Chapter 86 Glutinous Rice Cake

At 6:32 a.m., just before the final cutoff for getting up for school, Qin Luo rushed to the cafeteria. She grabbed a few buns at random, and after Qin Huai stuffed two baked flatbreads and some crab-shell pastries into her hands, she tearfully clutched her brother’s love and hurried off to catch the bus to school.

Riding the bus to the international school, Qin Luo was now living the kind of life often seen in campus novels—an ordinary girl from humble origins who somehow blends into an elite international school.

At 12:00 p.m., Qin Huai clocked out on time, ate his meal, and continued working with the stove.

In the afternoon, he had to make glutinous rice cakes, so he wouldn’t have as much time to “play” with the stove. Just thinking about it made Qin Huai feel reluctant.

A batch of baked flatbreads came out of the oven. As usual, Qin Huai took one to eat himself before starting on the next batch.

Turning his head, he noticed that the newly hired breakfast chef, Chen An, had not left yet.

“Chef Chen, your shift ends at 12,” Qin Huai said, assuming Chen An’s first day had left him unsure of his quitting time, and reminded him.

Chen An nodded somewhat stiffly but still didn’t leave. “Um… the pastries I made this morning haven’t all been sold yet. I want to stay and observe the afternoon sales.”

Chen An was a “hexagonal warrior” in breakfast—good at basic pastries. The number of items he could make was very limited. His best was waterless sponge cake, followed by honeycomb small bread, and then egg tarts—simple, affordable, and filling.

Such pastries would be very popular at a typical neighborhood shop, but at Yunzhong Cafeteria they were somewhat out of place. After all, the nearby regulars—elderly patrons, office workers, and passersby—were well-traveled and experienced; mere waterless sponge cake couldn’t easily win them over.

Still, although Chen An’s pastry skills were somewhat lacking, Qin Congwen and Zhao Rong were quite satisfied with him.

The young man might not be highly skilled yet, but his work attitude was excellent.

He worked with great dedication—busy all morning without stopping, hardly slacking off at all.

Qin Huai recalled Qin Congwen’s evaluation of Chen An and felt a bit surprised. Not only did he not slack off, he even volunteered to work overtime—what kind of work ethic was this!

“Don’t feel pressured. If it doesn’t sell, it’s fine. Worst case, you can be in charge of breakfast in the future. I’ll teach you how to make rolling donkey cakes—it’s simple,” Qin Huai said considerately.

Chen An nodded, inwardly cheering.

Great—he’d found a perfect excuse to stay, neither increasing his working hours nor missing out on watching the excitement.

He had been selling breakfast for years and had also worked as a pastry chef for several years, yet he had never once seen customers fight over pastries.

This morning’s commotion had ended too quickly; he hadn’t had time to savor it properly.

Nice to watch, loves watching, enjoys watching.

Even if it meant dragging a small stool over and cracking sunflower seeds, he was going to watch.

Qin Huai, unaware that the new breakfast chef was someone who loved watching the drama, finished baking the last batch of crab-shell pastries and flatbreads. He selected a few with good appearance and placed them on a separate plate, saving them as a late-night snack for Qin Luo when she returned from school and homework.

The rest were quickly snatched up by the long-waiting elderly patrons. Among them was a lucky office worker; seeing that he had come all this way after work, the elderly patrons magnanimously allowed him to take one crab-shell pastry and one flatbread.

After handing the oven over to An Youyou for cleaning, Qin Huai began preparing the glutinous rice cakes.

Glutinous rice cake was a dessert often seen in dramas, beloved by palace ladies, sounding high-end but actually quite ordinary.

“Glutinous rice” simply referred to sticky rice.

In times of low productivity, any food related to rice was considered precious refined grain. A full bowl of white rice was already a luxury beyond reach for ordinary families, let alone desserts made from glutinous rice.

Qin Huai knew how to make glutinous rice cakes because Qin Luo had once been obsessed with palace dramas.

In those dramas, the palace ladies were always eating glutinous rice cakes, crab-roe crisps, assorted cakes, white jade frost jelly, and emerald bean cakes—names that sounded very sophisticated. While others watched the intrigue of palace politics, Qin Luo watched to see what the ladies ate every day.

The names of these desserts sounded complicated, but they were actually not difficult to make. Of course, this might be because the methods Qin Huai found online and in pastry guides were not imperial-style methods. In essence, glutinous rice cake was just sticky rice cake wrapped with red bean paste—nothing fancy in shape.

Qin Huai felt that even if palace ladies lived modestly, they wouldn’t eat such plain-looking desserts.

Qin Luo thought the same. She once tried to get Qin Huai to put some effort into making the glutinous rice cake look nicer—and promptly received a combined scolding from Zhao Rong and Qin Congwen.

At least having something to eat was good enough—now she wanted decoration too? Who did she think she was? A palace lady? And look at your grades in Chinese, math, physics, chemistry, history, geography, and politics!

For Qin Luo, food that earned her a scolding was always memorable. Although glutinous rice cake wasn’t her favorite, didn’t look very good, and could even make her feel overly full, it was still worth remembering.

Thus, Qin Luo would occasionally request glutinous rice cakes, making Qin Huai far more experienced in preparing them than white jade frost jelly or crab-roe crisps.

Now, Qin Huai began making the glutinous rice cakes.

The key to glutinous rice cake lies in the rice.

There are two types of glutinous rice: long-grain (grown in the south) and round-grain (grown in the north).

According to the tutorial sent by Huang Shengli, northern round glutinous rice has a smoother, chewier texture and is more suitable for staple foods like rice dishes, shumai, and zongzi. Southern long-grain glutinous rice becomes highly sticky after cooking, making it ideal for cakes, glutinous rice balls, and soft desserts.

Qin Huai hadn’t known this before, since he had lived in Guangdong Province and could only find long-grain glutinous rice at markets—he had unknowingly picked the right one.

As for shumai…

To be honest, the shumai served at the Qin family breakfast shop over the years had always been made with long-grain glutinous rice—apologies to the residents of Sanmalu Community.

The quality of the glutinous rice directly determined the quality of the cake.

Today’s rice was quite good.

Making glutinous rice cake is a somewhat tedious process. First, wash the rice and soak it in cold water for at least 30 minutes until fully hydrated, then drain and steam over high heat for one hour.

After steaming, remove it, pour in boiling water while stirring continuously in one direction. Once the water and rice are fully integrated, steam for another 30 minutes.

Then continue stirring to break up the clumped rice into a sticky consistency, and steam again.

After steaming, cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for about 12 hours.

This 12-hour period is only an approximation; the exact time depends on the maker’s experience. Qin Huai usually finished steaming in the afternoon, covered it overnight, and only handled it the next morning after finishing breakfast—far exceeding 12 hours.

Today, Luo Jun was destined not to eat glutinous rice cake.

Nor crab-shell pastries or flatbreads.

Making rice cake was definitely labor-intensive. After completing the steps above, Qin Huai didn’t feel like doing anything else and just waited quietly for the tangerine peel tea and beef soup to finish.

At times like this, Qin Luo’s importance became evident.

Previously, whenever she wanted glutinous rice cake, she handled the stirring. The child had plenty of strength, and the rice dough she stirred came out sticky and smooth, clearly requiring effort.

To prevent Luo Jun from finding tangerine peel tea too plain, Qin Huai added a piece of unsold waterless sponge cake made by Chen An, earning a one-star review from Luo Jun.

Luo Jun said that if there was nothing else, it was fine not to add anything—don’t use random low-quality pastries to fool him.

Chewing on the sponge cake, Qin Huai felt that Luo Jun was too picky. As a waterless sponge cake, Chen An’s was already quite good.

He took a bite of the sponge cake and sipped some beef soup, feeling that today’s soup was excellent.

Since practicing heat control with the small stove, he felt his mastery had improved significantly, and cooking soup had become much easier.

“Ou Yang, what do you think of today’s beef soup?” Qin Huai asked from the window.

“Not bad, very good,” Ou Yang replied with a thumbs-up. “But I think beef soup doesn’t go well with this sponge cake—it’s a bit dry. It tastes better with flatbread.”

Qin Huai: “……”

He shouldn’t have asked.

Qin Huai continued drinking his soup and noticed Chen An still sitting at the table outside, seemingly waiting for something.

“Chef Chen, don’t worry. If these sponge cakes aren’t sold by afternoon, they’ll be packaged and sold at a discounted price with dinner tonight. Nothing will go to waste,” Qin Huai said.

“You’ll still have to come to work tomorrow morning. I remember your home is quite far—go back early and get some sleep.”

Chen An knew it was time to go home and sleep.

But he still hadn’t seen people arguing over pastries.

This afternoon, Qin Huai hadn’t made any extra items for sale. The elderly patrons sat inside chatting peacefully.

When they saw that no unexpected pastries would appear, they simply packed up and went home.

Chen An felt a bit disappointed, though he didn’t show it. Instead, he asked, “Chef Qin, will you have extra pastries for sale tomorrow afternoon?”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” Qin Huai thought for a moment. “I might need to go to the hospital, so I may not be in the shop. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, I just want to see which of your pastries are popular so I can learn and improve,” Chen An said, thinking he wouldn’t need to find an excuse to stay tomorrow afternoon—he’d try again the day after.

He just wanted to watch the excitement—why was it so hard?

Qin Huai was deeply moved and silently gave Chen An a thumbs-up in his heart.

Tomorrow, once the glutinous rice cakes were done, he would first send them to Luo Jun for a taste test. If that picky eater approved, he would package two jin to take to the hospital.

Qin Huai had checked—Qiu Jing would not have outpatient duties tomorrow afternoon.

Perfect.