Free Web NovelChapter 348: Perfect Fit
When Jenny and Jessie confessed to their friend about their troubles, it was like a Spirit Lamp lit up in Christina’s head.
The princess had been looking for something fun to do that would both occupy her time and be helpful to those around her, while the siblings needed a sponsor to help them open a new business, someone who could provide start-up capital and influence to keep the established competitors from immediately driving them out.
It was a perfect fit!
When it came to money and influence, who could possibly have more than a royal princess?
On top of that, although most of what Christina knew about cooking she learned from Lucas and Sasha, Jenny and Jessie had also taught her quite a bit about baking.
It was how they became friends in the first place.
Christina wasn’t carrying much cash on her by royal standards, but she still had several hundred Gold Coins in her Space Bag as ’pocket change’.
She also had dozens of Low-Grade Spirit Crystals, but those weren’t really useful for mundane purchases like this.
That much money might not have been enough to buy a big shop in the middle of the city, but it was more than sufficient to acquire a smaller place a bit further from the central markets.
Never one to hesitate or delay once she made up her mind, Christina immediately pitched her idea to Jenny and Jessie, both of whom immediately agreed to the proposal.
Jake, however, still had some reservations.
Accepting such a generous offer from Christina felt wrong to him, but after she explained her entire plan, he eventually agreed.
Tina understood that despite being somewhat smitten with her, Jake also didn’t want to accept handouts, especially from someone he considered a junior and a friend. In order to alleviate these concerns, Christina framed starting this new bakery as a joint venture between her and the siblings.
Borrowing some of the economics knowledge she had picked up from Lucas, Christina offered to provide her name, the initial funds, and management expertise in exchange for 60% of the new business’ shares.
Jake, Jessie, and Jenny, on the other hand, would be responsible for handling the day-to-day operations of the bakery while owning the other 40% of the shares.
After she explained the concept to them, the siblings insisted Christina keep a bigger portion of the shares, but the princess was adamant about the distribution she came up with.
The back-and-forth debate carried on for quite some time, but in the end, Christina got her way as the siblings were no match for the bargaining skills of a real noble.
With that settled, Christina immediately got to work.
Gathering her savings together, the princess began making some discreet inquiries and quickly decided on a location for the new bakery.
While Martin was technically the capital of the South-East Province, Misty City was its commercial heart and was naturally filled with marketplaces and highly competitive businesses.
As such, trying to occupy a prime piece of real-estate wasn’t going to be easy.
Now, with her name alone, Christina Rockwell would likely be able to acquire any shop or plot of land in Misty City she wanted, but she knew that doing so would lead to more problems than benefits.
If she suddenly just forced her way into the prestigious, high-end markets, not only would Christina be creating unnecessary enmity, she would also face far stiffer competition, requiring her to invest a much larger sum of money and clout just to keep the bakery running.
While all of that was certainly possible, Christina didn’t think it was worth the effort, so after an extensive search, she eventually decided to purchase a storefront in the western quarter of the city that the owners had put up for sale due to some kind of undisclosed financial issues.
This shop was previously a family-run restaurant, so despite being a little run-down and just 120 square metres in size including its backyard, it had a big kitchen space that could easily be converted into a proper bakery.
It’s location also wasn’t bad, being just two blocks west of the third largest market square in Misty City.
The street it was on was clean and featured a large number of inns and restaurants that catered to small merchants, skilled craftsmen, shop managers, and the sort.
When Christina showed the shop to Jake, Jenny, and Jessie, they initially had some concerns as the nearby businesses were quite well established, including 3 other bakeries; however, the princess just grinned and declared confidently that she had a secret weapon to ensure their success.
This wasn’t just Christina being bullish on herself, either; she really did have a secret weapon in her pocket thanks to her Senior Brother’s seemingly endless fountain of random knowledge.
Even having grown up in the epitome of luxury, most days, Christina ate flatbread just like everyone else in the Redwood Kingdom.
Calling it flatbread was a bit of a misnomer as it wasn’t truly ’flat’, but rather just a dense, crusty bread often 2 to 3 cm thick.
Rockwell Kingdom flatbread was fairly good fresh from the oven, but after it sat for a few hours, it quickly became hard and either needed to be chopped into bite-sized pieces or dipped in soup or stew to be eaten.
Naturally, the flatbread a princess ate was of much higher qualify than what common peasants of the kingdom had access too, but it was ultimately still flatbread.
That being said, Christina had also tasted several types of lighter, fluffier breads that had a much softer texture. The most recent example of this was the ’Sweet Cloud Bread’ she had sampled in Southbridge.
In all honesty, Christina didn’t notice a lot of difference between the premium flatbreads she ate in the palace and that dessert bread Cloud Bakery was selling. Both of them were lighter than regular flatbreads, but their crusts were still hard and the insides were still tough
The Sweet Cloud Bread’s filling was different, but the actual bread was... well, bread.
It was a staple food that was best described as ’ordinary’.
If she was forced to name something that was different about it, it was that the Sweet Cloud Bread she and her fellow Disciples ate that day was slightly airier and had a stronger, almost tangy taste.
As she had been munching on that slightly crispy bun filled with a heavy cream and smashed fruit mixture, Christina couldn’t help comparing it to the sponge cake they had made back in Iron Rock and feeling disappointed.
Both of them were called desserts, but the princess felt that only one of them really deserved that title. In fact, after having Lucas’ sponge cake, Christina was hesitant to call anything else she had ever eaten ’dessert’.
That cake had been world-changing, a revelation of what the words ’sweet’ and ’delicious’ were really supposed to mean.
When she made a subtle comment to that effect, perhaps unsurprisingly, Lucas muttered in agreement, "Of course they’re not in the same league, this is just a rough sourdough, how could it compare to a real cake in terms of lightness and sweetness?"
Intrigued by this offhanded statement, Christina later pressed Lucas, who happily introduced her to the idea of something he called fermentation.
The details of Lucas’ explanation were a bit difficult to follow, involving several concepts that Christina didn’t comprehend as they included a lot of other knowledge she didn’t possess, but putting it simply, her Senior Brother claimed that there was something called ’yeast’ which, when added to certain foods like bread, caused it to rise and puff out when it baked.
Lucas said that, if done right, a yeasted bread could be even softer and fluffier than the sponge cake he made.
It wouldn’t be as sweet given the huge difference in sugar content, but it would still have a light, airy texture.
Christina was eager to try her hand at making this new kind of bread; unfortunately, while Lucas knew a lot about the general process of making this kind of bread, he didn’t know where to get yeast from.
The princess was in quite a foul mood when she heard this, and she might have expressed her disappointment with her fists, angered that her Senior Brother was teasing her again, but such episodes were hardly unusual between her and Lucas, so Christina didn’t quite remember.
Lucas, on the other hand, certainly didn’t forget the tender care his Junior Sister had shown him that day and had spent some time meditating on the idea, partly to appease the violent princess, but mostly because he too wanted to eat some better bread.
It took a while, but Lucas was somehow able to pluck a relevant piece of knowledge from the depths of his inherited memories.
His benefactor from the other universe seemed to have been quite the food enthusiast, so there was some vague information about yeast being found in many different places, with one such source being the skin of fresh fruits.
Lucas actually only retrieved this tidbit of information shortly after Allina had told him about the famous wineries of Crystal Lake.
Wine was also a fermented product, its alcohol a byproduct of the yeast feeding on the sugars in the fruit juice.
Put more simply, he could make yeast from fruit!
The exact details of how to do this, Lucas couldn’t quite make out, but that didn’t stop him from sharing his epiphany on the matter with Christina.
The two of them, along with Sasha, the other cooking enthusiast in their group, agreed to run some experiments on this subject later, but then the orphanage incident occurred, with Lucas being spirited away to the capital shortly after, causing this exploration into fermentation to be put on hold.
Lucas and Sasha were still fully occupied with work now and thus unavailable, but Christina had time, so with a silent apology to her kitchen comrades, she decided to take one step ahead on their quest for yeasted bread.
