Transmigration: The Little Chef Calls The Shots-Chapter 32 - Mooncake Mold_1
Chapter 32: Chapter 32 Mooncake Mold_1
Chapter 32 -32 Mooncake Mold_1
Ancient evenings were not like now, without electricity, everything had to rely on wax or kerosene lamps.
Lin Yuan’s house did have a kerosene lamp, but they had run out of lamp oil.
Last month, Lady Liu had stayed up several all-nighters to finish the embroidery assigned to her by Grandma Lady Yang, using up the last bit of oil they had left.
Thus, these past few days, the family had been going to bed early after an early dinner.
However, Lin Yuan was in a hurry to draw patterns, so with no other choice, she had to try her luck at Lan Hua’s house.
Hearing that she was going to use light for drawing that evening, Lan Hua, curious, pulled her aside and questioned her for quite a while.
Lin Yuan really liked this warm-hearted and straightforward girl, and thought that if her mooncakes really took off, she would indeed need help, so she shared her plan in detail.
The more Lan Hua listened, the brighter her eyes became, immediately expressing her desire to join Lin Yuan’s mooncake team.
Aunt Wang, watching the two sisters, gave Lin Yuan the only piece of candle wax in the house with a chuckle.
Candles were much brighter than their homemade lamp oil, not just by a level.
Originally Lin Yuan only wanted a bit of lamp oil and had not dared to hope for candles.
Now that Aunt Wang had offered the only bit of wax they had and with the support of her and her daughter, Lin Yuan felt even more motivated and set to work as soon as she got home.
Lin Wei and the other were also excitedly gathered around the kang, leaning over the small table to watch their eldest sister carefully draw the patterns, round or square, and no one dared to speak.
To become a better chef, Lin Yuan had put forth great effort in learning pastry in her previous life.
She did not know carpentry, and all she needed to do was to draw the different sizes and shapes of mooncakes she remembered.
However, though Lin Yuan dared to claim culinary expertise, she was not skilled in drawing.
The striped patterns she drew could basically be understood but not described.
Fortunately, Lin Jiaxin was an exceptional carpenter, skilled not just in carpentry but also in carving.
Furniture like tables and wardrobes needed to be decorated with carved patterns, which made such carpentry more marketable.
He used to have others draw the patterns for him to carve, but after many years, he had honed his skills to carve intricate patterns, even without a guide.
Therefore, Lin Yuan just needed to provide a rough outline for the mooncake molds, and for the patterns on their surfaces, she simply drew the contours and wrote the ideas beside them.
In a short amount of time, Lin Yuan had drawn more than a dozen styles.
She planned to make two kinds of mooncakes: one type with patterns on the surface, like clouds or lines symbolizing good fortune, and another with characters on the surface.
She also made large and small variations of each type.
The larger ones were more economical, but the smaller ones looked more exquisite.
She believed that as long as the flavor was good and the appearance was appealing, many people would be willing to buy them.
As for engraving characters on the mooncakes, Lin Yuan created several variations.
She divided them into two types: one with a single character, like fortune, prosperity, or longevity, and another that could fit several characters, such as phrases meaning “flowers in full bloom and moon at its brightest,” “reunion,” or “perfection.” But, more characters meant a greater challenge for Lin Jiaxin’s carving and Lin Yuan’s baking skills—if the carving or baking weren’t done properly, the characters could easily blur together.
Therefore, she decided not to make the character-engraved mooncakes in a small size but only large ones.
Seeing that her eldest sister had finished drawing the patterns, Xiao Linshuang approached with a giggle and blinked her large eyes, asking, “Big sister, is it ready? freewebnσvel.cѳm
When can you make these mooncakes?
I want to eat them now.”
Lin Wei playfully poked her little sister’s forehead and laughed, covering her mouth, “You little glutton, always thinking about eating.”
Having drawn up the designs, Lin Yuan was quite pleased, but upon hearing Xiao Linshuang’s words, she suddenly realized a problem: how was she going to bake these mooncakes?
Back when she made mooncakes, she had an oven to use, but now she didn’t.
Surely, she couldn’t just bake the mooncakes in a big pot like flatbreads, could she?
Perhaps she could make her own oven?
Lin Wei and her sister didn’t notice that their eldest sister’s face had turned pale; they had already started burning moxa to repel mosquitoes and were getting ready for bed, laughing and talking merrily.
Although there were no mosquitoes blowing trumpets in her ear that night, Lin Yuan was preoccupied with the thought of making her own oven, so she didn’t sleep well.
The next morning, with dark circles under her eyes, she went to deliver the design to her father, only to find that Lin Jiaxin had already solved this big problem for her.
Hearing his daughter’s woes about the oven, Lin Jiaxin laughed heartily for a rare moment, “Da Ya, oh Da Ya, you’ve really worried for nothing all night.
Dad saw an iron box used for making mooncakes in a shop when he was on a job in town.
It’s not hard to make.
Later, I’ll have Brother Ershuan take a trip to the town’s blacksmith.
Dad has some ties with Old Iron Head there, it’ll only cost at most two taels of silver.
Our family can certainly afford that now.”
The two taels of silver Lin Jiaxin referred to were of course the Two Taels of Silver that they had received from Lady Yang when they divided up the family’s assets yesterday.
Lin Yuan planned to go to town tomorrow to sell the goji berries, and if she encountered a connoisseur, it was possible to sell them for two taels of silver.
In addition, she wanted to visit the best restaurant in town; she possessed great culinary skills but had nowhere to use them.
If the restaurant owner was discerning, she might be able to take up her old trade in this foreign world.
“Dad, do you know which is the biggest restaurant in town?”
Lin Jiaxin often received work from the town, so he naturally knew about such matters.
“The biggest restaurant is definitely Fuman Building, the largest and tallest one on the main street.
Dad even made chairs for them in the past.” As soon as he mentioned his carpentry skills, his eyes shone with an unshakable light and pride.
To make chairs for Fuman Building was something not even the carpenters in town had the luck of doing.
“Really?
Dad, do you know if they employ female chefs?” Lin Yuan, surprised at her father’s capabilities, quickly inquired about what concerned her most.
“Female chefs?” Lin Jiaxin shook his head.
“Where would you find a woman working as a chef?
If there are any, they would be in grand households, cooking privately for young ladies, not in restaurants.”
Lin Yuan understood.
In this era, women from wealthy families were not supposed to appear in public, and women from small households like hers struggled even to feed themselves.
How would they have the means to learn culinary skills?
Village women could at best rely on washing clothes, mending, or doing embroidery to earn money to supplement their family income, just as her mother, Lady Liu, would occasionally sell the handkerchiefs she embroidered.
It seemed that her path to becoming a female chef in a restaurant was yet another dead end.
Lin Yuan felt down for a moment but then suddenly thought of something.
If the restaurant wouldn’t hire her, why couldn’t she open her own restaurant?
In her previous life, she had dreamed of saving enough money to start her own small diner.
Now that the opportunity had arisen, how could she not seize it?
However, the capital required to open a restaurant was quite high.
With her current abilities, she had to focus on earning money in a steady manner!
