Vol 5 Chapter 30: Double Ninth Flower Cake (Next

It was not too long for Xiao Xiaoshen to bring firewood to fill the stove, Gu Yunxi lit the fire, and Xiao Xiaoshen sat down and pushed the bellows. Gu Yunxi sat a kettle on the stove and hurried to other things.
After the fire rises, there is still some time before it burns. Taking advantage of this free time, Gu Yunxi began to make Chongyang Sugar Cake.
A large bowl of glutinous rice is passed through a rice sieve to remove sand and stones, washed repeatedly with clean water, and soaked in cold water for later use.
Then go to pick up the Jiangmi noodles in the pots. Because the cook deliberately made a mess and poured hot water into the basin, the noodles were basically cooked, and they didn't form a dough.
Gu Yunxi dumped all the things in the pot and went to the storage cabinet to find new ones.
The bag full of rice noodles was empty, and the white flowered rice noodles climbed to the bottom of the bag, and there was not much left.
Gu Yunxi gritted his teeth, annoyed that the three cooks were too vicious. It's all about stumbling secretly, she feels distressed when she sees the food.
Seeing Gu Yunxi standing in front of the locker, looking confused and silent, Xiao Xiaoshen turned around and asked, "Sister Yunxi, what's wrong with you?"
"It's okay."
At the moment when he answered the question, Gu Yunxi quickly figured out a remedy. Quickly turn out the bean noodles and white noodles from the cabinet, take the proportions, sift them one by one with a fine sieve, and mix them with the remaining rice noodles and pour them into a pot.
Pour an appropriate amount of water into the basin, mix the three kinds of noodles evenly, and then place the pot on the fire.
"Brother Xiaoshen, the fire is fine."
Xiao Xiaoshen stopped pulling the bellows and stood up to watch Gu Yunxi busy.
Gu Yunxi held the cooking spoon and slowly stirred the white pulp in the earthenware basin. The direction of stirring was always the same without changing randomly. Following her movements, the white pulp on the edge of the tile basin continued to puff up small bubbles one by one, the white pulp became thicker and thicker, and the color gradually darkened until it was yellow.
about there--
Gu Yunxi knew in his heart that he took two pieces of cloth soaked in wet water and wrapped them around the pot.
Xiao Xiaoshen pulled her away: "I'll live it!"
Helped her take the big crock pot from the stove and put it on the wooden table. He stared at the steamy and bean-scented face, his eyes gleaming, and asked suspiciously:
"What are we doing now?"
"Leave it to me here, you go and turn the fire up again and sit in a two-drawer steamer."
"Good!" Xiao Xiaoshen readily agreed, and went to work.
Gu Yunxi touched the mud in the pot. The temperature was very hot and it was inconvenient to start. So he turned back to his house and fetched two small porcelain bottles and a large bag of dry goods.
These are the chestnuts, red dates and dried sweet oranges she bought back when she went to the street with a few guards, as well as the melon seeds and walnuts peeled by herself and the supervisor.
The glass bottle contains dyes, which are the juices she extracted from different flowers, fruits and vegetables. Not only is it natural, but the dye itself also has a fresh fragrance of flowers and fruits.
Gu Yunxi found a masher, put the dry goods in the big cloth bag into the masher, smashed them with a wooden pestle, and mixed them with honey and osmanthus sauce.
"What sauce, it's so fragrant!"
Xiao Xiaoshen's nose is the best, and he has long smelled the strong fragrance of osmanthus sauce ~ mixed with the fragrance of different fruits, the breath is tangy, and every strand is refreshing and sweet.
He leaned over to Gu Yunxi, reached out and grabbed the wooden spoon she used to mix sauce and stuffed it into his mouth.
"What are you doing, give it back to me!"
Gu Yunxi was so angry that he punched him with his hand: "This is the sugar filling for making flower cakes later, watch out if it is dirty by you!"
Xiao Xiaoshen took a deep look at her, and was infected by her astonishment mixed with anger. The hippie smiled leaning up, and she was not ashamed to tease her:
"Then...you let me have a bite!"
"See if I can't kill you today..." Gu Yunxi instantly made both cheeks flushed in embarrassment. He picked up the stick on the desk and raised it above his head.
"Good sister, I was wrong," Xiao Xiaoshen lifted his two hands together over his head, and bowed his head to beg Gu Yunxi for mercy:
"It's not a joke, how dare I really nibble..."
"You still say!"
Gu Yunxi's stick pointed straight at the bridge of his nose, and his face was puffed up aggressively.
"Hey... I really don't dare! Who doesn't know that you are the governor's person, at best, I dare to make a lot of noise..."
"Go! What nonsense! Don't hurry up to see if the steamer water is hot!"
Hearing Xiao Xiaoshen deliberately mentioning Leng Qingtang, Gu Yunxi's heart trembled, as if the calm water of the lake repeated shallow ripples, shocked and disturbed.
Throwing the stick, she glanced at Xiao Xiaoshen hard, and hurriedly turned her hot face aside.
Xiao Xiaoshen had already lifted the big lid of the steamer, and white smoke billowed from inside.
The time is just right--
After Gu Yunxi fully soaked the two drawers in cold water, they laid them on the bottom of each drawer one by one. While the cloth is wet, pour some of the glutinous rice soaked into white hair on each of the two cloths, press the porcelain, sprinkle a layer of sweet sauce on each layer of glutinous rice, and then spread a layer of glutinous rice, press the porcelain, and repeat the sweet Spread the sauce, spread the glutinous rice, and sprinkle some rock sugar particles on the top glutinous rice layer, and then roll the cloth edge of the drawer to cover the top layer of the glutinous rice cake to prevent the cake from tilting and out of shape in the cage during the entire cooking process.
After everything was done, she told Xiao Xiaoshen to cover the steamer lid and steam it for a while.
The production of Chongyang Sugar Cake has come to an end.
This time my son will go to see the wooden pot on the wooden table, the rice paste inside is already warm, this is the most critical moment for making flower cakes.
The noodles used to make flower cakes are different from Chongyang sugar cakes. Its main ingredient is mixed with bean noodles, so the noodles must be cooked to remove the smell of bean noodles before making them. But in this way, there is an inevitable disadvantage of the pasta paste. If the pasta is completely cold, it will become completely hard and stiff, and it will not be able to be filled with fillings.
Gu Yunxi's entire process of steaming sugar cakes is difficult to control without full experience. The final result is usually that sugar cakes are steamed on a tray, and the bean noodles in the clay pot also become cold and hard. Up.
At this moment, the softness and hardness of the noodles are suitable. When you grab some, the texture is soft and flexible without sticking to your hands.
Gu Yunxi picked up a small ball of noodles and placed it in a porcelain sea, unplugged the yellow vial he was holding in the house, and dropped two drops of bright yellow dye on the dough in the porcelain sea. Then knead the dough with your hands to make the yellow dye and the dough fully merge. Soon, a ball of yellow bean dough came out.
Unplug the cork of the pink bottle, drip a few drops of pink dye into the crock pot, and knead vigorously in the same way until a powdery bean dough is formed.
Take the chopping board and apply a thin layer of cooking oil on it, so that the cake body will not stick to the chopping board when the flower cake is placed later.
The next step is to make flower cakes.
Gu Yunxi took a little pink dough and knead it quickly between the palms of his hands and squashed it into a cake. Take a spoonful of mincemeat filling and place it in the center of the pink bean noodles, carefully pinch the corners, wrap the sugar filling tightly, and turn it upside down.
Use the fine tip of a bamboo stick to press the chrysanthemum pattern on the smooth surface of the dough, and place it on the oiled chopping board and let it dry.
In the same way, Gu Yunxi wrapped twenty-eight powder dumplings, each with a different pattern on the surface. There are Ping Ting's peony, delicate rose, seductive rose, rich peonies, Qingye jasmine, luxurious pomegranate...
Xiao Xiaoshen looked at the flower cakes full of different shapes on the chopping board, and while envied, the bowels in his stomach were clearly audible.
Just about to pinch a piece to taste, Gu Yunxi opened his thief's hand with a palm.
"Don't worry, the cake hasn't dried yet!"
Xiao Xiaoshen had to retreat aggrievedly and continued to wait patiently.
The last step is to paste the osmanthus.
Osmanthus, also known as osmanthus, is an indispensable flower of the Double Ninth Festival. The process of making osmanthus with bean noodles by hand is very cumbersome and requires some effort.
Before making it, Gu Yunxi asked Xiao Xiaoshen to put out the fire on the stove.
The Chongyang sugar cake in the steamer has exuded the unique sweet taste of glutinous rice, indicating that the cake is completely cooked.
After the fire is extinguished, the heat in the steamer will be perfect for a moment!
Gu Yunxi cleaned his hands with clean water, and pulled the porcelain sea containing the yellow bean dough over, pinched a little bit of yellow dough from the inside and held it in the palm of his hand, holding a thin bamboo stick in the other hand. Started hand-carving osmanthus flowers.
Xiao Xiaoshen leaned sideways next to the wooden table, gazing intently and admiringly at the busy goddess in his mind.
Her small hands are slender and white, and the orchid fingers that frequently stir the bamboo sticks are making graceful twists. The movements are gentle and charming.
A few rays of sunlight shot through the gaps in the window mullions and cast them on these smart and soft hands, making them like suet warm jade with excellent color and gleaming and bright.
It was at this moment that she was attentively fiddling with the work in her hand, and the crystal lips of the cherry blossom on the top were slightly provoked, always smiling warm and confident.
Although she was dressed in men's clothing, Xiao Xiaoshen felt that it did not affect her own beauty. On the contrary, the indistinguishable impression of male and female added a sense of mystery and seduction to her, which made her unstoppable daydreaming.
After a while, a cluster of bright yellow slender osmanthus flowers was born in Gu Yunxi's palm.
She held it in the sun, looked at it with pride, and put her hand on the beautiful flower and put it on the face of the beauty. It was a cozy and expressive work.
"Brother Xiaoshen, look..."
She raised the four-petaled yellow flower to his eyes, her expression refreshed and cheerful.
"good looking!"
Xiao Xiaoshen didn't even look at the little flower in her palm, but stared at her face without turning aside and admired it from the bottom of his heart.
Although her mind was rippling to see, Xiao Xiaoshen understood that a girl with such a beautiful heart could never be owned by him.
Gu Yunxi carved a total of 27 osmanthus flowers. She divided these flowers into groups of nine, and pinched the eyelashes together into three clusters.
The entire carving process not only tests handwork and patience, but also requires proficiency. If the wood rhinoceros carving in the back is slow, the flowers that were carved first will dry up and cannot be pinched together to form a cluster.
After carving the osmanthus flower clusters, Gu Yunxi went to see the flower cakes dried on the chopping board. Lightly touch the cake body with your fingers, it is not sticky or collapsed, and the flower cake is all dried.
Gu Yunxi decorated the tops of three of them with osmanthus flowers. The tender and round flower cakes are paired with golden osmanthus flower clusters, and the color is full and bright.
Xiao Xiaoshen stretched her neck and watched, sniffing repeatedly with his nose, swallowing saliva in his belly. These flower cakes are delicious and attractive in color, which completely evokes the appetite, but because they are so beautiful, he can't bear to open his teeth for a while.
"Brother Xiaoshen, you help me open the lid of the steamer, and the Chongyang sugar cake can be taken out. After you have eaten it, give some points to a few heads. Today on Double Ninth Festival, I honor all the elders, everyone It’s fun to celebrate together!"
"Great --"
Xiao Xiaoshen happily followed the order to take care of Yunxi and lifted the big lid of the steamer. The white hot air was wrapped in a fresh scent of rice and poured out, and the smell overflowed straight out of the yard.
Outside the courtyard, the three cooks smelled the scent and began to whisper to each other.
Gu Yunxiquan didn't hear it, so he took a big knife and dipped it in some clean water, and cut the rice cake in the cage into several small pieces, and put them into the big plate one by one.
After a little time, the Chongyang Sugar Cake cooled.
The creamy-white cake is covered with five-color fillings, one layer is deep and one layer is shallow. During the steaming process, the rock sugar particles on the surface layer are fully dissolved by heat, and the sticky sugar liquid penetrates into the rice layer. After cooling, the sugar syrup is agglomerated and wrapped in a sticky rice layer. When it is placed in a bright place, the cake body is like a layer of oil, continuously rolling with a round and translucent light. :,,