Sign in and get rich in farming

The oven built for roast duck reminded Yu Hongdou of a simple dessert, so she decided to give it a try. The resulting dish could be used as a specialty recipe of the Yu family and could be used as a gift to others in the future.

There is no cow's milk or goat's milk available on the farm now, so Village Head Duan has made an agreement with several livestock sellers to deliver two cows and twenty sheep after the Dragon Boat Festival.

Right now, Yu Hongdou only had chicken and duck eggs to work with, but she didn't remember many snacks, and meringue was one of them.

After exercising early in the morning, Yu Hongdou and Wen Daozhi, along with Qian Sanmei and his servant Yueming, squatted at the kitchen door in the front yard and started to cook.

The first step is to separate the egg white and yolk. There are no tools available, so they have to do it manually. This step alone keeps the master and apprentice busy for half a day.

Yueming was pounding sugar. She put some coarse white sugar into a muslin bag, and then beat or crushed it with a rolling pin to make the sugar more finely divided.

Qian Sanmei was sifting flour, and while sifting she whispered to Yueming: "Where is your brother?"

Wen Daozhi brought two servants with him, one was Yueming and the other was Yueqing, and they were brothers.

Yueming repeatedly tapped the candy bag and whispered to Qian Sanmei: "Yueqing asked the master to send her and housekeeper Duan out to get something."

His master had been wandering around before and didn't pay much attention to food, clothing and other things. As long as he had money in his pocket and didn't starve, it was enough. But if he was going to live here for a while, he couldn't be so rough anymore.

On the one hand, his master felt that it was disrespectful and shameful to eat and live in his apprentice's house for free. On the other hand, Yueming felt that his master really loved this apprentice and wanted to prepare some good things for him as gifts.

Yu Hongdou had finally finished separating the egg whites and egg yolks. She came over to look at the sugar that Yueming had beaten, then at the flour that Qian Sanmei had sifted, and then mixed the flour and sugar together in a bowl.

Then he asked Yueming to use a bamboo brush similar to an egg beater to start beating the egg whites.

Wen Daozhi was extremely surprised to see the egg white turning into white bubbles.

While the little apprentice was directing Yueming to pour powdered sugar in, he reached out and dipped a little cream and put it into his mouth, frowning slightly. Hmm, it tastes nothing.

"Of course it has no taste since there's no sugar in it~" Yu Hongdou saw and heard her teacher's actions and mumbling, and explained with a smile.

Yueming looked at the embarrassment of his master's child after being caught stealing food and complained secretly: Is this still his master with a Taoist temperament and a clear mind? How come he found a little apprentice and became a child again?

After mixing in the icing sugar, Yueming began to beat it with his arms. When it was almost done, Yu Hongdou found a piece of wax paper, rolled it into a tube, poured the meringue in it, and began to pipe flowers on the griddle that was temporarily used as a baking tray.

Wen Daozhi watched his little apprentice move his hand, and a small flower that looked ordinary but extremely cute appeared in front of him. He couldn't help but feel itchy in his palms, so he took a piece of oil paper and followed the little apprentice's example, filled it with meringue and started making flowers.

The master and his apprentice filled the two griddles with small flowers and put them into the oven that had been preheated for half a day. Wen Daozhi was still unsatisfied and said to his apprentice: "Can we dye them?"

"Of course you can, but this is something we eat after all, so it's better to dye it with something like fruit, which will make it look good and taste good." Yu Hongdou nodded to confirm her master's idea.

It’s a pity that the fruits are not available yet at this time of year, otherwise it would be nice to make some cherry frosting.

Wen Daozhi realized it, and when he smelled the sweet fragrance coming out of the oven, he couldn't help but smile, feeling proud. It seemed that asking Yueqing to go out today was not in vain.

The white icing sugar was ready very quickly. Yu Hongdou looked at the little white flowers that stood up like ice cream and jumped with excitement, clenching her fists.

I didn't expect that she, who is not very good at making food, could make such a dessert in such an ancient environment. Hehe, she is indeed a genius.

She was still feeling smug, but Wen Daozhi simply reached out and took a piece and put it in his mouth.

The melt-in-your-mouth texture and the sweet but not greasy taste immediately impressed this great painter who has tried delicacies from all over the country and still has the taste of an elementary school student.

Yu Hongdou chuckled and asked Qian Sanmei to finish the rest of the meringue. Then she said something to Wen Daozhi, picked up a pan of frosting sugar and ran to the backyard.

After eating the candy, Yu Sanlang and Xu naturally praised it highly. Yu Sanlang asked about the materials and skills involved in making it, and then discussed with his daughter about making some of the candy as a holiday gift for Monk Tan Bailu.

"That's what I think. Our family is not as rich as the Tan family. We can make something unique and give it away. It will look good and make people remember us." Yu Hongdou puffed out her chest with a proud look on her face.

"Yes, our Hongdou is really thoughtful." When Mrs. Xu heard this, she felt that her daughter was more thoughtful than herself, and reminded herself that she had to take things up as well.

In the future, when her husband and son go out to work, she will inevitably have to deal with the rich and powerful and their families. Their family came from the bottom of society, so they always have to think ahead in everything.

After consulting her parents, Yu Hongdou began to prepare the Dragon Boat Festival gifts for others.

What was prepared for Tan Bailu were two jars of white icing sugar, fifty egg yolk dumplings, fifty salty pork dumplings, freshly made mint paste, a pair of black and white bobbing puppies and a frog, and two jars of pine needle tea.

What was prepared for Master Shang was the same as what was prepared for Tan Bailu, except that the number of dumplings was reduced. Even though Yu Hongdou specifically asked Aunt Qian to wrap the dumplings smaller, Master Shang could not finish them all by himself.

Although Wen Daozhi lived on the Zhuangzi, he was also his mentor, and except for the rice dumplings, he was the same as Master Shang.

As for the three people from Beijing, rice dumplings were difficult to preserve and peppermint paste was not enough, so Yu Hongdou only sent each of them two cans of white icing sugar, two cans of pine needle tea, two sets of black and white puppies and two frogs.

As these gifts were prepared to be given out, the stock of the two new toys that were originally scheduled to be released for the Dragon Boat Festival was sold out by more than half.

Yu Hongdou sighed, the processing power is still insufficient!

However, the returns received after giving out these gifts also made Yu Hongdou, the little money-grubber, smile to his heart's content.

Early the next morning, Yu Hongdou was playing the egg-topping game with her father at the dinner table when Cai Fu, the doorman, came in with a gift box and reported that the Tan family had come to give a holiday gift.

Yu Hongdou's eyes suddenly lit up.

It was the first time that Yu Sanlang received a gift box in a serious manner. After admiring the box made of boxwood, he took out the gift list from it and took a closer look. Wow, there were actually five pieces of paper.

Tan Bailu gave back a hundred yuan worth of rice dumplings with red bean paste and jujube paste, as well as colorful summer cloth, wine, tea, anti-heat and epidemic prevention medicines, and a sachet headdress with cordyceps and five poisonous insects.

Master Shang returned a set of four treasures of the study and two sets of calligraphy copies.

There were more gifts from the capital, first there were Tan Mengao's homemade rouge and powder and jewelry, then there were Tan Langxiu's dried meat and a pony, and finally there were Tan Yanlin's two boxes of books and a set of jade go and chess.

Just looking at the gift list, Yu Hongdou's mind was filled with the words "get rich".