At 6:32 AM, Qin Luo, at the last possible moment to get up for school, dashed to the dining hall, hurriedly grabbing a few buns. Before she knew it, Qin Huai had stuffed two baked buns and a crab shell cake into her hands, teary-eyed as she held her brother’s love, she headed off on the bus to school.
Riding the bus to the international school, Qin Luo was now living the life of a typical protagonist in a school novel — a commoner who managed to mingle at an international school.
At 12 o’clock, Qin Huai finished work, had lunch, and continued tinkering with the stove.
He had to make sticky rice cake that afternoon, so there wasn’t as much time to play around with the stove, which made Qin Huai feel a bit reluctant.
A batch of baked buns came out of the oven, so, as usual, Qin Huai nibbled on one and then began preparing the next batch.
Turning around, he noticed that the new breakfast chef, Chen An, hadn’t left yet.
"Master Chen, you finish work at 12," Qin Huai assumed that Chen An was on his first day and didn’t quite know the end of work time, so he reminded him.
Chen An nodded, somewhat unsure, and stayed put, saying, "Well... I haven’t sold all the pastries I made this morning; I want to stay and see how they sell this afternoon."
Chen An is a breakfast all-rounder, a fundamental player in pastries. The number of pastries he can make is limited, with the best being no water egg cake, then honeycomb mini bread, and finally custard tarts — all cheap, plentiful, and affordable.
This kind of pastry would be popular at the entrance of an ordinary neighborhood, but at Yunzhong Restaurant, it didn’t quite fit. After all, the elderly, office workers, and passersby in this area have seen it all, and mere no water egg cake can’t captivate their palates.
Though Chen An had some shortcomings in pastries, Qin Congwen and Zhao Rong were still satisfied with him.
The young man’s skill level needed improvement, but his work attitude was excellent!
When he worked, he was diligent and didn’t slack off. He didn’t idle away the whole morning.
Qin Huai remembered Qin Congwen’s evaluation of Chen An, feeling a bit surprised, thinking this was more than just not slacking off — he was even voluntarily applying for overtime — what a work ethic!
"No need to feel pressured, it’s okay if they don’t sell — worst case, you can focus solely on breakfast later, and I can teach you to make fried dough sticks, which is simple." Qin Huai kindly said.
Chen An nodded, cheering inwardly.
Great, he found a good excuse, so he wouldn’t have to add more work hours just to stay and watch the excitement.
He had been selling breakfast for so many years and had worked as a pastry chef for a few years, yet had never seen customers fighting over snacks.
The morning dispute settled too quickly, and he didn’t have time to savor it.
Entertaining, enjoyable — it was great to watch.
Even if it meant sitting on a small stool eating sunflower seeds, he wanted to see it.
Qin Huai didn’t know that the new breakfast chef enjoyed watching drama. After baking the last batch of crab shell cakes and baked buns, he selected a few nice-looking ones, placed them on a separate small plate, saving them for Qin Luo to have as a late-night snack after school.
The rest was divided among the waiting elderly folks, with one lucky office worker among them. Seeing the office worker going out of his way to stop by on his workday, they reluctantly let him take a crab shell cake and a baked bun.
Turning the stove over to An Youyou for cleaning, Qin Huai began preparing to make sticky rice cake.
Sticky rice cake, a treat often seen in TV dramas, beloved by court concubines. It gives off a high-end vibe yet is actually quite common.
Glutinous rice essentially is the same as sticky rice.
In times of poor productivity, any food related to rice was precious fine grain. A bowl of white rice was a luxury most people could only dream of, let alone the pastries made from glutinous rice.
Qin Huai learned to make sticky rice cakes because Qin Luo went through a phase of loving palace dramas.
In the palace dramas, the concubines were always talking about sticky rice cakes, crab cakes, Eight Treasure Cake, White Jade Cream, and Jade Bean Cakes — names that sound so luxurious. While others watched palace dramas for the intrigue and power struggles, Qin Luo watched for what the concubines were eating three times a day.
These pastries sounded difficult by name but weren’t actually hard to make. Of course, it could be because the methods Qin Huai found online and in the Snack Encyclopedia weren’t palace-style recipes. After all, the sticky rice cake was just glutinous rice cake wrapped in red bean paste, a long strip without a fancy shape.
Qin Huai thought that even if the palace concubines were in dire straits, they wouldn’t eat such plain-looking pastries.
Qin Luo also thought so; she even tried to persuade Qin Huai to put some effort into making the sticky rice cake look better, only to be scolded by Zhao Rong and Qin Congwen.
Having something to eat is already good enough; making shapes and complaining about aesthetics — who do you think you are, a palace concubine? Have you even looked at your scores in language/math/physics/chemistry/history/geography/politics?
For Qin Luo, food that was worth getting scolded over was always memorable. Although sticky rice cake wasn’t quite to her taste, wasn’t very pleasing to the eye, and even felt a bit too filling, it was still memorable.
So, every so often, Qin Luo would ask to have some sticky rice cake, making Qin Huai more proficient in making it than White Jade Cream and Crab Cakes.
Now, Qin Huai started making sticky rice cake.
The key to sticky rice cake is the glutinous rice.
There are two kinds of glutinous rice: long grain grown in the south and round grain grown in the north.
Based on the description in Huang Shengli’s tutorial, northern round glutinous rice has a smooth texture and is chewier, suitable for staple foods like glutinous rice meals, shumai, and zongzi.
Southern long glutinous rice, once cooked, has very high stickiness, making it suitable for making cakes, glutinous rice balls, and soft glutinous pastries.
Qin Huai didn’t know this before because he always lived in Guangdong Province, where you could mostly only buy long glutinous rice from the market, coincidentally the right kind.
To be honest, the Qin Family Breakfast Shop had been using long glutinous rice for its shumai for many years, much to the dismay of the residents of the Third Street District.
The quality of glutinous rice directly determines the quality of sticky rice cake.
Today, the glutinous rice quality was quite good.
Making sticky rice cake involves tedious steps. You need to rinse the glutinous rice, soak it in cold water for at least 30 minutes to fully absorb water, drain it, and steam it in a steamer for an hour over high heat.
After steaming, take it out, pour boiling water over it, and stir in one direction until the water and rice are fully blended. Then steam it for another 30 minutes.
Continue stirring, mixing the clumped glutinous rice into a sticky state, then steam again.
After steaming, cover with a damp cloth and let it sit for 12 hours.
The 12 hours is an approximate time, with the actual time left to the maker’s intuition. Qin Huai generally steamed it in the afternoon, covered it all night until finishing breakfast prep the next morning — much more than 12 hours.
Luo Jun was destined not to eat sticky rice cake today.
Nor could he have crab shell cakes and baked buns.
Making rice cakes is truly labor-intensive; after following the steps, Qin Huai didn’t want to do anything else, merely waiting for Dried Tangerine Peel Tea and beef soup to be done.
At such times, Qin Luo’s importance stood out.
Whenever Qin Luo wanted sticky rice cake before, she would handle the stirring step — the child was strong, churning out glutinous rice dough that was dense and smooth, obviously putting in quite the effort.
To avoid Luo Jun getting bored with just Dried Tangerine Peel Tea, Qin Huai added an unsold piece of no water egg cake from Chen An, earning a one-star review from Luo Jun.
Luo Jun remarked that if there was nothing else, it’d be best not to add anything, and not to placate him with such subpar snacks.
As Qin Huai munched on the egg cake, he felt Luo Jun was too picky; for a no water egg cake, Chen An’s version was quite good.
Nibbling on the egg cake and sipping beef soup, Qin Huai found today’s beef soup to be quite nice.
Since practicing fire control with the small stove, Qin Huai felt his mastery of it had improved greatly, making soup preparation much smoother.
"Ouyang, how’s today’s beef soup?" Qin Huai called out from the window.
"Not bad, delicious," Ouyang gave a thumbs-up, "but I think the beef soup doesn’t pair well with this egg cake; the egg cake is kind of dry, it’s better with a baked bun."
He shouldn’t have asked.
Qin Huai continued drinking the soup and noticed Chen An still sitting at the outside table, seemingly waiting for something, said, "Master Chen, don’t worry, if this egg cake doesn’t sell this afternoon, it’ll be bundled with meals at a special price in the evening, so it won’t go to waste."
"You’re working tomorrow morning too; I remember you live pretty far. You should head home early to get some sleep."
Chen An knew it was time to go home and sleep.
But he still hadn’t seen people fighting over snacks!
Qin Huai didn’t make any sellable pastries this afternoon, so the elderly folks were very harmonious, sitting in the restaurant simply to chat.
Once confirmed there were no randomly dropped pastries, they patted their backs and went home.
Chen An was a bit disappointed, but he didn’t show it, merely asked, "Master Qin, do you have any extra pastries for sale tomorrow afternoon?"
"Tomorrow afternoon?" Qin Huai pondered, "I might have to go to the hospital, so I won’t necessarily be at the shop, why?"
"It’s nothing really, I was just hoping to see which of your pastries are popular so that I can learn and improve." Chen An said, thinking there was no need to find an excuse to stick around tomorrow afternoon, he’d find a reason the day after.
He just wanted to watch some drama, why was it so hard?
Qin Huai was deeply touched, mentally giving Chen An a thumbs-up.
Once the sticky rice cake was done tomorrow, it would first be sent to Luo Jun for tasting. As long as picky Luo Jun nodded in approval, it would be packed up and taken to the hospital.
Qin Huai specifically checked that Qu Jing wouldn’t have outpatient hours tomorrow afternoon.