Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Lotus Blossoms, Butter Fragrance Comes
Translator: 549690339
“Click click-”
The freshly fried pork grease was still steaming. Even though it had been filtered once, its surface still sparkled brightly under the light.
This greasiness didn’t put people off at all. Instead, it shone together with the golden-brown surface, making it mouth-watering.
The pork grease was only seasoned with a bit of salt, but the combination of its crispy texture and rich, savory aroma was enough to satisfy Dan Bao.
On the other hand, Qin Lang placed a big bowl full of pork lard into ice water, letting the lard cool quickly through the bowl walls.
The pure lard transformed at an extremely fast speed into a soft and creamy solid, resembling white jade mutton fat.
Next, time to puff up the pastry!
In Chinese dessert, puffing up the pastry is a very important step.
Under high temperature, the water pastry is like being deep-fried among the oil pastry, forming a unique crispy texture.
The oil in the oil pastry is absorbed, creating a distinct layered effect in the water pastry.
“Gudong!”
Dan Bao, having enjoyed the pork grease, excitedly flew over.
The small portion just now was merely a snack for it.
Seeing that Qin Lang was finally starting to make the lotus seed pastries, it looked forward to it eagerly.
“There’s no job for you in the next steps, so just watch from the side.” Qin Lang instructed, and began to get busy.
He mixed medium-gluten flour, water, and lard in a 53:1 ratio. After a quick stir, he divided it in half, and added red yeast rice powder to one part for color.
He then kneaded the dough forcefully until the surface was smooth.
The more the dough was kneaded, the more uniform the mixture of water, oil, and flour, resulting in a better end product.
By the end of the kneading process, the dough with red yeast rice powder turned a light shade of red, while the other dough retained its natural white color.
Qin Lang wrapped the two pieces of water pastry dough in cling film and left it to rest. Without stopping, he started making the oil pastry.
On the side, Dan Bao went up and carefully observed the water pastry dough. “Gudong?”
Why was it wrapped in cling film?
“To make the water pastry dough more elastic,” Qin Lang replied while fully mixing the low-gluten flour and lard in a 2:1 ratio. “Otherwise, the water pastry dough would easily break during the puffing process, affecting the aesthetics of the final product.”
So that’s how it was.
Dan Bao nodded in understanding, although it didn’t fully grasp the concept.
Unfortunately, its food skill didn’t seem useful in this situation.
Watching Qin Lang evenly mixing the oil pastry and forming it into small pieces, it couldn’t help but think about the combat skill ‘Thought Waves’ that Qin Lang mentioned before.
If it had that combat skill, it could be of more help to Qin Lang!
Thinking of this, Dan Bao became even more eager to breakthrough to two stars.
However, thinking about how the new combat skill awakened after promotion was uncontrollable, it hung its head in distress.
There were already thousands of discovered combat skills, the probability of awakening a specific skill was too small.
Qin Lang, on the other hand, was completely unaware of what was going through Dan Bao’s little head.
At this moment, he divided the prepared oil pastry into twenty small balls of the same size, each weighing 6 grams, and divided the prepared date paste into ten small balls, each weighing 8 grams.
The puffing process in Chinese desserts includes small pastry puffing and large pastry puffing.
Small pastry puffing involves first dividing the pastry and oil pastry into small pieces before puffing each piece. Large pastry puffing involves puffing first, then cutting the puffed pastry into small circular pieces with a round cutter. The former is more delicate, and the latter is more efficient.
At this moment, Qin Lang chose the former method.
After preparing the oil pastry and date paste, the pre-rested water pastry dough had already reached an excellent state.
He divided the two-color water pastry dough into pieces, each weighing 8 grams. The puffing process officially began.
“Gudoo?”
What comes next?
Looking at the round lumps on the table, Dan Bao stopped thinking about skill questions and refocused on Qin Lang’s actions.
“Watch closely.”
Qin Lang flattened out a light red Water Pastry dough ball, enveloped it around the Oil Pastry dough ball to form a larger round lump, sprinkled some flour onto the pastry board, then began to roll it out with a rolling pin.
Under the rolling pin, the Water Pastry and the Oil Pastry were quickly rolled into a long strip. The pre-proving process had prevented any breakages during this stage, displaying exceptional elasticity.
After the Water and Oil Pastry dough had been rolled thin enough, they were folded into three layers, rolled again into a strip, folded into three layers again, rolled once more into a strip, and finally folded into two layers, creating a square pastry dough.
The 3-3-2 folding method meant that the pastry dough had eighteen layers internally.
If the pastry dough were to be cut in half at this stage, the densely layered cross-section would be crystal clear.
Qin Lang’s fluid movements left Dan Bao with its mouth hanging open in awe. And this was just the beginning.
Qin Lang repeated the process, preparing another piece of uncolored pastry dough and Oil Pastry.
He then stacked the two differently colored pastry doughs and rolled them together!
After slightly rolling out the two-layered pastry, he used his fingers to press and extend the edges, then brushed a layer of egg whites onto the white surface as a binding agent and placed the date paste in it to serve as the stuffing.
With the white pastry inside and the red pastry on the outside, the date paste was wrapped up and the excess dough pinched off, adjusting the shape to make it more rounded.
One, two, three…
In the end, ten Lotus Seed Pastries sat plump and round on the pastry board, looking delightfully appealing.
The Lotus Seed Pastries needed to be frozen for ten minutes to enhance the solidification of the lard, making the flowering process more apparent during deep frying.
After placing the Lotus Seed Pastries in the freezer, a thought crossed Qin Lang’s mind, “If we successfully get the Daisy Badge, we can celebrate tonight by making egg yolk crisps.”
Egg yolk crisps?!
Dan Bao’s eyes lit up even brighter.
Just by hearing the name, it knew it was something it was fond of!
“Gudoo!”
“Not so fast, let’s finish the Lotus Seed Pastries first.” While it was freezing, Qin Lang and Dan Bao started to chat.
After ten minutes, they took out the Lotus Seed Pastries.
With the pinched-off part down, a knife was used to cut three uniform scores in a flower pattern on the other side, dividing the Lotus Seed Pastry into six petals.
The depth of the centre of the scoring had to reach the stuffing, while the edges had to be controlled for length.
If the lengths were too short, the deep-fried Lotus Seed Pastries would not be able to bloom fully.
If the lengths were too long, the petals would fall off during the deep frying process, resulting in poor aesthetics.
This part required experience.
When the melted butter oil reached 50% of its temperature, a colander was placed under the pastries with the scored side up, and they were lowered into the Lotus Seed Pastries.
Another spoon was used to scoop up the oil from the pot, pouring it into the centre of the scoring to promote petal opening.
As the oil sizzled in the pot, hot oil continuously gurgling with small bubbles. Dan Bao’s eyes grew bigger as the Lotus Seed Pastry’s petals began to unfold. The date paste, exposed to the hot oil as the pastry unfolded, continued to burst forth a rich sweet date fragrance, mixed with the unique aroma of the pastry, similar to petals adorning a budding flower.
In hot oil, layer upon layer, Lotus Seed Pastries bloomed beautifully.
The Lotus Seed Pastries were ready!
Easter egg content at the end of the chapter:
[Lotus Seed Pastries]
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