"I brought the ingredients..." Zhang Yu pushed the dining cart back into the venue, his jaw dropping as the blinding golden light filled the screens.
He could accept dishes glowing. But what the hell? Are people starting to glow now too?
Since when did the culinary world birth such cool cooking techniques?
Zhang Yu delivered the ingredients to Mo Bai's station, beating his chest and stomping his feet, feeling as if he had lost a hundred million by not witnessing the entire sequence of events with his own eyes.
As the ingredients arrived, Mo Bai opened his eyes. The radiance shooting from his profound gaze was such that not a single chef present dared to meet his eyes.
"Hm? Maltose, honey, edible flowers... what does he intend to do with these materials?" Roland Chapelle was somewhat puzzled.
"Is he not making Madeleine cakes anymore?" Sena Hiromi rubbed his chin, unable to grasp the thread of thought.
"Flower cakes?" The burly yet handsome Dōjima Gin was equally unable to confirm what Mo Bai intended to do.
While the three were still pondering what kind of baked goods Mo Bai would produce, the latter quickly sprang into action.
Multiple mixers started simultaneously. Edible roses, magnolias, chrysanthemums—stamens removed, petals beaten into juice and mixed into three portions of maltose.
Maltose of varying shades and honey were lined up, and Mo Bai rapidly entered the batter mixing step.
Butter melted over a water bath; eggs and sugar added and beaten to a liquid state; then sifted low-gluten flour and baking powder added, mixed until smooth and free of particles...
Mo Bai's movements were fluid to the extreme, giving a sense of visual pleasure.
Sena Hiromi rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The fluency Mo Bai was displaying now was completely different from before. If one had to describe it, it was like the difference between master-level proficiency and ordinary proficiency.
Previously, he could still find slight negligence in Mo Bai's movements, but now there was only shock.
If not for the face, he would completely believe that the person baking at the station right now was a baking master who had been immersed in the field for decades.
"Is this kid... a monster!?"
"He's going for the oven." Chapelle, whose eyes revealed the same shaken emotion as Sena Hiromi, whispered to himself.
Sena Hiromi quickly snapped back to reality. The batter production had such a huge leap; what about using the oven? A faint expectation grew in his heart.
Mo Bai placed the batter-filled molds into the oven. Abandoning the previous method of rigidly fixing temperature and time for an improvisational approach, the pleasing sense of fluidity did not break. Inside the preheating oven, Mo Bai could feel the batter's reaction under the flow of every bit of heat.
"Temperature too high? Lower it a bit." Mo Bai operated the oven buttons with a fierce flurry of action. The beeping electronic prompts were not noisy in the slightest; instead, they felt pleasant, like a melody.
"I see. Has he abandoned the preset time to set the temperature by observing the baking completion with the naked eye?" Chapelle spoke lightly, but his heart was churning endlessly.
The oven was an appliance born to adapt to modern kitchen concepts, bringing chefs a more convenient cooking process.
Mo Bai's method completely pushed the oven's function back to the era of using wood-fired kilns.
But... to be honest, setting the temperature based on visual observation of baking completion—Chapelle admitted he couldn't do it, and he was certain that ninety-nine percent of those drilling into the baking industry couldn't do it either.
The remaining few were either masters who had studied for a lifetime or true geniuses with extraordinary gifts.
"Could it be that this young man has talent on the same level as Miss Nakiri's God's Tongue?" Watching Mo Bai staring intently into the oven, Chapelle's unchanging poker face finally cracked.
"It's been over ten minutes." Sena Hiromi could hardly suppress his curiosity and ran down from the judges' seat in a flash.
"..." Chapelle struggled internally for a long while, sighed, and walked down from the judges' seat.
The many judges looked at each other, and finally made the same choice as the two.
Mo Bai's station was instantly crowded.
"Low-temperature baking!?" After Chapelle used his status to secure the best viewing spot, he saw the temperature displayed on Mo Bai's oven, and his poker face cracked once more.
As everyone knows, the lower the oven temperature, the longer the baking time required. A longer cycle also means the baking batter will lose more moisture, causing it to become dry.
The standard baking temperature for basic Madeleine cakes is one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius for ten minutes. Mo Bai's oven showed 123 degrees, and was constantly being adjusted within a range of five degrees up or down as time passed.
"This kind of temperature requires at least forty minutes or more." After the shock, Chapelle frowned tightly.
Small Madeleine cakes baked for forty minutes would likely have lost their cake-like texture long ago.
"Is that why maltose is needed to lock in the moisture?" Zhang Yu's soft murmur was like a thunderclap exploding in Chapelle's heart.
Maltose, edible flowers, honey!
He connected the three.
"So that's it!?"
Before his voice faded, a sudden sound—
"Done!"
Mo Bai pressed stop and swiftly pulled open the oven door.
"Cake name: Jewel Garden."
Brilliant golden light erupted violently from the oven, piercing through layers of ceiling straight into the sky!
"It really... glowed!" After the intense golden light passed, Zhang Yu was the first to recover.
On the flower-shaped Madeleine cakes Mo Bai took from the oven, the crystal-clear sugar syrup shells still shone with residual brilliance like gems, intoxicating the heart.
"Eh? Why is there only half? Did he only make that little just now?" Zhang Yu was bewildered.
"The taste is great. I'll come find you tonight." A breeze curled through the room, and Ryougi Shiki's figure vanished.
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