bookcurios Chapter 131 Cream Cake
Chapter 131 Cream Cake
Seeing Liu Xuewen like this, it seems there's nothing seriously wrong.
"Sister Song, can these milk curds be mass-produced?" Liu Xuewen thought this kind of food was pretty good, and it would be perfect to sell it at a pastry shop.
"It might not be easy here. Maybe it would work in the northern grasslands," Song Jiaojiao thought, considering the humidity here was too high and it might not be successful. She was also worried about the butter she was going to get and didn't know what to do.
"Oh no!!!" Song Jiaojiao thought of the butter and forgot about the whipped cream she made a couple of days ago, so she quickly ran to the cellar to check.
Luckily, the cream hadn't spoiled yet, so I took it to the kitchen and started whipping it with a hand-cranked whisk.
Seeing Song Jiaojiao's startled expression, Liu Xuewen followed her into the kitchen and saw Song Jiaojiao preparing something that didn't look like egg whites.
I added the sugar in three batches and whipped the cream for 45 minutes before it was properly whipped. Electric whippers are so much more convenient!
Looking at the slightly yellowish cream in front of her, Song Jiaojiao scooped up a little with a spoon and tasted it. Hmm, it tasted just right. It seemed like she had succeeded.
"Sister Song, what exactly is this?" Liu Xuewen asked curiously.
"Since you're here, have your servant go to the pastry shop and buy a cake. You'll see soon enough," Song Jiaojiao said bluntly to her errand boy. If she hadn't forgotten about it and hadn't forgotten to prepare a cake, things wouldn't have come to this.
Liu Xuewen didn't ask any more questions, but simply told the servant to hurry up. In less than a quarter of an hour, the servant returned with the cake.
Upon receiving the cake, Song Jiaojiao divided it into three layers, spreading cream on each layer and adding grape jam. After placing all three layers and spreading cream, Song Jiaojiao used some juice from the grape jam to color the remaining cream. She then wrapped parchment paper into a cone shape, poured the colored cream into the parchment paper, and slowly squeezed it outwards. The flat nozzle allowed the squeezed cream to form petals. Several petals stacked together gradually formed a flower.
Song Jiaojiao then used the remaining cream to make flowers, and the pale purple flowers stood on the cake, looking just like real flowers.
Liu Xuewen watched as Song Jiaojiao made the beautiful cake step by step.
"This...this is still a cake? Cakes can be like this?" Liu Xuewen pointed at the cake, his finger trembling with excitement.
"Isn't it beautiful? This is the real birthday cake. The top is covered with cream. I told you last time that the front part was just the cake base." Song Jiaojiao didn't expect that she could actually make it. In her previous life, she loved to study these things when she had free time. It wasn't that she couldn't buy them outside, but they were just too expensive, and she was poor.
Liu Xuewen was greatly shocked. The cake base alone cost five taels of silver in the capital, and people had to place an order in advance. If a cake with cream was added, the price would be ten times higher, not to mention the ones with flowers on top.
"Sister Song, Sister Song, look how familiar we are, sell me the cream!" Liu Xuewen said in a fawning tone.
"Brother Xuewen, it's not that I don't want to sell, but the conditions here don't allow it. If we wait any longer, the weather will get colder and the air will be more humid, making it impossible to extract the butter needed for the cream." Although there are many ways to extract butter, Song Jiaojiao only knows this one. Looking at the increasingly thick clouds in the sky, she figured it was going to rain today. There hadn't been many rains this summer, and this rain was likely to be quite heavy.
Upon hearing this, Liu Xuewen's excitement was instantly dampened. The thought of so much money slipping through his fingers filled him with resentment.
"Is there really no other way?" Liu Xuewen asked, unwilling to give up.
"Hmm? Not really, it's just that I haven't tried this method before, so I don't know if it will work." Song Jiaojiao thought that the only factors affecting milk fermentation were temperature and humidity. As long as these two things were controlled, it wouldn't be impossible.
"What method? Tell me quickly!" Liu Xuewen's dead heart instantly came back to life.
"The main raw material for making butter is milk. Fresh milk is fermented at room temperature for two days, which will form a yellow milky texture. This milky texture is an important material for making butter. The milk that ferments into yogurt below is the material for making milk curds. However, there are prerequisites for making all of these well: temperature and humidity."
As the name suggests, the temperature should be kept slightly cooler than it is now, and there shouldn't be too much moisture in the air. Just like how clothes dry faster in summer than in winter, it's because summer is drier than winter.
After listening to Song Jiaojiao's long explanation, Liu Xuewen was completely confused and couldn't understand how to solve the problem.
"Oh, Sister Song, I don't know anything about temperature and humidity, just tell me what to do."
Song Jiaojiao rolled her eyes speechlessly. "Simply put, I want to try using the kang (heated brick bed) to see if I can dry out the air and see if it works."
"A kang (heated brick bed)? Is it the kind you make in your workshop?" Liu Xuewen thought of what he had seen when he visited Song Jiaojiao last time, which left a deep impression on him.
"That's right, but we still need to experiment more. Also, we need to buy a lot of dairy cows, because milk is the most important raw material. It would be best to find a place where we can get sunshine all day long." Song Jiaojiao thought that if they were to do it in Qingshui Village, it would probably be more difficult. Not to mention other times, even in the hottest part of summer, Qingshui Village is much cooler than outside.
“I have a manor about ten miles outside the county. I don’t know if it will work. It’s a relatively open area, with the nearest mountains more than half a mile away. It gets sunshine all day long and there are no obstructions. The manor is about 300 acres, which would be perfect for raising cattle.”
Liu Xuewen thought about the estate he had impulsively bought a few years ago. It was too far from a water source, and the villagers relied on a few wells for sustenance. Rice cultivation was out of the question; without water, it was impossible to grow anything. They could only grow drought-resistant crops like sweet potatoes and beans. Forget making money; they actually lost a lot of money every year. The previous owner sold it at a low price because the estate was losing money every year. There were many servants on the estate, and he couldn't just abandon them.
Upon hearing this, Song Jiaojiao thought it made perfect sense. Tongan County was drier than Qingshui Mountain, and there was milk available in the town. They could skip buying cows during the initial experiments and buy them later if the experiment was successful.
"Brother Xuewen, shall we cooperate?"
Liu Xuewen figured that Song Jiaojiao must have been planning to create a new product during Banrixian, since he was also the owner of Banrixian, so he was naturally willing.
"Okay, Sister Song made this cream so that Ban Ri Xian can launch a new product later. After all, I am the owner of Ban Ri Xian, so I will do my best."
“Okay, we’ll go take a look when we have time, and we’ll also make the kang (heated brick bed) first.” Song Jiaojiao readily agreed.