Chapter 152: Touching Porcelain
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the most indispensable thing for every household is definitely mooncakes. Ji Zhisui knows how to make mooncakes, but she is not familiar with the old-fashioned mooncakes. She can make more modern mooncakes.
These modern mooncakes are not suitable for this dynasty. A lot of things go into making mooncakes, such as oil, sugar, and flour, and they are not cheap. Even if she makes mooncakes, she is not sure how many customers will come.
When people buy mooncakes, they almost always go to pastry shops rather than restaurants.
Even if some diners spread the word, their family might be hated for stealing the pastry shop's business. She didn't want to cause any more trouble for the restaurant.
Ji Zhisui gave up the idea of selling mooncakes. If he couldn't sell mooncakes, perhaps he could start with other aspects of mooncakes, such as...
Pattern...
Yes, why didn't she think of that? She could start with the patterns. She had visited several pastry shops before, and the patterns on the mooncakes were very simple, just ordinary floral patterns, plain and simple.
The cheaper ones don’t even have any patterns on them, just a round cake with some white sesame seeds on it.
You should know that in later generations, mooncakes have various patterns, and some are engraved with the name of the filling, which is clear at a glance.
Some are inscribed with words such as "Fu", "Happy Mid-Autumn Festival", "Blooming Flowers and Full Moon", etc. Some are even directly engraved with scenes such as "The Moon is a Thousand Miles Away" and "Looking Up at the Moon". The more exquisite the pattern and the more beautiful the packaging, the higher the price will be, and it will be face-saving to give them as gifts.
On the other hand, in this dynasty, people also visited relatives and gave gifts during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Giving mooncakes with unique patterns was definitely a way to gain face.
With the idea in mind, Ji Zhisui immediately took action, picked up his brush and ink, and began to paint.
Writing and designing are fine, but it is a bit difficult for her to draw pictures like those of the beautiful moon in the distance.
She thought about it, thinking about the person in her family who was both civil and military, even though he might not be able to fight now...
Without delay, she ran to find Pei Yian and explained her thoughts to him.
After listening, Pei Yian took the brush and ink, and with just a few strokes on the paper, he soon painted several pictures of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
He placed these paintings in front of Ji Zhisui and asked, "Sui Niang, do you think it looks like this?"
Ji Zhisui looked at the painting on the table. The white paper was covered with thick black ink. It was obvious that not long ago. He looked up at the moon and saw the beautiful moon thousands of miles away, the jade rabbit pounding medicine, and the osmanthus flowers in the courtyard...all of them were exquisite and pleasing to the eye.
"That's right, that's exactly what I want. Brother An, you're amazing!" Ji Zhisui praised him without reservation. If she were Party A, then Brother An would be the Party B that satisfied her the most.
"Not bad." Pei Yian looked calm, but the corners of his mouth were slightly curved. He enjoyed it and liked Sui Niang's praise for him.
Ji Zhisui held the paintings in his hands with satisfaction, and added the few words he wrote, and told the carpenter his request, which was to make mooncake molds.
The old carpenter had been doing handicrafts for many years and was not curious about the customers' requests. He made the several mooncake molds as instructed.
Just these mooncake molds alone are not attractive enough. What is most eye-catching is definitely the finished products made with these molds.
She started making mooncakes. The first thing she made was the mooncake skin. She added sugar, honey, eggs and baking soda into a bowl, stirred them evenly, and then added cooked oil in several times.
When the paste in the plate becomes stringy, you can add flour.
During the stirring process, be sure to stir in one direction so that the force will not be released. After the dough in the plate solidifies, do not knead it with your hands, but beat it gently with your fists. After beating it into a solidified state, let it rise for half an hour.
After the proofing is completed, the mooncake skin is ready, and the next step is to make the mooncake filling.
Nowadays, there is nothing new in the way people eat mooncakes, and almost all of them are five-nut mooncakes.
But Ji Zhisui didn't plan to make mooncakes specifically, so he didn't buy the fillings specifically. He could only look at what ingredients were available in the kitchen.
She tried her best, but could only find peanuts, melon seeds and sesame seeds in the kitchen, which could only be considered a three-nut mooncake.
After collecting the three kernels, add sugar, honey, cooked oil and flour. You also need to add water to the bowl and stir with chopsticks. Make sure it is coated with flour, then pinch it into the size of a fist.
Use the dough that has been proofed, wrap the filling in it, put it into the prepared mold and flatten it. Turn the mooncake mold upside down and knock it, and a juicy mooncake is made.
The next step is to bake the mooncakes. Without an oven, they can only be baked in a fire-burning earthen kiln.
The earthen kiln was built not long ago. She had a lot of recipe ideas in her mind for the restaurant and the random dishes, and it was inconvenient to have only a few big iron pots.
The earthen kiln is equivalent to the oven in later generations. With this earthen kiln, all kinds of things can be baked.
However, when baking things in an earthen kiln, you need to always pay attention to the condition of the things inside.
Otherwise, it will be easy to over-bake and overcook. If you don’t control it well, the mooncake inside will be ruined. Over-cooked mooncakes always taste bad.
So she squatted in front of the earthen kiln, lighting the fire while staring intently at the mooncakes baking inside.
When you feel the time is about right, you can take out all the mooncakes. The mooncakes are baked very successfully and just right, and the words on them are clearly visible, such as "Flowers are in full bloom, the moon is full", "Happy family", etc.
Pei Yian looked at the baked mooncakes in front of him and asked curiously, "Are you planning to sell mooncakes, Sui Niang? These styles are very novel, there must be a market for them."
After knowing that Sui Niang was going to make mooncakes, he began to help and it was he who heated the fire in the earthen kiln.
"No, I plan to take these mooncakes to try to scam people." Ji Zhisui said mysteriously.
"Bumping into a car?" Pei Yian repeated these two words softly, not knowing what they meant.
If we take the literal meaning, touching porcelain or knocking over porcelain? But what does it have to do with these mooncakes?
Ji Zhisui didn't notice anything unusual about him, so she took these exquisitely baked mooncakes to try to scam people.
She ran to the largest pastry shop in Qizhou County, Xiangrui Zhai, and saw that the waiter from Xiangrui Zhai was also inside. Ji Zhisui knew that this was a good opportunity and walked in immediately.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, many mooncakes appear in the store, but the styles and types are limited.
Seeing that a customer had arrived and the shopkeeper was right beside him, the waiter did not dare to neglect the customer. He smiled and enthusiastically promoted the product, "Young lady, do you want to buy some mooncakes? These mooncakes were all made recently and are so fresh!"
We have been selling mooncakes for decades. They are delicious and popular with people! Everyone loves to buy them.
Ji Zhisui just looked at all the mooncakes, then stood in front of the shopkeeper of Xiangruizhai and shook his head, looking very dissatisfied. He sighed and turned to leave.
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