"Hurry up and go to the kitchen, Master Hou and the eldest lady will pick up a lot of flowers and come back to cook?"

A maid ran into the living room in a hurry and shouted loudly, Ying Shiyan and Meng Wan, who were knitting sweaters around the stove, looked at each other and stood up together, and then took a group of maids to the kitchen.

At this time, the kitchen was already very lively, and the chefs, kitchen workers, helpers, domestic servants, and housekeepers and servants all gathered at the kitchen door to discuss and watch.

Flower cake is a very famous snack in Yunnan in later generations, that is, the fresh rose petals are kneaded into filling, and then some glutinous rice flour is added and mixed well and then wrapped in ghee dough and baked, in fact, it is the moon cake with local characteristics of Yunnan, when eating, there is the fragrance of flower petals and the soft glutinous glutinous rice, the outer skin is crispy and the sweetness is moderate, and the taste is very good.

Although the flower cakes of later generations were made of rose petals, the roses are not yet in full bloom, so it should not be too much of a problem to replace them with other petals.

Of course, in later generations, there was also a very famous snack called wife cake, which was also made of ghee on the outside and had a wife on the inside...... Well, that's impossible, Chen Xu doesn't know what kind of stuffing is inside, but it tastes soft and glutinous and sweet, the skin is crispy and the filling is soft, and it melts in the mouth, which is very gentle with other people's wives, and it is more popular than flower cakes.

Chen Xu asked the two chefs to reconcile the puff pastry and oily dough noodles, both of which are ingredients for making mooncakes, and the chefs of Houfu have long been familiar with the preparation method.

Shui Qingrou and Yu Ji tore off the basket of peonies and peony petals they had picked back, while Chen Xu instructed the kitchen workers to bring some starch pastry and put it in a wooden mortar to finely scoop it into powdered sugar for later use.

It is best to use white sugar to make flower cake filling, and it is okay to use brown sugar if you don't use it, but at the moment there are no two, so you can only use boiled fructose instead, so this kind of flower cake can only be eaten while it is hot, and it is estimated that the rose filling and fructose will solidify together when it is cold, like kraft candy and can't bite it.

Take out the powdered sugar, put it with the petals and gently rub it with your hands, then put it on the stovetop to heat and ferment, and then prepare some fried glutinous rice and sesame seeds, which are also scooped into powder.

In short, the production method of flower cake is no different from moon cake, but the filling is somewhat different, and some sesame seeds and glutinous rice flour are added to increase the texture and taste of fragrant glutinous.

Ying Shiyan and Meng Wan brought a large group of maids Yingying Yanyan to watch, and then found that the production was very simple, so they all washed their hands and rolled up their sleeves and began to help, rubbing the petals of the flowers, the rice noodles of the rice noodles, and some people had even instructed the kitchen workers to take out the cutting board and rolling pin and start rolling out the puff pastry and oil skin.

Seeing the two big-bellied wives busy excitedly in a group of people, Chen Xu couldn't cry and laugh and sighed at the same time.

The women of the aristocratic family are different from the women of ordinary civilian families, they do not need to work, of course, there is no so-called work, their role is to pass on the family lineage to their husbands and children, if it is not good, they are breeding machines, and there is not much sense of existence at all.

Although Daqin has not yet reached the point of discriminating against women very much, and has not forbidden women from doing business and work, etc., Zhou Li has long had etiquette education for women, that is, three obedience and four virtues.

Three from the four virtues is not a concept put forward by Confucianism, and at the beginning it was the etiquette of the ceremonial officials in order to standardize the etiquette of the concubines and concubines of the Zhou Queen's palace, and it is an official regulation like the etiquette of other monarchs and ministers, but Confucianism highly respects these etiquettes, so it collates and compiles various etiquette systems handed down in the Zhou Dynasty, and there are Confucian masterpieces "Zhou Rites", "Etiquette", and "Rites", which are synthesized into three rites and have influenced later generations for thousands of years.

Although the current Great Qin does not particularly advocate Confucianism, but the influence and traces of the Zhou Dynasty are still very strong, including Qin Shi Huang himself is also very much advocating the restraint and management of women in the Zhou rites, his huge harem is extremely complicated, several times around the world in the famous mountains and rivers left many stone carvings, in the middle of many norms and initiatives on women's behavior, that is, to require women in the world to obey women's morals and abide by women's etiquette, work hard and complain about housework, husband and children, and build a harmonious family in Daqin.

Chen Xu's group of wives and concubines is a group of miracle-like existences in Xianyang, what Chen Xu supports, and when he began to see that they were bored, he opened a Xianyang Women's College for them, which was the first in the world, if Chen Xu was not with the halo of a disciple of the immortal family, it is estimated that he would have been buried by the Manchu Dynasty civil and military digging.

It has been five years since the opening of the women's college, and hundreds of female students have been recruited and trained one after another, including several princesses, and now some graduated female students have begun their careers, some have become fashion designers, some have become professional painters, and some have opened their own businesses, promoting knitting and embroidery and various new skills learned, in short, these girls have learned some after three years of study, singing, dancing, reading, writing, painting, calculation, cutting, knitting, embroidery, etc. They are also quite proficient in what they are interested in, but the most important thing is their respective families and identities, either the daughters of princes and officials or the daughters of wealthy merchants, these people have the money and power to gather together, and they can quickly promote what they have learned.

With the implementation of the new business law, business began to flourish, and these new skills and new ideas will soon form a new trend under the impetus of their group, especially the design and production of clothes that women are most interested in, which has affected the entire Daqin in just a few years.

Starting from a few sets of new school uniforms at the beginning of the Women's College, now walking on Xianyang Street, you can see a variety of women's clothing and accessories, including simple cheongsam styles, as well as a series of student uniforms in the Republic of China, as well as a variety of improved and wide skirts after being carried forward, and short skirts and skirts full of temptation.

Of course, men's clothes have also changed a lot, small stand-up collars, T-shirts, shirts, straight-leg pants, windbreakers, sunglasses, wide-sleeved robes of Confucianism and a variety of traditional monks, etc., Confucian clothes and T-shirts fly together, robes and windbreakers are the same color, and the street is also a dazzling array of fancy dresses, but compared with women's clothing, it is obvious that this change is much smaller.

In addition to the women's college, Chen Xu also let his wife and concubine manage Huaxia Qianzhuang, Qinghe Shopping Mall, and now he has opened a perfume workshop.

Therefore, Chen Xu's group of wives and concubines have an extremely perfect life, which is the object of envy and envy of all the women in the entire Xianyang Prince's Mansion.

But no matter how Chen Xu spoils his group of wives, the etiquette inherited by the nobles, Ying Shiyan and Meng Wan and others are still very respected, and they can only stay at home and teach their husbands and children on weekdays, and they will not run out to show their faces, so in Chen Xu's view, his group of wives is certainly happy, but it is also unfortunate, even if she is a princely wife, she is not as free as an ordinary woman in later generations.

"Why does the husband sigh? It's too noisy! The water that was kneading the petals next to him asked softly.

"No, it's just that I feel it, from getting married to now, I haven't taken Shiyan and Wan'er out together, the world is so picturesque, I can't just stay in Xianyang and the small Hou Mansion for the rest ......of my life" Chen Xu shook his head slightly.

"The husband loves me, now we don't know how many women in the world envy in our lives, the princess and Wanniang have never had the slightest resentment, the husband does not need to blame himself, let alone feel troubled...... Husband, this flower cake is filled with caramel crisp powder, but I am afraid that after it is cold, it will be as bad as the moon cake I made at the beginning? Shui gently changed the subject, pointing to the kneaded petal filling.

Chen Xu nodded slightly, and at the same time his face was full of distress.

He has already thought of this effect, because the first time he made moon cakes, he put a lot of fructose, and it didn't hurt to eat it while it was hot, and when it was cold, the filling became a piece of solidified sugar cake, although it was very sweet, but it was very toothy to eat, so he could only put less fructose in the future.

"Alas, if only there was sugar, go get some honey!" In order to make this flower cake delicious enough, Chen Xu could only replace it with a more expensive luxury and instructed a steward to fetch honey.

"Ah, that's great, I can eat honey cake again!" Yu Ji jumped up and cheered happily.

Hou Fu family is a big business, now there is also a bee farm co-founded with Shaofu, a few years has been breeding and cultivating dozens of boxes of bees, last year the whole spring and summer harvested more than 300 catties of honey, most of which were sent to the palace, some sent to the pharmaceutical factory, the rest of the dozens of catties Chen Xu also to send some to his father and mother's relatives and friends, there are not too many left at home, after allocating some to a group of wives and concubines on weekdays, only ten catties are left in the treasury for standby, eating and drinking are not enough, Therefore, even Yu Ji and the others can't eat it from time to time.

The main reason is that there are too many people and too much expense, and it takes several catties of honey to make moon cakes casually, and you have to eat ice powder popsicles every day in summer, so the honey seems to have a good yield now, but Chen Xu himself is reluctant to eat it once in a while.

Originally, after conquering Lingnan, Chen Xu thought that he would be able to get white sugar, and if white sugar was not good, brown sugar, but he thought too much, when Han Xin, Hu Kuan and others came back from Lingnan in advance, the time was during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and there were more delicious sweets to make, so Chen Xu also specifically asked about sugarcane.

As a result, Han Xin didn't know about sugarcane, only said that there was indeed a giant weed in Lingnan that looked like bamboo, which could grow up to more than a zhang, and it tasted very sweet and juicy, because when eating, chewing with the mouth would make a smack, so the Yue people called this weed tsk, but they didn't know what the sugarcane Chen Xu was talking about, so Chen Xu guessed that Han Xin said that it must be sugarcane.

But according to Han Xin, the local people do not plant this kind of tsk, basically they are all wild, there are rivers and ditches on the barren beach, and when you want to eat, you have to look for it everywhere, and there are many humid and hot insects, snakes and beasts in Lingnan, sometimes you have to take risks if you want to eat a bite, and you will be bitten by snakes if you are not careful, the most terrible thing is that there are many elephants and rhinoceros bison mountain and all kinds of fierce beasts in Lingnan, and they are infested in groups with their families, so there are no hundred and eighty people in Lingnan, it is best not to go out to the jungle easily, it is easy to burp, Especially for a piece of tsk grass to hang, that is called an injustice.

Later, when Chen Xu chatted with Shi Lu, Hu Kuan and others at the Academy of Sciences, he asked about the customs and customs of the Lingnan lands and talked about sugarcane again, but Shi Lu said that in fact, there was also a tsk in the Central Plains, and after the Chu State conquered Changsha, it began to spread to the north and south of the river, but it was also semi-wild, and there were not many plants, mainly for some nobles and royal families to eat.

Chen Xu was very surprised and satisfied at the time, remembering the situation of squatting in front of the house to gnaw on sugarcane when he was a child, but he didn't expect that it was something that only nobles and royals could enjoy more than 2,000 years ago, and when he thought of the king of Chu banqueting princes and princesses, and the servants carrying a bundle of sugarcane and chopping a piece of juice in their hands splashing and laughing, that scene must be very moving.