Chapter 277: Successful Round Bread
The day after the first episode of A Bite of China aired, in the courtyard of Xiang Chuan Mansion.
The gluttons from Class Eight Grade One acted faster than Xiang Chuan had imagined, arriving at her door early the next morning.
They called it exchanging viewing experiences of the documentary live stream with members of A Bite of China Club, but the real purpose was obvious to those in the know—nothing more than coming to ask Xiang Chuan when they could be the first to taste those gourmet foods from A Bite of China.
“You can eat it when castrated pig goes into mass production. Even our Third Fleet can’t get any yet, so don’t expect other places to have stock.” Xiang Chuan said, directly grabbing the leading Class President Lu Daiqing by the neck and dragging her to the courtyard. “Since you’re already here, come help out. If you’re so idle that you came to beg for food from me, that means you have time to help me organize some information.”
Then she wordlessly handed over all the documents prepared overnight about various bamboo shoots, inland lake farmed freshwater fish, and various edible mushrooms (including those edible only after cooking) to the Class Eight Grade One crowd.
“Hurry up and get it done. Aksim General Manager and the others are waiting for it. If you finish early, maybe you can eat those things you saw in A Bite of China sooner.”
This last sentence instantly silenced the Class Eight Grade One gluttons who were about to complain.
Everyone exchanged a helpless glance: Fine, we’re already here, so let’s just treat it as making an early contribution to our own fleet.
And so, just as summer vacation had begun, Class Eight Grade One at Nongda Affiliated High School started a familiar full-class cooperative assembly line text assignment, just like at school.
Xiang Chuan: The able should do more labor. Keep it up, youngsters.
——
Xiang Chuan and the others weren’t idle either.
Production efficiency and logistics efficiency in the future world were always shocking, so while the Class Eight Grade One crowd was mooching breakfast, the new fuel Ainuo had ordered yesterday arrived.
After Ainuo swapped in the new fuel, Xiang Chuan rubbed her hands in anticipation and began preparing today’s trial bake of bread.
Just to be safe, Xiang Chuan prepared materials for two kinds of bread.
As the test subject for roasting trials, she first chose the simpler round bread.
The four pre-fermented doughs were simply folded, shaped into rounds, and placed seam-side down on the baking pan for final fermentation.
Since the yard had the air conditioner on, fermentation was done in a small temperature-controlled fermentation box—after all, the room temperature felt like only twenty-four or twenty-five degrees, enough to make the yeast go back to sleep.
Half an hour later, the fermented dough had expanded to one-and-a-half times its original size. Xiang Chuan sprinkled dry flour on the surface per the recipe, made a simple cross cut, and sent it into the rotary kiln.
“Two hundred thirty degrees Celsius, half an hour.”
Ainuo received Xiang Chuan’s instructions and skillfully operated the brick stove’s temperature control panel.
But he didn’t stop talking:
“If this fails again, we really need to consider switching topics. I thought that ham last night looked pretty good. How about…”
“I already said it takes a year and a half to make ham. Summer vacation is only two months—what can we cure? Salted pork?” Xiang Chuan couldn’t help rolling her eyes at him. “And at worst, we can try steamed bread. Though it feels no different from cake…”
“Isn’t steamed bread just steamed buns?”
Ouyang Yating muttered from the side.
“…At least in ancient times, they called it steamed bread.”
Xiang Chuan scratched her head. Though she had done some baking in her previous life, it was only classic beginner bread and cakes—steamed bread really hit her knowledge blind spot.
——
While Xiang Chuan waited bored here, the three from A Bite of China Club and the Class Eight Grade One crowd had plenty to chat about.
They had all sorts of text information in hand, with some classic dishes simply listed, which made them drool.
“This stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork looks really good. Is it pork or beef? I really want to try it.”
Qing Ke swallowed hard.
“How can this mushroom be poisonous if not cooked thoroughly? Were ancient people that short on food? Doesn’t look like it… How delicious must it be?”
Fu Chengkai and Long Xiaoxian stared at the picture of the fresh green mushrooms, using their limited imagination to picture the taste of this poisonous mushroom.
“This fish belly…? This fish…? I remember the fish we caught in the nature reserve before weren’t this… plump? What would it taste like?”
Mandy stared at the fried tofu braised fish on the screen, eyes glazing over.
……
Just then, the distinctive aroma of baked bread wafted from the brick stove.
Even though everyone had smelled this scent many times at school while watching Xiang Chuan’s failed attempts, now with tantalizing gourmet food visible but uneatable and the untested bread fragrance in their noses, it was enough to thoroughly awaken the hunger in their bellies.
Soon, the courtyard was filled with the sounds of rumbling stomachs.
Xiang Chuan, who had been staring at the brick stove, couldn’t help turning around to see what was going on.
Hadn’t this group just mooched two servings of breakfast per person at her house? How were they hungry already??
Ouyang Yating and the other two, standing behind the classmates watching the images and text, quietly rubbed their own bellies.
And honestly, with the colors and aroma, it was pretty tantalizing…
The three of them were even starting to scheme: If their club president failed to bake bread this time, then as members of A Bite of China Club, they had to fight for a chance to use the brick stove to roast some meat, and let everyone taste the flavor of roasted steamed bun slices!
This spirit of sharing was touching, but unfortunately, they didn’t get the chance this time.
After half an hour, Liang Gong nervously removed the baking pan.
The four from A Bite of China Club standing in front of the brick stove watched the steaming baking pan and held their breath.
——
After the steam dissipated, the four round breads on the baking pan officially appeared before Xiang Chuan and the others.
Their originally snow-white exteriors now showed a golden yellow after roasting, with a caramel-like texture. Xiang Chuan put on heat-resistant gloves and picked up one.
The freshly baked round bread had a thin, crispy crust, and the cross cut on the surface took on a stone-like beauty after roasting.
Good, the exterior looks fine. What about inside?
Xiang Chuan swallowed, then gently pulled the bread apart with both hands.
Round bread and baguette share similar production processes, meaning both get hard when cooled, but right out of the oven, there was no worry about that.
At this moment, the round bread had a magical crispy-outside soft-inside texture. Once pulled open, it revealed snowy white insides, with hot oven steam carrying a rich wheat fragrance straight to Xiang Chuan’s face, making her take a deep breath of the bread aroma.
For a moment, she even had the illusion of smelling milk fragrance, even though this round bread’s ingredients had no milk at all.
With gourmet food right there, how could she not taste it?
Xiang Chuan unhesitatingly chomped down on half the bread in her right hand with her merciless iron mouth.
“…How is it? Did it work?”
The three club members watched her nervously.
“…If only there was jam or chocolate sauce.”
Xiang Chuan said after finishing the half bread.
Meaning: It worked.
