Looking at the prepared ingredients, Mingxiu sighed. She used to not eat mooncakes, partly because modern people value thinness and Mingxiu was always on a diet, and mooncakes were known as calorie bombs, so she never dared to eat them.
Another reason is that when I was a child, mooncakes were never just eaten on the Mid-Autumn Festival. We ate them all around the Mid-Autumn Festival, and some even ate them for breakfast. There were just too many of them being given away.
Even with so many flavors, it's impossible to resist eating them for too long, so as adults, we naturally avoid mooncakes altogether.
But people are really complicated. They don't cherish what's right in front of them, and then they regret it when they lose it.
There was still a chance to salvage the situation. Mingxiu directed everyone in the kitchen to get busy. The dishes in the palace were all ordinary, but the royal chefs were very skilled and made better food than Mingxiu. So she just planned to make some dishes that weren't available in the palace to satisfy her cravings.
Naturally, she prepared the ingredients, and the first thing she made was the five-nut mooncake that she used to hate. She used to dislike eating five-nut mooncakes the most, thinking that the candied fruit peel inside was really unpalatable.
However, when Mingxiu went on an internship and ate a five-nut mooncake brought by a colleague, it immediately shattered her long-held impression of five-nut mooncakes.
It turns out that it wasn't that the five-nut mooncake was bad, but rather that she hadn't eaten a good one.
The five-nut filling mainly consists of walnuts, almonds, melon seeds, olives, and sesame seeds. However, since there were no olives, Mingxiu substituted them with nuts. She also added prepared orange peel to make candied orange peel.
The process of making the dough began, and Xiaoren was instructed to start preparing the dough. The dough was made with butter, eggs, and flour that were terrifyingly high in calories. As Xiaoren watched the process, Mingxiu kept exclaiming how sinful it was, but she couldn't help adding ingredients to it.
Later, they made snow skin mooncakes, which have a transparent milky white skin. It's Mingxiu's favorite type of mooncake; it's delicious and beautiful, but not easy to make.
Fortunately, someone else is doing it now, so she only needs to say a few words. Otherwise, she wouldn't want to do it herself, especially in ancient times without refrigerators.
She also had to make mooncakes with her favorite fruit fillings. Anyway, he didn't lack fruit now—orange, strawberry, lychee, cherry flavored. Since he was eating them himself, he didn't need to worry about the cost. Mingxiu would borrow as much as she could, making the servants beside him tremble with fear, wondering if the mooncakes were even edible.
Mingxiu also curiously prepared tea mooncakes. She had seen them on her phone before but never had a chance to try them, mainly because tea was expensive and she was reluctant to waste it. But now she wasn't afraid at all, so Mingxiu went straight for it.
Tea-flavored mooncakes primarily use fresh green tea as the filling, resulting in a light and subtly fragrant taste. There's also a type of tea-scented mooncake made with oolong tea and lotus seed paste; I wonder how good it is.
That wasn't all; she still had savory mooncakes to prepare—ham, pork, and egg yolk mooncakes—which took her half a day to complete.
I started preparing after breakfast and didn't finish wrapping everything until noon when my stomach started growling. I haven't even put them in the oven to bake yet.
I patted my rumbling stomach and asked someone to put the mooncakes into the oven in batches. There was no other way; it wasn't that the oven was too small, but there were just too many mooncakes to finish at once, so I had to do it in several batches.
After a long and tiring morning, we were starving. The small kitchen was also occupied, so we had to send someone to the imperial kitchen to get some food.
After dinner, the mooncakes were almost ready. The small kitchen in Yonghe Palace was instantly filled with the aroma of mooncakes as soon as the oven was opened.
Divide a mooncake into eight portions and distribute them to everyone. Mingxiu tasted each portion, and the most popular one was naturally the snow skin mooncake, followed by the fruit mooncake.
Mingxiu picked up the tea-flavored mooncake and tasted it. Her eyes lit up. It was really delicious. The fragrance of tea and the slight bitterness of the tea perfectly balanced the greasiness of the mooncake crust and the sweetness of the lotus seed paste. It tasted very good.
Finally, everyone chose their favorite flavor. Mingxiu's favorite was the snow skin and tea flavor, while Lvzhu preferred the snow skin and lychee flavor. Yuqing and Yulan liked the snow skin and any fruit flavor.
Xiao Xizi is different; he prefers salty flavors, especially those with fresh meat and ham.
In conclusion, the mooncakes were a great success this time.
She took out food boxes for Kangxi, Yinreng, and Yinti. After Consort Hui prepared a portion for each of them, she kept some for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mingxiu then had the servants distribute the rest.
After working so hard all day, it's only right that I try what I made.
The next day was the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet, which was usually a family dinner held in the evening.
So there was no need to prepare early. After lunch, Mingxiu leisurely tidied up before leading Luzhu to the Imperial Garden.
Today, Mingxiu wore a light purple Shu brocade dress. In modern times, she was slightly chubby and couldn't wear many clothes, usually only wearing black, white, and gray.
Before, Mingxiu could only look at these light-colored clothes and never dared to wear them. As a result, after coming here, Mingxiu only liked to wear light-colored clothes, and she changed them in various colors. Except for some colors that she couldn't wear, she basically wore all the colors.
Mingxiu had money from her monthly allowance and the Emperor's rewards, which she spent almost all on clothes and food. She didn't have much else to spend money on.
The Imperial Garden, which was already bustling on ordinary days, was now even more lively. As Mingxiu walked along, the road was filled with lanterns, all of which symbolized reunion. Mid-Autumn Festival is a festival for reunion, so hanging lanterns is perfectly reasonable.
But Mingxiu frowned as she looked at the lanterns beside her, feeling uneasy. She didn't know why, and there seemed to be far too many lanterns hanging there.
Trying to ignore the unease in her heart, Mingxiu walked to the Imperial Garden. She hadn't arrived early. As a woman of high rank, if she arrived early, there would be a constant stream of people coming to pay their respects to her, which was unbearable. So, Mingxiu simply decided to arrive a little later.
By this time, there were already quite a few concubines in the Imperial Garden, standing or sitting in twos and threes, admiring the scenery and whispering to each other.
Upon seeing Mingxiu approach, they all stood up and greeted her.
Mingxiu nodded slightly, then led Luzhu inside, found a quiet spot where no one was around, and sat there quietly, waiting for the banquet to begin.
The autumn scenery is very pleasant. Although it is not very warm now, there are still many flowers in bloom in the Imperial Garden, and there are also artificial hills and water nearby, making it a beautiful place.
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