"I didn't expect the trip to the Inner World's Frozen Ice Fields to take so long." A clear and elegant white figure stepped out of the void, patting snowflakes from her shoulder.
Suddenly, Ryougi Shiki's slightly sighing face froze, and then the corners of her mouth curled into a smile named [Joy].
"Ara ara, it seems something interesting has happened."
===
BOOM!
A plume of black smoke rolled out of the oven. Mo Bai scrambled to turn off the oven and, wearing cotton gloves, removed the charcoal-like object from inside.
"Emmm..." Chapelle continued to lean on the table with both hands in a 'BOSS-like' contemplative pose, though the shadow of his hair obscured his expression.
Sena Hiromi turned his head and covered his face, expressing shame for having held out hope just a moment ago.
Wavy black lines hung in the background behind the two, mirroring the ominous aura emitted by the mountain of "corpses" piled on Mo Bai's cooking station.
The chefs around Mo Bai had already scattered far away from this dangerous zone that occasionally emitted explosion sounds.
"Chef Zhang Yu, are all you Hua nation chefs this terrifying when playing with ovens? Should we stop him?" The blonde Western chef beside Zhang Yu looked panic-stricken. Seeing that smoke-filled scene, he was genuinely afraid that the talented young chef at the stove would send himself to the hospital.
Zhang Yu suppressed his own trembling fear and feigned calmness. "What chef hasn't failed? The experience of failure is also valuable."
Zhang Yu knew that even with the vastness of Hua nation cuisine, its chefs had a blind spot—desserts.
In reality, Hua nation desserts, or rather pastries, are not scarce; in fact, they are quite varied and can be roughly divided into eight categories:
Flaky Pastry Type: Delicate production, beautiful, varied patterns, diverse fillings, thus offering multiple flavors. Such as Jing Bajian, etc.
Crisp Type: A filling-less pastry. High oil and sugar content in the ingredients makes them very crumbly, such as Walnut Crisps, Almond Crisps, etc.
Deep-fried Type: Including mixed sugar, flaky, filled, and stuck-together varieties. Varied patterns and beautiful shapes. Some are glazed with syrup, some are not. Some have seeds or sugar powder on the surface. Characterized by being fragrant, crisp, crunchy, and sweet. Such as Furong Cakes, Kaikouxiao, etc.
Syrup Skin Type: After baking, the skin structure is tight, the surface is shiny and full, it doesn't leak oil, and the filling doesn't harden. Mainly consists of mooncakes.
Cake Type: Uses various flour (or bean) powders as the skin, supplemented with various fillings or just single flour (bean) powder. After steaming, the texture is soft and fine, with a rich sweetness and lingering fragrance.
Mixed Sugar Skin Type: The dough structure is fluffy and porous; it becomes crumbly with low hardness after baking. Such as Tao Xing Guo, etc.
Biscuit Type: Handmade pastry-style cookies or thin crackers. Characterized by crispness and crunchiness, such as Sesame Cookies, etc.
Other Types: Eight Treasure Rice, sweet soups, Tangyuan, and similar desserts.
But it is quite a pity that most outstanding Hua nation chefs come from a "Red Case" background, and hardly any specialize in desserts.
This is because, according to the serving order of Hua nation cuisine, it basically starts with a pot of palate-cleansing tea on the table, followed by cold appetizers, then stir-fries, then main dishes, and finally pastries and fruit to finish.
The "pastries" here refer to sweet soups like rock sugar lotus seeds, silver ear fungus soup, and glutinous rice balls. Apart from those, they are mainly cakes, flatbreads, dumplings, noodles, and other items that replace the staple food, which are not integrated with the preceding dishes at all.
Under these conditions, one can imagine the exclusion faced by pastry chefs. In the end, Hua nation pastry chefs were forced to set up their own independent schools, leading to the separation of the Red Case and White Case.
Starting from this separation, the weakness of Hua nation chefs, who already had sectarian views, became even more pronounced.
"It's still good that a talented chef is willing to learn Western desserts to make up for defects," Zhang Yu consoled himself.
"F@CK! Chef Zhang Yu! The boy's oven seems to be on fire!" An exclamation reached the ears of Zhang Yu, who was just consoling himself.
"Damn it!" Zhang Yu slammed the table and stood up, performing a nimble "sparrow flip" over the long table. He snatched a fire extinguisher from a staff member and, with flashy footwork, rushed straight towards the oven, which was spewing black smoke and licking flames, in the blink of an eye.
Surging white mist quickly extinguished the flames. Fortunately, safety had been considered; every stove in the venue had an independent circuit breaker, so apart from causing some panic, it did not affect the other chefs.
"Are you okay?" Zhang Yu asked nervously after putting out the fire.
"Cough, cough, I'm fine." Mo Bai fanned away the black smoke. On his face, blackened with soot, his eyes remained bright.
"Little brother, how about we just stick to the Red Case with peace of mind?" Zhang Yu was very familiar with that look; once upon a time, he too had gazed upon the brilliant world of culinary arts with such eyes.
That was why Zhang Yu was panicked. This time baking set the oven on fire; god knows if he'll blow the whole thing up next time.
"No, trust me. I'm already very skilled!" Having said that, Mo Bai grabbed a bamboo basket and sprinted towards the ingredient area again.
"..." Zhang Yu reached out his hand, watching Mo Bai's retreating figure running wild. It felt as if ten thousand alpacas were galloping through his heart. "Skilled? If you're skilled, how the hell did you set the oven on fire?!"
Beside Mo Bai, Little Bai was also too weak to even roast him.
"I gave you the detailed method, so how on earth did you manage to set the oven on fire?!"
That's right, Mo Bai wasn't even making the advanced version of the Madeleine cake.
He was making the most basic version, for which even the temperature and ratios were provided.
"I feel like baking is an attitude; it should be more spontaneous." Mo Bai's explanation for this was convincing.
"So you were so spontaneous that you lit the oven up?" Little Bai declared he couldn't handle this; it was simply a god-like anti-talent for baking.
"Don't keep fixating on the result of the oven catching fire, okay? Aren't I trying to grasp the feeling of 'Intuition'?" Mo Bai flew into a rage out of humiliation. "Besides, it's not your oven, and you don't have to clean it up."
"Oh right, wait!" Little Bai's expression changed instantly. "Holy crap! Did you predict this, and that's why you're doing the baking outside?!"
It felt as if it had sensed the truth of the matter.
Mo Bai shook his head wordlessly.
Intuition could indeed push cuisine to the height of glowing. However, after coming into contact with baking, Mo Bai felt none of that incomparably smooth decisiveness.
It seemed that Beginner-level Intuition was ineffective for fields or recipes encountered for the first time.
Thinking about it, it made sense. If it really had the heaven-defying effect of pushing a first-time recipe to the peak, Mo Bai's Intuition level wouldn't be 'Beginner'.
Consequently, Mo Bai came up with a bold idea—to rely on courting death to rapidly stack up proficiency.
Unexpectedly, he actually found a bit of that feeling when the fire started just now.
What he needed most right now was to follow this thread of feeling. As for the impact caused, he figured the immensely wealthy Tōtsuki Resort wouldn't hold it against him.
Mm, failure is always inevitable on the path of cooking.
Mo Bai, once again (and again and again), loaded up with baking ingredients. He chose a new cooking station, wiped his face, cleaned his hands, and once more threw his limited time into infinite reckless experimentation.
Melt butter over hot water; add eggs and sugar, beating until liquid; then add sifted low-gluten flour and baking powder, mixing until it becomes a smooth paste without lumps...
"Although I don't really want to admit it, compared to the boy's unfamiliar and stiff movements before, his method of making batter now is indeed skilled enough to be called fluid." Sena Hiromi nodded secretly as he watched Mo Bai's fierce operation.
"Yes. If only his technique with the oven could be as fluid." Chapelle smiled bitterly.
A large part of baking still relies on the oven.
Of course, the bigger reason for his bitter smile was that he thought of a terrifying possibility: that the boy who lit the oven on fire didn't really intend to serve Madeleine cakes to the judges' table before the assessment ended... right?
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