Be Modest,My Master of Imperial Guards

Chapter 30 Flower Cake for the Double Ninth Festival

After a short while, Xiao Xiaoshen got the woods and put them under the stove. Gu Yunxi lighted them. Xiao Xiaoshen sat down and started to work on the bellows. Gu Yunxi put a kettle on the stove and hurriedly went to work on something else.

The fire was lighted, but it needed some time to burn up. Gu Yunxi used this time to make the sugar cake for the Double Ninth Festival.

She sieved a bowl of glutinous rice to remove the sand and stone. She then cleaned it in water repeatedly and soaked it in cold water for later use.

The next step was to clean up the glutinous rice flour in the pot. Since the cook intentionally added hot water into the pot, the flour was all cooked and couldn't form dough anymore.

Gu Yunxi got rid of everything in the pot and tried to find new flour in the cabinet.

The bag used to store glutinous rice flour was now almost empty. Only a little remained at the bottom of the bag.

Gun Yunxi gritted her teeth. She was angry at the cooks for being too bad. Sabotaging her could be forgiven, but wasting all that food made Gu Yunxi feel sorry.

Seeing Gu Yunxi standing in front of the cabinet and looking lost without saying a word, Xiao Xiaoshen turned his head over and asked, "What's wrong, Yunxi?"

"Nothing."

While Gu Yunxi was answering Xiao Xiaoshen, an idea to save all these formed in her head. She quickly found the bean flour and wheat flour from the cabinet. She took them in proportion, sieved them, and mixed them with the remaining glutinous rice flour in the pot.

She added an appropriate amount of water into the pot, mixed all three types of flour equally, and put the pot on the stove.

"Xiaoshen, the fire is OK."

Xiao Xiaoshen stopped pulling the bellows. He stood up and watched Gu Yunxi work.

Gu Yunxi held a cooking spoon in her hand and slowly stirred the white paste in the pot. She kept stirring in the same direction and didn't change it. With her move, tiny bubbles of white paste formed along the edge of the pot. The paste was getting thicker and darker till it looked ginger.

It was about time.

Gu Yunxi knew what she was doing. She took two pieces of clothes that were soaked in the water and wrapped them around the edge of the pot.

Xiao Xiaoshen pulled her aside, "Let me do this!"

Helping her took down the pot from the stove and placing it on the table, he stared at the steaming paste with the fragrance of beans and asked,

"Now what do we do?"

"I'll take this. You go make the fire bigger. And put two food steamers on the stove."

"No problem!" Xiao Xiaoshen took the order cheerily and went on doing it.

Gu Yunxi touched the paste in the pot. It was too hot to do anything. So she went back to her room and got two porcelain bottles and a bag full of dried food.

In the bag were chestnuts, red dates, and sweet dried oranges she bought on the street with some captains, and shelled melon-seeds and walnut kernels that she peeled with the Master.

In the bottles were dyes that she extracted from different flowers, fruit, and vegetables. They were not only from nature but had a fresh fragrance of flowers and fruit.

Gu Yunxi found the masher and put all the dried food from the bag into it. She used her full strength to mash them into powder with the wood stick and added in honey and osmanthus jam.

"What's that jam? It smells so nice!"

Xiao Xiaoshen was good with his nose. He already smelled the fragrance mixed of multiple fruit and osmanthus. Every wisp was sweet and delicious.

He went over to Gu Yunxi, grabbed the wood spoon she used to stir the jam, and tried to put it in his mouth.

"What are you doing? Give it back!"

Gu Yunxi pounded him in anger, "This is the stuffing for the flower cake! You are making it dirty!"

Xiao Xiaoshen looked at her deeply. He was influenced by her shocking look mixed with a bit of anger. He leaned over, shamelessly making fun of her,

"Then, let me take a bite!"

"I'll beat you to death today!" Gu Yunxi was embarrassed, and her cheeks were all red. She grabbed the rolling pin on the table and held it over her head.

"Yunxi, Yunxi, I was wrong." Xiao Xiaoshen put his palms together and held them over his head too. He looked down and begged Gu Yunxi for mercy,

"Can't even joke about it. Do you really think I dare to bite it?"

"What did you say?"

Gu Yunxi pointed the rolling pin at his nose bridge. She was blushing yet still angry.

"I really don't dare! Who doesn't know you are the Master's girl. I only dare to talk..."

"Go off! Stop being insane! Go check whether the water in the steamer is hot enough!"

Hearing Xiao Xiaoshen mentioning Leng Qingtang, Gu Yunxi was a bit nervous. It was like ripples on a peaceful lake. She was startled and embarrassed.

Dropping the rolling pin, she gave Xiao Xiaoshen a bad look and turned her blushing face away.

Xiao Xiaoshen had taken away the big cover of the steamer. Hot smoke immediately came out.

The timing was just right.

Gu Yunxi soaked two pieces of clothes in cold water again and laid them on the bottom of each layer of the steamer. While the clothes were still wet, she poured some glutinous rice that had become white and swollen after soaking in the water onto the clothes. She pressed them down, added a layer of sweet sauce, and then added another layer of glutinous rice, and pressed it down. She repeated this procedure. Then, she sprinkled some rock sugar on the top glutinous layer. She rolled the clothes to cover the top layer in case the whole cake went out of shape during the steaming.

After she was done, she asked Xiao Xiaoshen to put the cover back and steam it for half an hour.

She had fished most of the work for making the Double Ninth Festival sugar cake.

Gu Yunxi looked back at the pot. The paste had cooled down. This was the most crucial moment to make the flower cake.

Making a flower cake was different from making a sugar cake. The ingredients included bean flour. So the paste needed to be boiled before making the cake to get rid of the smell of bean flour. But then the paste had an unavoidable shortcoming. If it had been entirely cold, it would have become stiff and form a lump. The stuffing wouldn't have been able to be added in.

If Gu Yunxi hadn't had enough experience, it would have been hard for her to control the time while making the sugar cake. The usual outcome of lacking experience would have made the bean flour paste in the pot had already gone cold and stiff when the sugar cake was put on the stove.

But right now, the paste was just the right degree of softness. It was soft and pliable. When being picked up, it wouldn't stick on the fingers.

Gu Yunxi picked up a small dough and put it in a porcelain bowl. She took off the plug on the yellow bottle and added two drops of bright yellow dye onto the dough. She then kept kneading the dough, blending the dye with the dough completely. Before long, a yellow bean dough was made.

Gu Yunxi then pulled off the plug on the pink bottle and added drops of pink dye into the pot. She kneaded it the same way until a pink bean dough was made.

She grabbed the cutting board and smeared a thin layer of edible oil on the board so that the flower cake wouldn't stick on the board later.

The next step was to make the flower cake.

Gu Yunxi took some of the pink dough and quickly kneaded it between her palms. Then she pressed them into a flat cake. She took a spoon of fruit sugar stuffing and placed it in the middle of the pink flat been cake. She carefully held the cake in her fingers and wrapped the stuffing tightly. She then turned it upside down.

She used the slim tip of a bamboo stick to press the pattern of chrysanthemum onto the smooth pink dough. She then put it on the cutting board to dry.

In the same way, Gu Yunxi made twenty-eight pink doughs, and they had different patterns. There were elegant Chinese herbaceous peonies, charming Chinese roses, luring roses, gorgeous peonies, innocent jasmines, sumptuous pomegranates, and so on.

Xiao Xiaoshen looked at all the different flower cakes on the board. He felt jealous and hungry at the same time.

He was just about to pick one up and taste it, and Gu Yunxi smacked his hand away.

"Be patient! The cake hasn't dried yet!"

Xiao Xiaoshen could only step aside, feeling down and waited in patience.

The last step was to put on the osmanthus patterns.

Osmanthus was an indispensable flower of the ceremony in the Double Ninth Festival. The process of making osmanthus with bean dough was quite tedious. It would take a while.

Before making it, Gu Yunxi asked Xiao Xiaoshen to put out the fire under the stove.

The sugar cake in the steamer was leaking the unique sweet smell of glutinous rice. It meant that the cake was fully cooked.

It would be perfect to use the hot air in the steamer to steam it a bit longer after putting out the fire.

Gu Yunxi cleaned her hand with water. She dragged the bowl with the yellow bean dough in front of her. She pinched a tiny yellow dough from it and held it in her palm. She started carving an osmanthus flower with a slim bamboo stick using the other hand.

Xiao Xiaoshen leaned by the table and gazed intently at his goddess working her magic.

Her tiny hands were slim and smooth. She twisted and turned her fingers elegantly with orchid fingers to carve on the dough with the bamboo stick. Her movement was soft and gentle, and extremely charming.

Some beams of sunshine shone through the half-closed window onto this pair of flexible and soft hands, making them look like a fine piece of white jade, shining brightly under the light.

At this moment, she concentrated on working the product in her hand. Her cherry lips curled up, forming a warm and confident smile.

Even though she was dressed in man's clothes. Xiao Xiaoshen thought it didn't hurt her beauty. On the very contrary, that impression of not knowing whether she was a man or a woman made her more mysterious and charming, making people fantasize.

After a while, a tiny bright yellow osmanthus flower was created in Gu Yunxi's palm.

She held it under the sunshine and looked at it carefully with a proud look. The jade-like hand with the pretty flower and her charming face created a gorgeous painting.

"Look, Xiaoshen..."

She held the yellow four-leaf flower in front of his eyes, looking proud and cheerful.

"So beautiful!"

Xiao Xiaoshen didn't look at the flower on her palm, but stared at her face and complimented.

He almost couldn't hold himself. But Xiao Xiaoshen understood that this innocent and elegant girl would never be his.

Gu Yunxi carved out twenty-seven osmanthus flowers. She divided them into groups of nine. She then squeezed the stems together to make three bunches of flowers.

The whole carving process was not only a test for technique and patience but also experience. If the osmanthus flowers had been curved too slow, then the ones that were first carved out would have dried up and couldn't have formed a bunch.

After finishing the carving, Gu Yunxi went to check the flower cakes that were drying on the cutting board. She touched the cake gently. It was not sticky and didn't fall down. The cakes were completely dried.

Gu Yunxi added the osmanthus flowers on the top of three cakes. The pink and round flower cakes complemented with golden osmanthus flowers created a bright and colorful scene.

Xiao Xiaoshen stretched his neck and watched. He repeatedly sniffed around and couldn't stop swallowing saliva into his tummy. These flower cakes were colorful and luring, evoking people's appetites. Yet because of their beauty, Xiao Xiaoshen couldn't bear to eat it.

"Xiaoshen, could you take off the cover of the steamer for me? The sugar cake is ready now. After you eat it, share some with the captains. Today is the Double Ninth Festival. It's my treat for everybody. I like it best when we're all celebrating the festival together!"

"Sure thing!"

Xiao Xiaoshen cheerfully followed Gu Yunxi's order and took off the cover of the steamer. A hot smoke with a fresh and delicious smell of rice rushed out of the steamer, wafting towards the outside.

Outside the kitchen, three cooks began to talk quietly after they smelt it.

Gu Yunxi just ignored them. She took the knife and dipped it in the water. She then cut the rice cake into smaller pieces and put them into a big plate one by one.

In a while, the sugar cake cooled down.

The white cakes were covered by colorful stuffings, interfacing with dark and light colors layer by layer. During the steaming, the rock sugar on the top dissolved completely in the heat. The sticky sugar syrup soaked into the glutinous layer. After it cooled down, the sugar syrup covered the glutinous layer. When putting it under the light, it looked like a layer of oil on top of the cake, shining brightly like crystal.