Chapter 16: Mint Cake Lord Lu thinks this cake tastes very good
Pingjiang Prefecture is rich in water. The soft Wu dialect and the drizzle under the black sails have created a group of talented scholars who like to recite a few poems and paint a few strokes when they have nothing to do. This has led to the booming business of Zhang's "Four Treasures of the Study", an old shop that has been open for more than 20 years.
Pens, ink, paper and inkstones are expensive. The Zhang family earns a lot of money every month, so they put a few snacks in the shop just to entertain themselves and communicate with customers.
It is no different from buying expensive items in modern times, where the cakes sold in the store are more exquisite and delicious than those made outside.
Drinking tea and eating snacks are part of the daily life of the people in Pingjiang Prefecture, and every business deal is done in such an atmosphere.
Wei Jinyun agreed to Zhang Renbai's business deal——
The contract is for one month, with a daily payment of thirty yuan and a deposit of two strings of cash. The balance will be settled on the 30th day after delivery.
Wei Jinyun had planned from the beginning to have a long-term partnership with Zhang Renbai, using his shop to promote the taste and reputation of his pastries, so it was reasonable for him to provide them for free in the early stages.
It was just that the customers liked the dish, and her business cooperation with Zhang Renbai was successful at once. She was so happy that she fell asleep at midnight that night.
Go to bed late and wake up early.
Aside from yesterday's rain, it's been sunny lately. She got up early and went to check the kitchen stove, which was being repaired. The concrete on top was almost dry. Then they could use the large stove to cook and steam cakes. The firewood would be cheaper, and the food would have a more fragrant aroma.
The round clay stove that was built according to her requirements had to wait for another three or two days because it was newly built.
Before Wei Jinyun finished making snacks, the whole yard was filled with the fragrance of locust flowers, which made her feel happy. Now it was almost July, and if she didn't eat the locust flowers, they would become old.
She slid up the tree, picked a few clusters of relatively tender locust flowers and threw them into the bamboo basket below.
Zhang Renbai was wiping his face with a toothbrush in his mouth in his yard. When he turned around, he saw an agile figure on the old locust tree in the next yard, near the newly built wall.
Maybe it was because he did business with Miss Wei last night, and he felt that the bridge between him and her had been taken a step further. He was so excited that he slept too late, and he saw a ghost early in the morning.
He rubbed his eyes.
The toothbrush fell.
It's Miss Wei, right?
The monkey-like Miss Wei!
"Sister, are you exercising?"
Wei Fuqiu usually wakes up earlier than Wei Fuling. She stands under the old locust tree drinking water and looks up at the agile and nimble Wei Jinyun.
After the last bunch of locust flowers were picked, Wei Jinyun jumped in front of Wei Fuqiu with a whoosh, bent down and said, "Sister, how are your tree-climbing skills?"
When she was a child, her daily routine with her friends was to compete in climbing trees and catching fish. They developed a good skill in climbing trees, and no tree within a "hundred miles radius" could escape their grasp.
Wei Fuqiu stood on tiptoe to brush the locust petals from her temples and chuckled, "That's impressive, but be careful. Trees will grow moss after rain and will be slippery."
"Okay, okay."
Wei Jinyun nodded repeatedly and agreed sincerely, and kissed Wei Fuqiu on the left cheek.
Wei Fuqiu ran upstairs with a "thump thump thump" sound.
After amusing her sister, Wei Jinyun went to Changmen to settle the remaining labor fees for Zhouji Brick and Tile Shop, picked jasmine and bought mint.
Wang Qiulan used a steamer to make a pot of locust flower rice picked by Wei Jinyun. The four generations of grandparents and grandchildren ate two bowls of it with pickled young ginger and stir-fried eggplant and cucumber.
After taking a nap for half an hour, Wei Jinyun drank half a pot of mint tea to get rid of his sleepiness and started making cakes again.
Her cakes may be small, but they are made with solid ingredients. After deducting the cost of rice, flour, sugar, oil, charcoal, and labor, her gross profit is around three cents.
As she is just starting out, she needs to slowly earn back the initial investment. Once she has some spare money and more repeat customers, she will have the confidence to open a shop.
In addition to the jasmine cake, she took out two small drawers and chopped some walnuts.
The emerald green mint leaves are slowly ground into juice in a stone mortar, mixed with brown sugar, glutinous rice flour, japonica rice flour, and chopped walnuts, and steamed in a small steamer for a while.
In another small steamer, there was a basket of steamed pork without mint and chopped walnuts.
White mist rose from the bamboo steamer above the clay stove, mingling with the crisp aroma of mint and the fragrance of rice. Soon, Wei Jinyun lifted the lid and placed the steamed rice noodles on a clean cutting board, pressing and folding them repeatedly.
Unlike the crunchy texture of jasmine cake, kneading rice flour into a soft and glutinous cake, just like making rice cake, requires a lot of effort.
Wei Jinyun's health was not very good at the moment, so she rubbed them for a while and then rested for a while. Her two sisters also helped her rub them, and it took nearly two minutes to rub them flat.
She thought that she must hire two strong chefs for the shop in the future.
To make sandwich cake, you need to first lay a layer of white, use the layer of mint and peach kernel as the filling, then cover it with another layer of white, mix it into a whole piece and press it.
She didn't make much, and this kind of pastry needed to be covered with a cloth to maintain that little bit of heat, warm but not hot, so that it would be soft enough when eaten.
Wei Jinyun packed up Zhang Renbai's jasmine cake, and then took out some mint cake, cut it into small pieces half the size of a thumb, placed them on a flower plate, inserted bamboo sticks into them, and gave them to him one by one.
"Sister, take us there today, okay?"
Wei Fuling clung to Wei Jinyun's cart and looked at her eagerly, "I miss my sister when I play with the windmill at home, and I also miss my sister when I eat the roasted duck that Meng Ge'er brings us..."
Wei Fuqiu looked away, "We won't run around."
"Um......"
Wei Jinyun seemed to be thinking for a while, a little deeply.
"Go home and practice a few calligraphy pieces."
"Recite a page of a book."
She rubbed their heads in satisfaction, pushed her cart, and said, "Let's go!"
The hour of Wei is always the hottest time of the day. When the three sisters pushed the car to the gate of the prefectural school, the cicadas in the shade of the camphor tree were already chirping annoyingly.
"This is?"
Madam Qian looked at the two delicate and beautiful dolls beside Wei Jinyun with her eyes wide open, "They are twins!"
"My two sisters."
Wei Jinyun parked her cart and said, "It was boring staying at home, so I came here together."
It wasn't just Madam Qian. Anyone who saw the twins couldn't help but take a look. People selling pens, ink, paper, and inkstones, as well as drinks, all came over.
"It looks so good."
"It's exactly the same. I can't tell the difference."
"Come, come, come, Grandma has some honey-fried candies."
The two of them did not make any noise. They stood obediently beside Wei Jinyun. After greeting everyone with a sweet voice, they helped her hang up the sign and put away the teacups.
After setting up the stall yesterday, people came to Wei Jinyun’s cart to buy cakes before school was over.
It was hot in the afternoon, and most of them did not want to eat under the camphor trees. They just bought a few pieces of cake and took them home without even drinking tea.
The two sisters came along and always wanted to find something to do, so they helped collect money for Wei Jinyun and clean up the used plates.
"It's still ten dollars today."
Wei Jinyun raised his eyes and saw the man from yesterday again.
She was dressed in a goose yellow silk dress. She rolled off her horse, her slender phoenix eyes raised as she smiled at Wei Jinyun, "What kind of delicious stuff is this cake made of? My second brother ate it all without noticing, and then tried two bowls of mother's rice. He spent most of the night strolling around the yard practicing martial arts to digest the food... Even so, he still asked me to buy another portion."
"Eating too many snacks at once will cause indigestion."
Wei Jinyun picked up ten pieces with a tongs and wrapped them for her. "I put these cakes in a cool place. They can be kept for two days at this time. You can eat them twice."
"He won't listen."
Lu Lingxiang took a sip of tea and said, "If I buy them for him today, they won't live to see tomorrow."
My second brother would eat after catching a thief, when he was thinking about a case, and after training the soldiers...
"Why is my sister's second brother the same as me?"
Wei Fuling stood aside counting money and muttered something after listening.
"Of course not."
Lu Lingxiang couldn't stop laughing. "This guy is so double-faced. It's so weird."
When Wei Jinyun was a child, she always loved to eat her grandmother's snacks, but she did suffer from indigestion. After taking a few doses of the bitter medicine prescribed by her grandfather, she stopped having indigestion.
She listened to the person in front of her constantly mentioning her second brother, thinking that their family relationship was good. As she listened, she held the mint cake in front of her and said, "This is a new cake I'm trying. Would you like to try it, my lady? It's free."
The mint cake cut into small pieces is placed on an exquisite bamboo plate, with one layer of white and one layer of green, as transparent as jade.
Lu Lingxiang picked up the bamboo stick and tasted a piece.
"So soft."
She stuffed two more pieces into her mouth and mumbled, "It's... a bit like rice cake. It's chewy, but more fragrant than rice cake."
A glutinous sensation first wrapped around Lu Lingxiang's tongue, soft and sweet. She slowly savored the mint walnut filling in the middle. It was clearly warm, yet a slight coolness seemed to trickle down her throat, subduing the day's heat.
At the end of chewing, the sweet taste of walnuts still lingers between lips and teeth.
"How much is this? I'll buy some more for my second brother."
After a while, Lu Lingxiang had chewed three pieces and felt a little embarrassed.
"This is a tasting, not for sale today."
Wei Jinyun packed a few pieces for her to try. "I need to see how the reviews are today before I consider whether to release the new ones."
Lu Lingxiang looked her up and down and said, "This lady is very good at business. Second brother has tasted it. I'm afraid I'll have to come here often in the future... What's your name, lady?"
While she was waiting for the cake, she left a message on the message board.
"My sister's surname is Wei."
Wei Fuling tied the mint cake tightly and said, "We both have the surname Wei."
"Miss Wei?"
Lu Lingxiang jumped onto the horse and smiled at the three sisters, "Just wait and see. Tomorrow I will definitely be urged to come again by my second brother."
Wei Fuqiu slowly and methodically brushed rice paste on the piece of paper, and with a "click", she stuck it on the message board.
She stared at the note - Lord Lu thought the cake was delicious, so delicious that he jumped up and down in the middle of the night.
She tilted her head to think for a while, then hung the message board next to the car for display.
Soon it was time to go home from school. The students squeezed past Madam Qian's pancake stall and went to Wei Jinyun to buy snacks.
"I told you guys you weren't paying attention in class, passing around papers and writing things like... 'What are we going to eat after school today?', 'Of course, that jasmine cake. I've already thought of a poem to write about.', 'What poem?', 'Jade powder rubbing against clouds...' Write on, why don't you keep writing?"
An old man with a half-white beard pushed his way through the crowd.
The old man was a little thin, wearing a soft-footed hat and a light blue robe. Although it was a little worn, it was ironed straight.
When the students heard this, they uncontrollably moved to make way for him. A sudden silence fell over the entire room, and even the sizzling sound of the oil bubbling in Madam Qian's wok could be heard clearly.
"Is this snack so delicious? Is it even more appealing than what Master said, 'Be in your place and all the stars will follow'?"
The old man picked up the mint cake handed to him by Wei Jinyun and took a bite. After a long time, his brows frowned.
"Master, Master, what's wrong with you, Master!"
Wu Bai looked at the old man in silence, just opened his mouth wide, and hurried forward.
The old man exclaimed, "W-my teeth are sticky..."
The author has something to say:
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The mint cake is filled with walnuts. It is not sweet, but it is super sticky.
"Growing like water" is a good adjective in Wu to describe a girl who is as beautiful as water.
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