As it turned out, making a chocolate cake was a rather finicky process. The first part was preparing the cherry filling. lina was lucky that she managed to get her hands on the first cherries of the season during her supply run, although she couldn't buy too many since the first harvest was usually more expensive.
Gilbert showed her how to remove the pits from the cherries, but the process was lengthy and ssy. The juice went everywhere, which, in her opinion, was a horrible loss. So she tried cleaning the cherries with magic by pressing her mana inside the cherry, isolating the pit with it, and then pulling it out. There was still so juice lost, but it was nowhere nearly as much as before.
The old baker was a bit peeved by her use of magic, but couldn't deny the results. After all, she could easily clean ten cherries at a ti, making the process much faster. Before long, the pot was filled with cherries. She then added honey to them to make them sweeter and allowed the cherries to simr.
While those were simring, they began working on the cake batter.
"This first step is probably most important. You rember how to make the sponge cake batter, right?" Gilbert prompted.
"Of course. I make it every day now. First, I have to whisk eggs with sugar until it has tripled in volu," she replied.
"Exactly. It's different from chocolate cake. Cocoa makes the batter drier and heavier, so it's harder to get the airy consistency. So we have to work extra hard while whisking the eggs," Gilbert said, and took a bowl filled with water. "We'll whisk it over a warm water bath."
"Warm water bath?" lina asked, looking at the bowl.
"Yes. This is your clue to warm it up. Not hot, mind you. Warm," Gilbert instructed.
lina touched the water in the bowl and ward it up. Gilbert touched it tentatively and nodded.
"Good. Now what does this do? It helps to dissolve the sugar, makes it easier to whip eggs to an even greater volu, and also stabilizes them. Warm eggs are much more stable and less likely to curdle," Gilbert explained sagely.
"All that because of warm water?" lina asked in surprise.
"Yes. Baking is a science as much as it is an art. One tiny thing can change the whole outco. Now whisk those eggs. Eight to ten minutes."
"Is it alright to do it with magic?"
"Normally, I'd say no. But we're short on ti. You can use magic, but we'll practice by hand once you finish your cake for Heilia," Gilbert said.
lina nodded and got to work. She positioned the bowl with eggs and sugar above the warm water bowl with her magic and began whisking, hands free. Even so, it wasn't an easy process, maintaining a steady stream of mana to keep whisking the eggs. The fact that lina was still worried about Alistair made her concentration slip on occasion. One ti, she nearly dropped the bowl, managing to catch it at just the last mont.
But ten minutes later, she had a beautiful airy mixture of eggs and sugar. After that, she had to sift cocoa, flour, and salt in a separate bowl and then carefully fold them into the mixture. Gilbert warned her multiple tis to go slow, so the batter wouldn't lose its airiness.
The last step was adding lted butter in a thin, deliberate stream. The result was a nice, airy mixture ready for baking. Sienna then heated the oven and cooked the cake at a slightly lower temperature than a regular sponge and for a longer period.
Soti during the cooking process, the cherries finished simring, so all that was left to do was wait for both the filling and the cake to cool. Obviously, lina had no patience for waiting. She used ice magic to cool both down much more quickly. After she prepared the whipped cream, of course.
"The process is very similar to regular sponge cake," lina noted as she assembled the cake. She sared the cherry filling between the cake layers and the whipped cream on the sides and the top. She also put fresh cherries as decorations on top, as well as dark chocolate shavings.
[You've made . You've gained 35 exp.]
"It is, but there are more places where you can go wrong. You haven't really seen it with all your fancy magic, but if the mixture isn't airy enough, you'll get a very dense cake," Gilbert warned.
"I'll keep that in mind. But will Heilia really be satisfied with this cake?" lina asked dubiously. She had sohow expected sothing much more difficult.
"I don't know. You'll have to ask her that," the old baker shrugged.
For the ti being, lina deposited the cake in the chillbox and headed ho together with Mango and Sienna. The sun was slowly setting, making lina's shadow stretch far ahead of her. For so reason, her gaze lingered on her shadow as she walked, instead of watching the scenery as she usually did.
It made her think of
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