and prefers unique tastes rather than beautiful colors or patterns. But when Chen Xuan asked Jinzhi and Jingui today, they both preferred the puppy-shaped cloud candies, thinking they were more interesting and cute.
The taste of this cloud candy is fine, the only thing left is the packaging.
The packaging of the letter was well thought out. It would not be wrapped with ordinary kraft paper, but with expensive colored paper.
After all, these cloud candies are sold to rich people, so the higher-end packaging will allow them to be sold at a higher price, which is also in line with the dreamy and sweet style of these candies.
"Xuan'er, such a good thing will surely sell very well. The economy of Sarawak will also have hope!" Xue Fenglin said with some satisfaction as he looked at the cloud candy in front of him.
While Shen Xuan was busy tinkering with cloud candy these days, Xue Fenglin was also busy working on his errands, dealing with long-standing affairs in Sarawak.
Sarawak’s problems have been around for a long time and cannot be solved in a day or two. Xue Fenglin checked the accounts and found out that there was something wrong with the salary arrears in the yamen. The Sarawak government actually owed money to many wealthy clans in the city.
Sarawak is located on the coast and typhoons are common. Whenever a disaster struck, the government was unable to provide relief money, but had to complete the tasks assigned by the court, so it had to borrow money from outside.
Over the past few decades, many local wealthy families have actually borrowed a huge amount of debt from the Sarawak government. Although they would not urge the yamen to pay debts, if they had something to ask for, the officials in the yamen would find it difficult to refuse.
Over time, the officials in the yamen actually began to look at the faces of the Sarawak clans. No wonder the entire yamen was filled with relatives and friends sent by various families.
Xue Fenglin compiled the accounts of Sarawak's overdue silver into a book. After calculating everything, he found that there was a total of more than 8,000 taels of silver!
In a good year, Sarawak’s annual tax revenue would only be 1,300 to 1,400 taels of silver. After deducting the portion paid to the court, the remaining amount is not enough to pay out salaries, let alone repay the debts!
However, now that he had the income from renting the land, the salary in the government office was enough, but he was still far from paying off the debt. If we want to pay it off, we can only rely on the additional income from the development of Sarawak’s economy!
"I see you've been very tired these past few days, and you've only slept for more than three hours every day." Chen Xuan said to Xue Fenglin with some heartache: "I understand that you're eager to change the current situation in Sarawak, but your body is your own. If you get sick from exhaustion, it won't be worth it. It's better to have a good rest."
It has been several months since they arrived in Sarawak, and they have been investing money because of Xue Fenglin's position as governor.
Renting farmland, building factories, and hiring workers all cost a lot of money. Money is spent like water, but not a penny comes back.
Fortunately, Xue Fenglin's family was wealthy, and Shen Xuan's shop in Beijing was also a cash cow, which supported their initial investment expenses!
However, after the development of Yunduo Sugar, the sugar factory can carry out small-scale production and recover the costs.
Because the crops in the fields could not grow so quickly, Shen Xuan could only buy raw materials from other places in the early stage. He planned to make only a small amount of candy and sell it in nearby Pengzhou to test the waters.
After the desert has a harvest next year, the cost will be further reduced and the production scale of the sugar factory will continue to expand. Selling Yun Duo Candy throughout the country of Dajin and the islands of Southeast Asia is the time to really make big money!
The third young lady of the Tang family received a gift from her best friend, saying that a Xuanji candy shop had just opened on the most prosperous street in Pengzhou, selling a kind of candy called Yunduotang.
As the legitimate daughter of the prefect, what kind of candy has the Tang family's third daughter not eaten? Many of the snacks at home were made by the chef who learned how to make them in Beijing, so he naturally didn’t take the cloud candy mentioned by his best friend seriously.
After receiving the food box, she asked the maid to put the food on the table without even thinking of opening it.
However, the third young lady didn't care about this snack, but the maids around her were greedy for it.
The snacks that the third girl didn't eat in the past finally ended up in their stomachs. Seeing that the third young lady didn't seem to want to eat snacks, the maids started to make up their minds.
After dinner, the third lady returned to her room. Cui'er, the maidservant beside her, said, "Miss, the weather is hot. If we don't move the snacks, they will go bad. Why don't we open them and eat them now?"
After hearing this, the third girl nodded and said, "Okay, open the food box and I'll have a taste. You can share the rest."
When Cui'er heard this, she was immediately overjoyed. She quickly opened the food box and took out the cloud candies wrapped in several pieces of colored paper.
"Huh? This snack is wrapped in colored paper? That's really generous of you." The third girl was surprised to see the colorful paper, so she stepped forward and sat down at the eight-immortals table.
"After all, it's a gift for the young lady, so it has to be exquisite." Cui'er hurriedly flattered.
She gently untied the hemp rope on the colored paper and saw some brightly colored snacks lying inside. These snacks look fluffy and soft, with a layer of transparent glutinous rice paper wrapped on the outside and lying inside the colored paper, which makes them look particularly beautiful.
"It's so beautiful!" Cui'er had never seen such beautiful snacks before. She was stunned for a moment and couldn't help but blurt out.
Although the third girl was much calmer than her, she couldn't help but be moved when she saw such beautiful snacks. She immediately took a piece of light yellow cloud candy and put it in her mouth.
The outer layer of glutinous rice paper melted in the mouth, and the cloud sugar inside also disappeared halfway, and the sweet and sour jam inside flowed out.
"Huh? This tastes like pineapple!" The third girl looked at the remaining half of the cloud candy with some surprise.
The soft candy is wrapped with a layer of yellow jam. It tastes sweet and sour and has the aroma of pineapple. It is very delicious.
She couldn't help but finish a cloud candy in two bites and was about to eat more, but suddenly remembered that she had just promised the maids to give this snack to them as a reward.
The third girl looked up and saw Cui'er and several little girls beside them staring at the cloud candy in the colored paper and swallowing their saliva.
She hesitated for a while, thinking that as a legitimate daughter of the mansion, she was just a piece of candy and she had to keep her word, so she resisted the urge to eat another piece. Instead, he said to Cui'er, "Can you open the remaining packets and show them to me?"
Cui'er's face lit up with joy and she quickly opened the remaining packets of colored paper.
The third girl took a closer look and found that the other colored papers contained cloud candies that were completely different from the one just wrapped in!
Some are sprinkled with crushed peanuts, some are filled with sesame seeds, and there are even some in the shape of puppies!
The third lady swallowed her saliva, regretting that she had spoken too hastily just now and agreed to give the snacks to the maids...
However, once something is said, it cannot be taken back. The third girl thought that cloud candy was not a rare thing and it was sold in Pengzhou City, so she followed her words and let the maids take the remaining cloud candy to share.
That night, the third girl's mind was full of cloud candy, and she even had a dream about cloud candy.
The next morning, the third girl got up early, changed into new clothes, and prepared to go directly to the busy street to take a look at what kind of shop this legendary newly opened Xuan Ji Cloud Candy was.
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