There are many beautiful desserts.
Lotus cake, thousand layer cake, dragon beard candy, plum blossom cake, boat shaped pastry, dumplings, longevity peach...
Theoretically, as long as the chef wants to, any dessert can be made very beautiful. Steamed buns can be made into flower-shaped buns, and lotus cakes can be made to look like real lotus flowers. The more exquisite ones can even have a unique name.
Clear Water Lotus, Two Dragons Playing with a Pearl, Plum Blossom in Red, Jade Rabbit Seeking the Osmanthus—these names alone are enough to make you question if they are actually desserts or milk tea flavors.
Over 90% of these desserts Qin Luo not only has never seen, but hasn’t even heard of.
After all, if a dessert reaches this level, it’s hard to circulate in the market.
And Qin Luo’s biggest wish over the years has been that one day her beloved brother Qin Huai would firmly tell her:
"Luoluo, anytime you want to eat some snacks, just let me know, I’ll make them for you!"
And now, this wish has come true.
On the night that her second brother wouldn’t let her eat Five Fillings Bun in the morning, her eldest brother fulfilled it for her!
According to informed sources, when Zheng Siyuan asked Qin Luo if she wanted to eat any beautiful snacks and offered to teach Qin Huai to make them for her every day, Qin Luo was busy getting revenge by eating an actual apple as a substitute for apple dumplings.
When Zheng Siyuan said this, Qin Luo was so excited she almost choked on the apple, and after thinking for 5 minutes, she couldn’t come up with any dessert.
In the end, Zheng Siyuan gave Qin Luo over 30 examples to choose from.
"So... you chose the flower bun?" Qin Huai was still trying to mold red bean paste buns into the shape of a blue fat man.
"Isn’t the flower bun good?" Qin Luo said while munching on a vegetable bun made by Qin Congwen, "I saw pictures of flower buns online, dragon and phoenix designs, they’re super pretty!"
"I’m just curious how you picked the flower bun out of all these desserts like lotus cake, dragon beard candy, Golden Thread Roll," Qin Huai said.
No matter how pretty the flower bun is, it’s just a steamed bun without filling, which doesn’t fit Qin Luo’s aesthetic for desserts at all.
For Qin Luo, the best desserts in the world are certainly those with meat filling. Imperial snacks come next, anything associated with an empress would give you the feeling of being an Old Buddha. Then there are desserts with flashy names or look flashy.
The flower bun, for Qin Luo, shouldn’t even count as a dessert, just a breakfast bun.
Zheng Siyuan calmly wrapped wontons while listening to their conversation.
"Because I hadn’t heard of any other desserts Siyuan mentioned before." Qin Luo said honestly, "A lot of them are this cake and that pastry, brother, you can’t make flaky pastry, the ones you bake don’t taste as good as Siyuan’s."
"But I know flower buns are steamed buns, brother, your steamed buns are delicious, buckwheat buns, locust flower buns, fermented rice with steamed buns, they’re all delicious. I believe your steamed buns will be trustworthy!"
Qin Huai’s eyes became moist!
Luoluo really is his good sister!
While making the biggest wish of her life, she was thinking about him as her brother the whole time.
It’s really touching!
He absolutely would practice hard...
"And besides, the cakes and pastries Siyuan mentioned, they obviously don’t have meat fillings." Qin Luo swallowed the last mouthful of bun, "Brother, when you make flower buns for me, make them with meat fillings—pork, beef, lamb, chicken, I’m not picky. If not, radish shreds, pickled cabbage with vermicelli, red bean paste, lotus seed paste, or salted egg yolk are fine too!"
"I believe whatever you make will be delicious," Qin Luo gave Qin Huai a confident look.
Totally moved for nothing.
You silly kid, don’t you know why steamed buns are called buns?
Qin Huai silently handed Qin Luo a tea egg: "Eat it and rush back to school, don’t be late."
Qin Luo started to roll out.
"Luoluo, is there a particular design you want to eat?" Qin Huai thought, though Qin Luo truly wanted to eat stuffed buns, he’d still casually ask if she had any favorite designs.
"Brother, the Doraemon you made yesterday didn’t quite look right, but it was awesome, I got 92 likes on my friend circle share!"
"I want to eat Doraemon-shaped flower buns!"
"But I don’t want them blue. The ones you made yesterday had no color, and I’ve seen blue food online; they look gross. Can you make them yellow?"
Qin Huai thought Qin Luo still had some redeeming points: "I thought the same thing!"
Zheng Siyuan, quietly wrapping wontons: ...
Manners have collapsed, manners have collapsed indeed.
That day, Qin Huai started practicing making flower buns.
Have to admit Zheng Siyuan’s teaching method is quite correct; Qin Huai seemed to progress significantly more smoothly with flower buns.
Of course, it couldn’t reach the point of being as extraordinary as the apple dumpling, but it was at least better than animal buns.
Flower buns, as the name implies, have many floral designs.
During the feudal dynasty, flower buns were tributes, enjoyed by the royal family throughout all seasons. As history progressed and dynasties fell, flower buns, like many other imperial secret snacks, trickled into the folk’s hands.
Unlike some imperial snacks that disappeared through transmission, flower buns are among the few that have thrived and flourished. Although flower buns, in essence, are just visually appealing steamed buns, their designs are so excessively beautiful.
With colorful birds and beasts, flowers and insects, dragons and phoenixes with auspicious meanings, tigers to ward off evil spirits, and the Eight Immortals celebrating birthdays, the variability with ingredients and precision with tools has almost led the design competition of flower buns onto an unmatched track. It’s not just that there are related competitions yearly, but the award-winning works can make people take one look, then exclaim:
What, you’re saying this is pastry?!
So, does Zheng Siyuan have this level?
Granted, Zheng Siyuan is an excellent pastry chef, but Finger Skill and Knife Skills, skills analogous for someone like Zheng Siyuan, a balanced pastry chef, only need to reach a good enough level; delving too deep isn’t necessary.
The intricacy in Finger Skill for making flower buns and the Knife Skills for Wensi Tofu are comparable, and these two aren’t much of a factor in affecting taste, but they unquestionably elevate the dish’s presentation.
At just a glance, one can’t help but exclaim.
When practicing flower buns, of course, Zheng Siyuan started teaching Qin Huai from the simplest flower designs.
With a flick of the dough, a pinch, a clamp with chopsticks, and a twist, a flower that could go on top of a butterfly cake was born.
"How come you know everything?" Watching Zheng Siyuan making flower buns so skillfully, Qin Huai couldn’t help but exclaim.
In his view, Zheng Siyuan seemed a bit too versatile.
As a Suzhou style pastry chef, he could make all kinds of Suzhou style snacks, make boat-shaped pastries, make dumplings, make imperial snacks, and even flower buns.
And he could make soup stocks, his Knife Skills weren’t bad either.
Qin Huai felt that Zheng Siyuan had no right to lament about his own absurdity; in his view, Zheng Siyuan truly was the one who was remarkable.
"It’s all taught by my dad," Zheng Siyuan said. "My dad learned everything from my grandmaster."
"I often felt my grandmaster was omnipotent, he mastered meat cooking and his pastries weren’t bad either. Although Uncle Huang specialized in Suzhou cuisine and Huaiyang cuisine, it’s said my grandmaster could also make Shandong cuisine and Sichuan cuisine, but because of regional limitations at the time, people in our area rarely ate those dishes, so Master Huang didn’t learn as many dishes, and my grandmaster didn’t teach much."
"My dad learned many genres of white case snacks, but he learned a lot without mastering them. When I was young, my dad and Uncle Huang would always talk to me about what the snacks my grandmaster made looked and tasted like, but I’ve never seen any physical examples or even photos."
"My dad said my grandmaster wandered half his life, had no children, was disfigured with a scar on his face, and had an old leg injury, so he always walked with difficulty. Uncle Huang said my grandmaster’s accent was actually from the north, but he never mentioned his past, nor ever said he wanted to go back north."
"I’ve never met my grandmaster, but I really admire him," said Zheng Siyuan.
"I admire him too," Qin Huai nodded, pointing at the flower he’d just pressed out, "Why do I think my flower looks a bit odd?"
"You used too much force just now, try easing three-tenths of the strength,"