I'm the Culinary God-Chapter 719 - 323: Another dish to go with rice! What to do with remaining dough? Try making Doodle Cake! [Subscribe please] _2
"Don’t look at me like that; this is how you’re supposed to eat it."
Lin Xu took another bite of the lotus cake he was holding. The originally six-petaled lotus was instantly reduced to one petal, with only a small corner of the filling left.
Seeing him enjoy it so much, Shen Baobao took a bite of her flower, and her eyes immediately widened. "Eating it like this is really satisfying!" she exclaimed. "You guys don’t want to bite into it, do you? How about we switch?"
She offered to exchange the lotus cake she had bitten for others but was refused by Director Dou, Director Shu, and Director Zeng.
At that moment, Geng Lele wasn’t eating. She was seated in a booth nearby, seriously taking a short video of the lotus cakes on the table with her phone. Then, she posted it on her social media:
"At the last promotion banquet, Brother Xu said he would make lotus cakes for me. I thought he was just teasing, but it turned out to be true. It’s good to have a brother! Unfortunately, Grandpa beat me to it and became sworn brothers with Brother Xu, *sob sob*..."
Soon, classmates and some familiar online friends quickly liked and commented.
First was Li Qiang, who was still busy earning overtime pay during National Day.
"What a complex set of generational relationships!" he commented.
Geng Lele typed back rapidly, "It’s the kind of relationship where you can hang out at Lin Ji all day on National Day without needing to work overtime."
Brother Li: "..." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞
Now she’s not mocking my hair, but starting to mock my overtime. Damn, now it’s my turn to sob.
The others didn’t pay much attention to the text; they were all praising how good the lotus cakes looked.
"Lele, the lotus cakes look really pretty! When will Lin Ji release new products?"
"I really want to try it. Does Boss Lin still need a sister? Does he like tea-style sisters or cute-style sisters? I can cross-dress for either."
"Psh, it’s definitely fake unless you let me have a taste."
"Making it so fancy, but it’s all just for eating. So I’d rather have two packs of Wangwang Little Cakes; they’re definitely better than lotus cakes! (I’m not jealous or anything!)"
While Geng Lele was looking at her phone, she noticed that Professor Cui, who handled the routine teaching for the smart class, had liked the post.
Huh? Teacher? Didn’t he go back to Shanghai for National Day?
Little Mushroom Head immediately clicked on Cui Qingyuan’s profile and sent a message rapidly, "Teacher, are you still in Beijing? Come to Lin Ji and have some lotus cakes! A taste that’ll remind you of your first love."
Sitting in his study tinkering with his computer, Cui Qingyuan saw the message and immediately grinned.
Other students avoid their teachers, but this girl, on the other hand, teases her teacher. Does my first love still need food as a preamble? It’s always been on my mind.
After thinking, he replied, "I’ll come by this evening to eat. I’m currently waiting for a package and can’t leave."
After receiving the message, Geng Lele immediately said, "Then I’ll ask Brother Xu to set aside a few lotus cakes for you. He doesn’t make this delicacy often, so if you catch him, you’d better eat it. Otherwise, who knows when you’ll get another chance."
"Okay."
After replying to the message, Geng Lele checked her social media feed, then picked up the visually appealing lotus cake in front of her.
CRUNCH! She bit off nearly half of the lotus cake.
Hey, Brother Xu was right; lotus cakes have to be eaten like this to be delicious.
In the booth next door, the ladies who had just been nibbling on their petals as delicately as Lin Daiyu were now opening their mouths wide, devouring their lotus cakes vigorously.
Meanwhile, Lin Xu had already eaten an entire lotus cake and was ready to return to the kitchen to figure out what to do with the unused water-oil dough and crisping fat.
Crisping fat and water-oil dough can’t be stored for too long, or they’ll dehydrate and leak oil.
Back in the kitchen, Lin Xu looked around at everyone and asked, "Aside from making lotus cakes, what else can this water-oil dough and crisping fat be used for?"
This question left everyone a bit lost. You’re the expert when it comes to pastry; asking us this feels a bit out of our depth.
At that moment, Ji Minghui was communicating with Wei Qian about the amount of noodles needed for the evening.
He glanced at the soft, pink water-oil dough and smiled. "If the boss doesn’t mind the trouble," he said, "he could try making some Doodle Cakes. It follows the same process as lotus cakes but is more complex and looks better."
Doodle Cakes? Lin Xu was somewhat perplexed. What’s this now? Another court delicacy?
He searched on his phone and finally found pictures of Doodle Cakes. For these, the layered pastry is woven to form the Dough, the filling is then encased, and finally, they are slowly deep-fried in oil.
Just by the looks, it was clearly a more challenging creation than the lotus cakes.
But this appearance... Shen Baobao would probably really like it, wouldn’t she?
Lin Xu thought it over, searched for Doodle Cakes in the points app, and exchanged some points for an Excellent Level recipe.
To attempt it without preparation would likely result in failure. Better to exchange for a Cooking Technique to be safe.
After the exchange, he quickly learned how to make Doodle Cakes.
Just like with lotus cakes, this snack also required preparing the filling first.
At that moment, there weren’t many ingredients suitable for fillings in the kitchen. Lin Xu looked around and saw some steamed pumpkin, which had been prepared for the Pumpkin Soup to be used later in the evening.
Since there was pumpkin, why not make a pumpkin filling? He hadn’t made snacks with pumpkin filling before, so today was a good opportunity to try.
Based on the amount of dough, he took about half a basin of pumpkin, grabbed a metal spoon, and crushed the soft, sweet flesh into pumpkin mash.
This step required patience; the pumpkin had to be completely smashed to use as a filling.
After turning it all into mash, he passed the pumpkin through a fine mesh sieve to filter out some plant fibers and bits of uncleaned pumpkin peel.
