Free Web NovelChapter 353: A Delicious First Step
Frowning slightly, the princess quickly cut into the other two loaves, only to find a similar situation with both off them.
Her own loaf had several large voids in it, with the solid parts being somewhat delicate and even a bit crumbly.
Jessie’s loaf turned out the best of the three, having a less crumbly crust and only a few large holes in its centre.
Tess’s bread didn’t have the same large holes, but it also didn’t puff up as much, resembling a lighter flatbread rather than a puffy, airy yeasted loaf.
Pursing her lips, Christina turned to her partners, seeking their input.
Tess, naturally, lowered her head, fearing she had done something wrong.
Jessie, on the other hand, shrugged and picked up a piece of the bread, popping it into her mouth without another word.
The next second, the young baker’s daughter had her eyes light up as she quickly grabbed a bigger piece and bit into it with gusto.
Seeing this kind of reaction, Christina was encouraged and also got herself a sample.
With a *crunch*, the princess bit into a crisp, crackling crust before the soft, warm, fluffy inside of the bread hit her tongue.
Closing her eyes in delight, Christina realized that although this experiment wasn’t a complete success, it certainly wasn’t a failure.
Whatever you decided to call it, one thing was certain, this experiment was delicious.
Even all on its own, this yeasted bread was delicious, better than any bread Tina had ever eaten before even back in the Royal Palace.
After taking a moment to enjoy herself, Christina picked up another piece and handed it to Tess, insisting she try as well.
The young woman was hesitant at first, but seeing the blissful looks on Tina and Jessie’s faces, and having received permission from her master, she eventually overcame her inhibitions and took a small nibble, then another... then another...
Within a couple of minutes, the three small loaves of bread had ’mysteriously’ disappeared, leaving only a pile of crumbs on the counter and satisfied smiles on the girls’ faces.
"Amazing..." Jessie muttered, expressing in words what all of them were thinking at that moment.
"I-It... It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten..." Tess was nearly brought to tears as she bowed deeply to Christina, "Thank you, Your Highness, for sharing something so delicious with this lowly servant!"
"Hehe," Christina laughed happily, patting the young woman on the shoulder, "You helped make this possible, Tess. The least I can do is share some of it with you."
"Y-Y-Your words are too kind, Y-Your Highness!" Tess stuttered, a smile involuntarily forming on her lips.
She was just an ordinary commoner, yet a real princess was praising and thanking her, as well as sharing a revolutionary new food with her.
If she could eat bread like this every day, Tess suddenly felt working for Christina might not be so bad after all.
What’s more, if she could help the princess perfect this new bread, perhaps she would even get a reward, like a Gold Coin, or maybe even a few Gold Coins!
With that much money, she could help her parents and siblings live a better life!
While the maid busy imagining a brighter future for herself and her family, Jessie’s mind had begun filling with wondrous possibilities, "Cheese... butter... jam... honey... smoked meat..."
Just thinking of all the possibilities this new bread would open up, and the kinds of things that could be eaten with it, Jessie was literally drooling in anticipation.
Ultimately, it was Christina who managed to pull herself together first, smacking her cheeks as she brought her mind back to the present and declared, "We’ve made a great start, but there’s still a lot of tests to do and refinements to make!"
"You’re right, Sister Tina!" Jessie jumped up, clapping her hands joyfully, a look of determination filling her face, "There’s lots of room for improvement, but once we get it right, everyone in Misty City will be lining up to buy our bread!"
Tess nodded faintly in agreement, not thinking the younger girl’s words were at all exaggerated.
As the daughter of a small-time shop-owner, the young maid understood the potential this new bread had. It tasted better and was more pleasant to eat, yet didn’t need any rare, fancy, or expensive ingredients to make, meaning it wouldn’t cost significantly more to make than regular bread.
That being said, even if the princess charged 5 times as much for it, Tess was sure they would never be able to make enough to fill the demand. The nobles alone would snatch all of it up in an instant.
At the very least, a small bakery like the one she was standing in wouldn’t be able to make a sufficient volume of the new-style bread to supply Misty City’s upper class, much less the commoners or other the people of other settlements.
.....
The second batch of bread was already in the oven, so making modifications to it wasn’t possible. As such, the girls spent the next half-hour or so trying to figure out how exactly to improve the bread, their main goal to make it less holey so it didn’t crumble and collapse when it was cut.
Unfortunately, even after giving it a lot of though, no good ideas came to mind.
Before some kind of solution could be proposed, the second round of bread finished baking and the girls paused to remove and sample them.
"It’s still got big holes in it, and there’s a bit of a different flavour this time," Jessie commented as she chewed on a small piece of bread.
"En, the holes are a problem we need to solve. As for the change in taste, it’s probably because these ones were made with a different fruit juice," Christina agreed, still happily munching on her own piece despite her complaints.
The second round of breads was also light and delicious, with only minor differences between it and the first batch. As for which one was better, that was hard to say right away.
"Um, Your Highness," Tess, who had polished off her own slice quite quickly, quietly tried to say something.
"Hm? What is it?" Curious about what the shy maid wanted to say, Christina urged her to continue.
"Um, it’s just... I was thinking... if you don’t want such big holes in the bread... maybe we should... compact the dough before baking it?" Tess suggested.
Wrinkling her brow, Christina mulled over this idea for a moment.
What she wanted was fluffy bread, so squishing it back down after it puffed up seemed counterproductive.
Still, when she thought about how the dough rose significantly in the oven, Christina felt Tess’ solution might not be a bad one.
It might result in the bread being a bit denser, but Christina didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing.
Turning to Jessie, their resident expert, for her opinion, Christina only received a shrug, indicating her friend also had no clue whether this would work or not.
Glancing over at the remaining 6 balls of dough, Christina soon concluded that it wouldn’t hurt to try Tess’ suggestion.
Besides, she didn’t have any better ideas of her own. Worst-case scenario, they would wind up with a couple of flatbreads.
Determining so, Tina got up, poured one of the doughs from the next batch out onto the counter, and carefully began squishing it.
Although she was following Tess’ suggestion, Christina was still hesitant to completely compact the dough, so she only pressed it lightly instead of kneading it all over again.
Once the dough ball’s volume had been reduced to about half its fully puffed size, Christina stepped back and let Jessie place it, along with the other 2 loaves, into the waiting oven.
30 minutes later, the breads were pulled from the oven and, just as she had anticipated, the 2 which weren’t squished rose greatly, while the one she compacted came out a bit flat.
That wasn’t to say that the modified loaf hadn’t risen, it was just ’less’ puffy than the others.
"Should we press down another one from the last batch, or just cook them as is?" Jessie asked, not certain how to proceed now.
Observing the latest round of baked bread for a moment, Christina decided to wait on the last round of dough. She figured it would be better to cut open the freshly baked loaves first to see what kind of changes had occurred before making a decision.
5 minutes of cooling later, Christina sliced the bread and was pleasantly surprised to find the one she had compacted had a nice even crumb. It was certainly more compact and its texture was a little hard compared to the other, extremely light loaves, but it was still much fluffier than ordinary flatbread.
The taste of the third round was also cleaner than the second, but Tina was fairly certain that was because of the different fruit yeast they had used.
Seeing this result, Christina decided to deflate all the doughs in the last batch, just to see what would happen.
Regardless what the results turned out to be, they would learn something, and that’s what mattered; after all, today was just a first round of experiments where all of them were groping around in the darkness, trying to find the way forward.
