Five days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Bai Shao took out the thick and heavy iron box she asked the second uncle of the Hou family to make from the warehouse, cleaned the inside and out very seriously, and boiled the stones under the bottom in boiling water, dried them, and replaced them back at the bottom of the big iron box.

The family knew that Bai Shao's mind had always been full of strange things, so they watched from the side to see what she was going to do.

I saw that she first asked Bai Yunshi to help her propose a heavy stove, then took an iron pot, put a certain amount of sugar on the side, plus a certain amount of water, and boiled it there carefully for about half an hour, when the sugar and water turned into a thick red syrup, she took the pot off the stove and put it aside to cool.

That's how syrup is made.

Then take out the alkali and water and mix them in a three-to-one fashion.

Immediately after that, take out a scoop of flour, scoop an appropriate amount of syrup and add an appropriate amount of alkaline water to mix it into a uniform dough with a wooden chopstick, and put it aside to relax, which is the moon cake crust.

The next thing is to make the filling, this is actually quite common, Wu will do it, take some rock sugar, chopped walnuts and some favorite things to eat, add syrup and some flour to wrap it in a non-sticky state, plus the green and red silk purchased in Xieyang County, which is the most common five-kernel stuffed moon cake in the entire Anyang County.

Bai Peony doesn't like the five-kernel filling, and she thinks that since she wants to sell moon cakes, she will sell a few more flavors, so she asked Bai Chuanbai to buy her a few catties of red beans, soak them in water overnight in advance, and put them in a big pot to cook when they are thoroughly soaked.

Finally, there is the crucial egg yolk.

Because there were no pickled salted duck eggs at home, Bai Shao paid for 50 duck eggs from Dachun's family, and after cooking, the egg whites were peeled off, leaving the yellow and clear egg yolk.

After the filling was ready, the skin was almost loose, and Bai Peony asked Wu, who was more accurate, to divide the agent evenly, and then wrapped the filling in.

It seems to be the easiest step, but it is actually quite rare, because to make delicious moon cakes, it must have a thin skin and a lot of filling, and if you add too much skin, it will affect the taste, then invisibly, the difficulty of the package will increase.

Bai Shao used to be just a theoretical emperor, but now Zheng'er Bajing wrapped moon cakes for the first time, which was not as good as Bai Weibao's, and was ridiculed by her sister, and she practiced several times before she barely wrapped a decent ball.

Of course, you can't bake and eat it, since it's a moon cake to sell, you still have to have a good appearance.

In this era, the production method of moon cakes is relatively simple, and the molds are very scarce.

In order to prevent the failure of the molding, Bai Peony first brushed a thin layer of oil with a brush made of pig bristles, then put the round ball moon cake into it, gently put the round ball moon cake with the palm of his hand, and finally turned the stone carving abrasive upside down and gently shook it twice, and a moon cake that completed most of the time was completed.

Although there were many twists and turns in the middle, it was a success.

Bai Shao held up the first successful mooncake with his palm, revealing a happy smile.

As for the last step of making mooncakes - baking, it is actually not so strenuous.

In this era, most people bake things with the kind of large boiler that burns charcoal in the middle to bake, and Bai Shao is easy to bake moon cakes because he dislikes the fire too much, so he asked Uncle Hou to make such a big iron box.

This big iron box, well, let's call it an oven, doesn't have to make a fire directly in it, but ignites a flame underneath, because the unique properties of iron allow the temperature to spread quickly throughout the oven, and the inside will reach the temperature needed to bake things.

In addition, the sparse stone is placed at the bottom, so that the mooncake can be placed in the middle of the oven and bake at the most uniform temperature, and the color of the whole mooncake is incomparable to that of the boiler.

However, this heat is too difficult to control, just started to use a big fire, the moon cakes inside were directly pasted black, and then changed to a small fire, the moon cakes could not reach the heat, it was difficult to cook, and finally Bai Chuanbai tried several times in a row, ruined at least five moon cakes, and successfully grasped the size of the fire.

When the first successful plate of mooncakes came out, Bai Wei cheered loudly, and couldn't wait to pick up the mooncakes and stuff them into his mouth, but was stopped by Bai Shao.

"Sister, this moon cake needs to be oiled back, it is the best to put it for a day or two, and you can bite it when you eat it now, and it will be hard to gnaw your teeth after a little cooling." Bai Shao said helplessly.

Seeing this, Bai Wei had to reluctantly put the moon cake back, and then together with Wu, wrapped all the prepared fillings and let Bai Chuanbai bake them.

This busyness is the end of the day.

The family, plus Da Chunniang, who was called over to help, only wrapped more than 100 moon cakes in total.

But fortunately, there are still a lot of materials at home, and the next day I was busy for half a day, because the materials have been prepared, just wrap it, and finally make more than 300 moon cakes, placed in a room and waiting for the oil to return.

When there was only one day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, because the mooncakes wrapped on the first day had returned to oil and could be eaten, Bai Peony took out two plates, and did not sell them with other things in the store, so he directly let Bai Yunshi carry a table, put it outside the food for the sky, and shouted like a hawker.

"Come on, come on, eat the new moon cakes for the sky, come and taste them, you can taste them for free." Bai Shao cut a few pieces of moon cakes into small bites and small bites, while shouting at the people who came and went.

In the town of Izumo, food is known for its deliciousness, so people who have eaten enough will immediately come and try two bites.

"Yo, it tastes good." The man said that, and then he paid for two and left.

This move attracted everyone's attention, and many people came around, all of them tasted a bite, and when they asked the price, five kernels cost ten yuan a piece, and the egg yolk one was more expensive, twenty yuan a piece, which was a very expensive price in Izumo Town, so everyone hesitated for a while.

"Such good-looking moon cakes are usually only available in Xieyang County, but I didn't expect them to be available here." At this moment, the first person to buy moon cakes changed his clothes and returned to Bai Shao's stall, holding a piece of egg yolk and bean paste moon cake and said, "There is also egg yolk in it, it is delicious and delicious, big guy think about it, if this is in the full moon building in Xieyang County, how much does such a moon cake cost, at least one or two silver, now it only costs twenty yuan, it is really cheap, come, get me a few pieces." ”

After speaking, he neatly handed Bai Shao a few dozen dollars, bought a few more yuan and left.

Of course, only Bai Peony knows all this, and other people only think that this moon cake has been sold for a while, and their hearts began to move, and some people in the family who are slightly richer came up to buy a few pieces, and without waiting for Bai Peony to tie the oil paper package, he directly took it out and tasted two bites, and shouted, "It's really delicious, I have to take it home for my family to eat." ”

After saying that, he also left in a hurry.

After doing this, everyone finally began to scramble to buy mooncakes.

It took about two cups of tea to sell the two plates of mooncakes served by Bai Shao.

Seeing that there were still people waiting to buy them in the back, she smiled lightly, and actually asked Bai Yunshi to come over and put away the table, and then told the people waiting at the door to buy moon cakes that they wanted moon cakes, and they would sell them in the afternoon, a total of fifty yuan, until they were sold out.

so deliberately controlled the quantity sold, and by the time the Mid-Autumn Festival arrived, Bai Shao's mooncakes had already been praised very high.

Every time the mooncakes are sold, there are a lot of people waiting there to buy mooncakes.

Seeing that the moon cakes were so popular, Bai Shao was moved by the idea of sending them to Fumantang to sell, and hurriedly hired a few neat women to make moon cakes in the backyard, and sent 200 yuan to Fujing Hall the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Zhao Hu couldn't help but be overjoyed, removed part of the mooncakes that he originally made in Fujingtang, added some very high-end packaging, and put the egg yolk mooncakes into it, and sold them at a lot of prices.

As for Wuren's commonness, he didn't want it.

Bai Shao didn't care, and continued to sell a certain amount of moon cakes at the gate of food for heaven.

On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Wu wrapped eight egg yolk moon cakes, eight five-kernel moon cakes, and went to buy two pork, a leg of mutton, two fish, two roosters, ten catties of soju, one catty of good tea, plus two good fabrics, closed the two shops, and the family sat on the mule cart, and went to Shilipu for the first time. for a better user experience.