Chapter Two: Golden Cake
At seven o'clock in the morning, the sky was bright. Yu Miaoyin opened her eyes and saw Xiao Tangbao lying on the pillow, a few strands of hair scattered on her forehead, her long eyelashes drooping down, trembling gently with her breathing. Seeing Xiao Tangbao sleeping so soundly, Yu Miaoyin unconsciously curved the corners of her mouth into a smile.
She tiptoed out of bed, gathered her hair, and started washing.
Yu Miaoyin boiled water and put the noodles in to cook. The noodles spread out and slowly softened under the heat of the water. Yu Miaoyin put the lid on the pot and was about to fry an egg for Xiaotangbao.
At this moment, Xiao Tangbao also woke up.
She came down from the second floor, rubbing her sleepy eyes. As if she hadn't fully woken up, she called softly, "Sister..."
Yu Miaoyin smiled and turned the heat down to the lowest setting. "Come here, let your older sister do your hair."
Xiao Tangbao's hair was very soft. Yu Miaoyin braided it into a simple braid and put a pretty hair clip in her hair.
Xiao Tangbao had also become much more awake. She reached out and touched the hair clip, smiling as she said, "Thank you, sister."
"Go wash up and get dressed, I'll fry you an egg."
Yu Miaoyin cracked an egg into a cold pan with oil. The egg white sizzled and puffed up instantly, becoming crispy. Once the egg had set, Yu Miaoyin quickly flipped it over.
"Get ready for breakfast." Yu Miaoyin called to Xiao Tangbao, scooped out the noodles and put them in a bowl, then put the greens in and pressed them down. They were cooked in seven or eight seconds.
Add some simple seasonings, add a poached egg, and bury it in the noodle soup; the whole house will be filled with the aroma of eggs.
The thin noodles soaked up the fragrant egg broth, becoming glossy and oily. Little Tangbao first sipped the broth, the warm egg aroma spreading on her tongue, then picked up a mouthful of noodles and put it in her mouth. The wheat and egg aromas of the noodles blended together, making the noodles smooth yet chewy.
"So delicious," Xiao Tangbao murmured, her head bowed low as if buried in the bowl. She looked so adorable.
Little Tangbao bit into the noodle, flipped it over with her chopsticks, and found a bright yellow fried egg. Little Tangbao took a big bite; its edges were crispy, the egg white was firm, and the yolk in the middle was runny. The yolk mixed with the noodle soup, and every bite was full of rich egg flavor.
After finishing her meal, Yu Miaoyin took Xiaotangbao's hand and sent her to kindergarten.
After dropping Xiaotangbao off at school, Yu Miaoyin had a lot more free time, so she went to the noodle shop to check on things.
The noodle shop was quite large. Although it was practically closed down, it still had all the necessary tables, chairs, and tableware. Apart from a bit of dust, everything else was fine. Yu Miaoyin spent some time cleaning it up, and the noodle shop looked presentable again.
After cleaning, she went to the relevant department to apply for a manager's business license and health certificate.
By the time she finished her trip, it was already past 3 p.m. Yu Miaoyin didn't go back; instead, she took a detour to pick up Xiao Tangbao.
On the way back, Xiao Tangbao said to Yu Miaoyin, "Sister, our kindergarten teacher said that the kindergarten will now have a school bus to pick up and drop off the children. The teachers will be on duty with each class, so you don't need to come pick me up anymore."
These words dispelled Yu Miaoyin's worries of the past few days. The kindergarten was close to home, but she couldn't let such a young child go to school alone. However, picking her up and dropping her off every day wasn't a long-term solution. After all, Yu Miaoyin still had to run her shop. Now, she had a solution that satisfied both her and her child's needs. Yu Miaoyin nodded and gently stroked Xiao Tangbao's hair. "How about Xiao Tangbao takes the school bus home from now on? Your older sister will wait for you at home."
“Okay, that way my sister won’t be too busy, and there are lots of kids on the school bus, so I can play with them,” Xiao Tangbao said.
Back home, Yu Miaoyin went into the kitchen to check on how the dough was fermenting.
This morning, when Yu Miaoyin took Xiaotangbao to kindergarten, the two of them talked about food. Xiaotangbao said that the school would give out pastries, which were golden and looked like slices of pineapple, but they didn't taste good at all. Upon hearing this, Yu Miaoyin exclaimed, "Isn't that just golden cake?"
She thought about making something delicious for Xiaotangbao to try, and she also thought that making golden cake would be very interesting, so she prepared the batter needed to make golden cake before going to apply for a business license.
Combine the separated egg whites and yolks with a suitable amount of granulated sugar and whisk until the egg mixture turns pale and thick. Then, pour in coconut milk and tapioca starch and stir well. Finally, add the fermented yeast water and stir until smooth. The batter is now ready. In Yuncheng, the weather in September was still sunny and the room temperature was quite high. During the time I was processing the business license and picking up and dropping off Xiaotangbao, the batter had fermented perfectly.
Little Tangbao was very excited to learn that her older sister was going to make golden cakes, and she ran over to see. Yu Miaoyin peeled off the plastic wrap, and Little Tangbao stood on tiptoe, tilting her head back to look.
The batter expanded and grew larger, and many small air bubbles appeared on the surface.
With years of cooking experience, Yu Miaoyin knew at a glance that the batter had fermented properly. She found the mold, brushed some corn oil around the sides, poured in the batter, gently tossed it a few times, and then put it in the oven to bake.
With nothing to do, the two of them snuggled up on the sofa watching cartoons. After one episode, the whole house was filled with a sweet aroma. Little Tangbao, smelling the fragrance, couldn't continue watching the cartoon. She gently nudged Yu Miaoyin and asked, "Sister, can we eat now?"
Yu Miaoyin chuckled and nodded, "You can eat now."
As soon as the oven was opened, the sweet aroma of golden cake wafted out along with the steam. Upon closer inspection, because the temperature was a bit high, the surface of the baked golden cake had an enticing brown patch, had shrunk slightly, and gleamed with an oily sheen. Yu Miaoyin put on clean gloves, smoothed the edges, and then inverted the golden cake onto a tray.
The golden cake was soft and elastic; after releasing her fingers, its surface slowly bounced back. Yu Miaoyin used a clean knife to slice the golden cake.
The cross-section of the golden cake has a beautiful fishbone pattern and a golden color. The bottom surface has fine honeycomb-like pores, and the steam coming out of those pores mixes with the aroma of coconut and rice.
Little Tangbao's eyes widened as she looked at it. "It smells so good! It looks so beautiful!"
Yu Miaoyin smiled and gave a piece to Xiao Tangbao to eat. "Let's go, let's take some to Grandma Chen. Grandma gave us some delicious sweet potatoes yesterday."
Little Tangbao followed behind Yu Miaoyin, holding a steaming hot golden cake.
She took a small bite while it was still hot. The freshly baked golden cake was soft yet slightly chewy, and Xiao Tangbao's eyes lit up.
"Grandma Chen." Yu Miaoyin knocked on the door.
"What's wrong, Xiaoyin?" Grandma Chen came over and opened the door to let the two of them in.
"No, I made some golden cake and brought some over for you to try." As she spoke, Yu Miaoyin opened the lunchbox, and a sweet aroma wafted out. Looking at the golden cake, its golden cross-section was simply too beautiful.
Grandma Chen looked away and quickly said, "Thank you, Xiaoyin, you did such a beautiful job."
She took the lunchbox and asked another question, "When will the noodle shop reopen?"
Yu Miaoyin said, "I'm going to apply for a health certificate and a business license now, but I have to wait for the business license to be issued before I can apply for a food business license."
Grandma Chen nodded. "Then it will probably take a while."
With a creak—
The door to one of the rooms opened, and a little girl came out.
Wearing her school uniform, with her school badge around her neck, her hair neatly tied up with a few stray hairs around her forehead, she exclaimed with delight upon seeing Yu Miaoyin, "Sister Ayin, you're back?"
The little girl is Grandma Chen's granddaughter, named Wen Yiling. She has a pretty, clean face and fair skin. She is a second-year high school student at Yuncheng No. 1 Middle School and is a day student. Because it's close to home, she can go home often.
"You're back. Did you come home to wash your hair?" Yu Miaoyin looked at the young face, at her clean but shapeless school uniform, and at her energetic appearance, and couldn't help but think of her own high school days.
“Yes.” Yi Ling nodded.
Little Tangbao looked up at her with a smile and sweetly called out, "Sister Yiling."
When Yiling saw Xiaotangbao, she couldn't help but reach out and pat her head, "Xiaotangbao."
So cute.
"Oh, by the way, I made some golden cakes, they're still warm, you should try some," Yu Miaoyin said.
Yiling hummed in agreement; she was in a hurry to get back to her self-study session and didn't chat much. Grandma Chen opened the lid, took out two pieces, and put them on a plate, leaving the rest for Yiling.
"Okay, thank you, Sister Yin. I'm going back to study now." She said, running out of the house with her lunchbox in her arms.
Grandma Chen watched her granddaughter's hurried appearance and couldn't help but mutter a few more words, her eyes full of heartache, "Oh, you're in high school, how come you've lost so much weight..."
"Has Yiling eaten?" Yu Miaoyin asked. The two families were neighbors. Yu Miaoyin was much older than her. Yiling had sweetly called her "sister" or "Ayin-jie" since she was little. Yu Miaoyin really treated her like a younger sister. When she saw Yiling's thin arms just now, she felt a little sorry for her.
Grandma Chen looked distressed when she talked about it. "Yiling is a picky eater. She complains that the food I make isn't good. She tells me every day that she ate at school, but I don't know if she ate or not. She's lost so much weight."
After saying that, Grandma Chen sighed again, "If my cooking were even half as good as yours, Yiling wouldn't have lost so much weight."
—
Yuncheng No.1 Middle School, Grade 11, Class 11.
When Yiling returned to the classroom, her classmates were sitting in groups of three or four eating dinner, their laughter filling the air.
Her deskmate, Xu Jiajia, was eating fried chicken when she saw Yiling return. She presented her with a box of fried chicken, inside which lay a fried chicken leg. "Here, have a taste. Just to give you a heads-up, if you don't like it, you can throw it away!"
As a food enthusiast, Xu Jiajia is more accepting of food than Yi Ling, who is a picky eater. Foods that Yi Ling thinks are okay will receive good reviews from Xu Jiajia.
But if she thinks something tastes bad, it must taste really bad.
Xu Jiajia commented, "I can only give this restaurant one star out of five."
"What are you eating today?" Xu Jiajia asked, then sighed, "Is there any good food left in this world?"
"High school is tough enough, and now we can't even eat anything good..." Jiajia sighed, "Life is hard."
After saying that, her gaze fell on the lunchbox that Yiling had brought. "What delicious food did you bring from home today?"
Speaking of this, Yiling remembered the lunchbox her grandmother had given her.
She took it and opened it. The moment she opened it, the steam from the golden cake, along with the rich aroma of coconut, wafted out.
Xu Jiajia unconsciously leaned over to look. Inside the lunchbox lay slices of golden, tempting cake. The classroom instantly filled with a sweet aroma, and many students stopped eating, whispering, "What's this that smells so good?"
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