Chapter 198 Glutinous Rice Paper Phospholipids
Yin'e ultimately didn't offer much opinion on the matter of the Ninth Princess. After all, the Ninth Princess was still young, and it would be another ten years or so before she grew up, received the title of princess, and was betrothed to the Tong family. Even if Yin'e wanted to do something, there was no need to rush.
Compared to the Ninth Princess, with whom he wasn't particularly close and whose crisis wasn't especially urgent, Yin'e was more concerned about his own affairs. After handing over the recipe for making milk candy to Wulinzhu and Wuxiha, Yin'e also began to study how to make the sugar coating.
Sugar coating is also known as glutinous rice paper, but it is not made from glutinous rice. Most glutinous rice paper is made from crops with extremely high starch content, such as wheat, corn, or sweet potatoes.
In simple terms, the production process involves mixing starchy crops into a thin slurry, filtering and stirring it, then diluting it with hot water to form a starch paste. The starch paste is then evenly spread to form a thin film, which is baked and dried to become a thin and transparent glutinous rice paper.
The most important step in making glutinous rice paper is to add phospholipids to the starch slurry before it is mixed into a starch paste to make a phospholipid emulsion. Only when a phospholipid emulsion is made can the film formed by coating the starch paste become glutinous rice paper after drying.
Phospholipids can be extracted from many sources, including many plants and animals. Egg yolks, liver, kidneys, milk, soybeans, corn, kelp, and onions all contain large amounts of phospholipids, and extraction is not difficult.
Yin'e's final choice was soybeans because crude soybean oil has the highest phospholipid content, and soybeans are a plant that is not only easy to grow but also not picky about soil. Compared to extracting phospholipids from animal liver and kidneys, it is cheaper and more cost-effective.
After successfully extracting soybean lecithin, Yin E chose sweet potato as the raw material for making glutinous rice paper. He mashed the sweet potato into a thin pulp, filtered and stirred it, and then added a small amount of lecithin at a ratio of 100:1 or 100:2. He then sieved it to make a starch paste, coated it to form a film, and dried it to obtain glutinous rice paper.
Aside from Xiao Linzi, who assisted Yin'e in his experiments, the Ninth Prince was undoubtedly the first person to see the finished glutinous rice paper.
Holding a palm-sized, semi-transparent, milky-white film in his small hand, the Ninth Prince looked at it from left to right but couldn't figure it out: "Tenth Brother, this is the glutinous rice paper you mentioned."
“Yes, this is glutinous rice paper, also called sugar coating.” Yin’e nodded, holding a piece of glutinous rice paper that was slightly larger than the one in the Ninth Prince’s hand. “The sugar wrapped in sugar coating will not stick together. With the sugar coating separating them, there’s no need to worry about the sugar sticking to the packaging.”
Because Yin'e was only conducting an experiment and did not intend to put the glutinous rice paper he produced into use, he spread a large sheet of starch paste directly onto the mold when he applied the paste to form a film, without dividing it into smaller pieces. As a result, the glutinous rice paper he produced was relatively large.
In actual production, the size of the glutinous rice paper depends on the size of the milk candy developed by Wulinzhu and Wuxiha. The sugar coating cannot be too small to cover the milk candy, nor can it be too large to wrap the milk candy several times.
Glutinous rice paper is indeed non-toxic and poses no harm to the human body. After being ingested, it will only undergo a hydrolysis reaction under the catalysis of acids or enzymes in the body, eventually producing glucose. However, glutinous rice paper is also completely tasteless. Wrapping too many layers around the outside of milk candy will affect the taste. Who would want to eat several layers of tasteless sugar coating before eating candy?
Blinking, the Ninth Prince opened his long, bright phoenix eyes wide with curiosity. He nodded as if he understood: "Wrapping the sugar in glutinous rice paper is like putting a coat on the sugar. Sugar-coated, sugar-coated, what a straightforward name."
Holding the glutinous rice paper in one hand and gently twisting it a few times with his fingers in the other, the Ninth Prince felt the texture of the glutinous rice paper and nodded, saying, "It's very smooth and dry. Unlike sugar, which feels sticky even when it hasn't melted. No wonder you said that with this, you won't have to worry about the sugar sticking together."
"Besides preventing sticking, glutinous rice paper also has a moisture-proof function," Yin'e said with a smile. "So in addition to making sugar coatings, glutinous rice paper can also be used to preserve pills—of course, because glutinous rice paper is relatively thin and brittle, it is only used as an inner layer of packaging."
Upon hearing this, the Ninth Prince tore at the glutinous rice paper in his hand. Sure enough, he easily tore the palm-sized, milky-white, semi-transparent film into two pieces: "It tears easily with a little force. It can only be used as inner packaging. There will be other packaging on the outside."
Although the limitations of the glutinous rice paper were confirmed, the Ninth Prince was not disappointed at all, his phoenix eyes still shining: "But it is still very useful. By adding an extra layer of glutinous rice paper inside the packaging, the candies that are easy to stick together can be transported over long distances."
Yin'e nodded in agreement at first, then frowned slightly and shook his head with some regret, saying, "It's a pity we can't leave the palace, and it's inconvenient to communicate with people outside the palace. We have no idea whether Wulinzhu and the others have figured out the mixing ratio for making milk candy."
"And then there's Sarigule. He's been away from Beijing for over half a month now. I wonder where he is now, and whether his trip to Mongolia to buy milk powder went smoothly."
Milk candy was the first business that Yin'e and the Ninth Prince did, so they were inevitably worried about gains and losses and paid great attention to this business.
It wasn't that they were afraid of losing money—a thousand taels of silver was indeed a considerable sum, but it wasn't that important to Yin'e and the Ninth Prince, because they didn't usually need the silver except for giving gifts and rewards.
They now live in the palace, eating and drinking what Emperor Kangxi provides, and all their daily expenses are covered by the Imperial Household Department. Even if they have no money and their purses are empty, they are not worried at all—the Imperial Household Department can't possibly starve them to death.
What Yin'e and the Ninth Prince feared was that their first step would fail, and their first business deal would be a complete disaster.
Failure is not the worst thing. The worst thing is losing money without knowing why. You lose money for nothing and can't learn from the experience. You might make the same mistake again next time you do business. That's not just a big loss, it's a complete loss.
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