Free Web NovelChapter 349: Fruit Yeast
Lucas had seemed fairly confident that his idea to acquire yeast would work when he first mentioned it to Christina, but he also made a point of saying it would probably take a few tries to get everything right.
Her Senior Brother also proposed a straightforward approach to the problem to get them started.
Take some fresh fruits, chop them up into small pieces or crush them into pulp, then put them in a jar with juice from that same type of fruit.
Let the jar sit out on the counter for a few days, then strain it and use some of the liquid in a bread dough.
That was the general process Lucas was able to glean from his inherited memories, though it came with no exact numbers or measurements.
Compared to most of Lucas’ projects and proposals, however, Christina felt that this one was easy enough that even she could tackle it on her own, but not long after she made her first attempt, she realized that nothing about her Senior Brother’s eccentric ideas was ever that simple.
Right after she got the idea to start a bakery, Christina began trying to produce yeast, counting on it to make a signature product no one else in the kingdom had.
Slipping into the kitchen at the Balfour Family’s Manor late that night, the princess dug through the pantry and got her hands on a variety of fruits, diced them up, then put them in different small jars together with some juice.
Sealing the ceramic jars with their cork lids, Christina left them in an open space on a shelf that was out-of-the-way and went to bed.
Two days later, when the princess went to check on the jars to see if there had been any progress, she was stunned to discover that all of them were gone.
Grabbing the nearest kitchen maid she could find, Christina pointedly asked what had happened.
The maid, who knew very well who the silver-haired girl interrogating her was, trembled nervously as she explained that the jars had all been emptied out because whatever was in them had gone rotten.
Apparently, the Head Chef had thrown a fit wondering who had left ’garbage’ lying around his kitchen, resulting in a couple of the lowest ranking staff being disciplined for their negligence when the blame ultimately fell on them.
Needless to say, Christina felt quite embarrassed when she heard this.
Thanking the maid for answering her question, Tina let the frightened woman go before she went to have a chat with the Head Chef.
It took her a while to sort out the whole mess, but Christina eventually managed to resolve the misunderstanding and personally compensated the young man and woman from the kitchen staff who had been wrongfully punished.
Christina also managed to secure a corner of the kitchen for her personal use, ensuring that no more incidents like this one happened.
Once that was all sorted out, the princess got to work trying to figure out what went wrong.
A few years ago, during one of the lessons she received on history and society, Christina had learned about the risks of contaminated water and how some kind of tiny, invisible lifeforms were capable of making people sick if they were consumed in food or drink.
After meeting Lucas, Christina had learned much more about mold, fungus, bacteria, viruses, and other ’microscopic’ threats, as well as how to treat and prevent diseases caused by them.
It was one of the subjects he was most passionate about, especially when it came to encouraging the use of soap.
When she still didn’t know him that well, Christina had suspected that Lucas was exaggerating these risks in order to sell more of his cleaning product, but over time, she came to realize that her Senior Brother really did consider this a critical issue.
Cleanliness was so important to Lucas that he was even willing to sell his soap for cheap, or even lose money in certain circumstances like with his giant bathhouse, if it meant improving hygiene.
Even as she was working on her own little project, Christina knew that several of her Senior Brother’s closest subordinates were scrambling to set up a new, much bigger soap factory, hoping to churn out hundreds of thousands of bars of it every month.
Christina was also looking forward to the new factory starting up as after a couple months of using it, she found it hard to imagine going without soap anymore.
Back in the palace, she could use Bathing Cream whenever she wanted, but that was hardly as portable as bar soap was, making the latter preferable when moving around.
With all that being said, Lucas had also taught Tina that not all of these microorganisms, as he called them, were necessarily harmful.
Some microorganisms were responsible for food going bad, but others could actually be helpful as long as they were properly managed.
This, unfortunately, left Christina in a bit of a bind.
Yeast was one of these ’good’ microorganisms, and she needed it to make soft, fluffy bread, but she also didn’t want any ’bad’ microorganisms to contaminate her fruit juice.
The question was, how was she supposed to isolate and grow one type of microorganism, while getting rid of all the others?
Despite wracking her brain for quite a while, Christina wasn’t able to come up with a clever solution to this problem, so she decided to use a brute-force approach instead.
Gathering several more jars, the princess grabbed the same young maid who had previously been ’disciplined’ by accident and ’borrowed’ her from the kitchen staff to help her wash everything out with soap.
After that, just for good measure, Christina boiled the jars and lids before drying them with clean cloths.
Once that was done, Tina sealed each of the jars to make sure nothing got into them before boiling a big pot of water.
Once the boiled water had cooled back down to room temperature, Christina used it to thoroughly wash another set of fruits.
She wanted these fruits to be clean, but she also wanted their yeast, so she decided not to use soap this time.
There was a risk that things would end up like last time, with the fruit juice spoiling thanks to contamination, but Tina was hoping that by making many different jars, at least one of them would turn out alright.
Slicing up the different fruits, Christina put pieces of them into her sterilized containers before crushing up more of the same fruits and using the juice to top up the jars.
Once each of the jars was full, she sealed them with their lids again.
Christina thought about putting the jars into the fridge, but then she recalled Lucas mentioning to her that cold stopped or at least slowed the growth of all microorganisms, so she decided to find a warm spot for her experiment instead.
Arranging the jars on a counter close to one of the stoves, Christina told Tess, the 17-year-old maid she had been working with, to watch over them and inform her if anything happened.
4 days later, early in the morning, Tess burst into the training hall with a look of panic on her face.
"You Highness! Your... your jars... they... they..."
"Calm down," Christina waved her hand, "Catch your breath and explain clearly."
Doing her best to settler her nerves, the young maid took a deep breath and reported, "Several of your jars exploded, Your Highness!"
"Huh? Exploded? As in... went *boom*?" Christina gawked, never having expected this development.
Tossing aside her training sword, Christina raced to the kitchen where she found that 4 of the jars she had been growing yeast in had indeed burst open, spilling their contents all over the counter.
Examining the aftermath, the princess was at a complete loss to explain what had happened.
How could ordinary fruit juice sealed in a jar just all-of-a-sudden blow up?
Frowning deeply, Christina decided to open one of the intact jars to investigate and was startled when lid practically flew off as soon as she loosened it.
After a few seconds of shock, Christina brought the opened jar to her face and gave it a closer look.
The fragrance had changed slightly, but it still basically smelled like fruit juice.
This didn’t surprise Christina much, but what did strike her as odd was that there was also a faint hissing sound coming from the jar and there were bubbles on the liquid’s surface.
Clearly, something had changed over the past 4 days.
"Um, Y-Your Highness... I-If I may be so bold as to ask..." Tess quietly called out from behind.
"Hm?" Turning back to see the her dedicated helper, Christina motioned for her to continue.
"F-Forgive me if I’m mistaken, Your Highness," Tess began, fiddling with her uniform nervously, "But... But, a-are you perhaps trying to... make cider?"
Hearing this question, Christina narrowed her eyes slightly, taking a closer look at the young woman as she asked, "What makes you think that?"
Under the scrutinizing gaze of the genius royal princess and Disciple of the master of the manor where she worked, Tess immediately felt faint.
She was just the daughter of a small merchant in Misty City who had been lucky enough to land a job at the Balfour Manor a few months ago.
How she ended up as the assistant to Christina was a mystery to her, but every moment Tess spent together with the princess felt like a terrifying balancing act where one slip would result in falling to her doom.
The young maid was deathly afraid of doing or saying something wrong, so up until now, she had basically remained silent and simply done whatever she was told to do.
What possessed her to speak up now was beyond Tess, but since she had opened her mouth, she had no choice but to explain herself and hope her Highness would be understanding.
"M-My aunt is an apple farmer and s-sometimes makes cider from the fruit she can’t sell," Tess replied, keeping her head down, not daring to meet Christina’s sharp gaze, "I-I learned a bit about b-b-brewing from her."
"Oh? So, you knew this was going to happen?" Christina tilted her head.
Hearing the ’angry’ tone the princess was using, Tess immediately dropped to her knees and banged her head against the stone floor, "M-Mercy, Your Highness! I-I swear... I swear I didn’t... I-I mean, I... I..."
