The Evil Mother-in-law: Torment Children, Work Hard, Be Rich!-Chapter 253: Eating Mooncakes

"Grandma Tong, I understand now, I will learn to figure out the recipes like you."

Liu Xiuxiu nodded.

It’s not surprising that Liu Xiuxiu doesn’t dare to tinker with the recipes, as her mother from the Hu Family constantly nags in her ear, saying she already owes a huge favor to Tong Huaqiong for being able to learn craftsmanship at Taohua Dessert.

As a clerk, she only needs to operate stably according to the instructions in the bakery.

Not to take a step over the line.

For example, trying to figure out the recipes herself, so as not to make Tong Huaqiong suspect.

Tong Huaqiong liked Liu Xiuxiu’s cleverness and laughed, "Is your mother always teaching you, worried that if you come up with a recipe, I’ll suspect you’re secretly learning the craft to go solo?"

Liu Xiuxiu smiled embarrassedly.

Although Tong Huaqiong doesn’t go to the shop much now, her management over the shop is always online, nothing that happens in the shop escapes her eyes.

The idea of Liu Yueer’s sister-in-law from the Hu Family is the same as most clerks of this era, furtively figuring out the owner’s craft is disloyalty to the shop, and not only clerks have this idea, many shop owners have an even stronger version of this idea.

Even going so far as to suppress the clerks.

But Tong Huaqiong doesn’t think that way.

A pastry shop’s development relies not only on recipes but also on marketing and management.

If someone in the shop were to take Taohua Dessert’s recipes and go solo now, Tong Huaqiong has the confidence that Taohua Dessert won’t decline or fail to develop because of it.

Tong Huaqiong told Liu Xiuxiu, "Since I let you learn the craft in my shop, I’m not afraid of you going out on your own someday. If you learn well and go solo, I’d still applaud you. There are so many businesses in the world, our Yan Guan Town can’t always have just one Taohua Dessert, sooner or later there will be competitors. Whether the competitor is someone from the shop or an outsider, I don’t fear it."

"Now that you’re a baker in my shop, you should do your duty, which is to help me come up with a few more recipes so I can earn more money, that’s the way to give back to Taohua Dessert. Not being overly cautious and scared off by anything."

After hearing Tong Huaqiong’s words, Liu Xiuxiu felt relieved.

She can now feel free to devise recipes and refine her skills.

"I will listen to you, I will learn the craft well and come up with recipes to make money for our Taohua Dessert," Liu Xiuxiu said.

Liu Xiuxiu’s thoughts were very simple, she felt that since Tong Huaqiong encouraged her to develop recipes, she should do her best to come up with profitable recipes for Taohua Dessert.

Even if she graduated in the future, she wouldn’t think of going solo.

During her days at Taohua Dessert, she found that mastering a skill wasn’t enough to start a shop.

If it were that simple, why haven’t those skilled master chefs from Crispy Food Garden gone solo after it closed and stayed at Taohua Dessert instead?

Being a master chef only requires skill refinement.

Running a shop requires considering market channels, managing clerks, and income...

She prefers staying in the bakery room tinkering with pastries rather than running a shop.

Soon the first batch of mooncakes was baked.

This batch was baked with double egg yolk lotus seed paste mooncakes.

As soon as the oven was opened, the fragrance wafted out.

The workers building houses for He Chao and Boss Qian next door almost couldn’t hold their bricks when they smelled it.

The whole Qinghe Bay was filled with a sweet aroma.

Tong Huaqiong placed the baked mooncakes into a bread basket.

Freshly baked mooncakes are not at their best immediately; they need to sit for two or three days to become tasty.

But the fragrance was so tempting, who could resist eating?

Man Er, Yaozu, and Liu Yanhong didn’t go out playing with their friends today, waiting in the courtyard for mooncakes.

As soon as the mooncakes came out, the three kids couldn’t wait to grab them but were stopped by Tong Huaqiong.

"Be careful not to burn yourselves, eat them a bit later," Tong Huaqiong said, then instructed Chen Sufen to bake the next batch.

After they cooled a bit, Tong Huaqiong picked up the mooncakes and distributed one to each. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"Delicious."

"Grandma’s mooncakes are even better than the ones from the city mansion."

While eating, Liu Yanhong mumbled, and Tong Huaqiong sighed inwardly, seeing that Mid-Autumn was approaching and no one had come to pick up the child yet.

Has County Magistrate Liu really turned her place into a boarding school?

"The oil from the egg yolk has melted into the lotus seed paste, making it fragrant and sweet, and not greasy at all," Liu Xiuxiu said after taking a bite and savoring it carefully.

Chen Sufen nodded beside her.

Both of them ate pastries in the bakehouse every day; only exceptionally stunning pastries would make their eyes sparkle, and judging by their expressions, these mooncakes had reached an astonishing taste.

Tong Huaqiong felt that the mooncakes at Taohua Dessert were like meat dumplings, once again promoted as popular products in Yan Guan Town.

Then flowing heart mooncakes, ham mooncakes, as well as five-nut mooncakes, and bean paste mooncakes were all baked.

Everyone tasted each flavor.

Liu Xiuxiu thought the cloud leg mooncake tasted the best, Chen Sufen thought the lotus seed paste with egg yolk mooncake was the tastiest, and Tong Huaqiong loved the simple five-nut mooncakes the most.

Everyone’s palate is different, indicating that each of these mooncakes has its audience.

"I used to only eat five-nut mooncakes, but I think Grandma’s five-nut mooncake tastes better than the ones I’ve eaten before," Liu Xiuxiu said after finishing the five-nut mooncake.

Tong Huaqiong laughed, "Don’t you see the ingredients we use?"

To create the delicious five-nut mooncakes in her heart, Tong Huaqiong had done plenty of preparation.

She ordered Gu Dashu to go to Pingchuan County to buy the best quality raw sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts, and other nuts, sorted out the inferior quality ones, washed, dried them, and stir-fried them in a big pot at home.

Then she organized the young clean wives in the village to shell them, resulting in several large basins full of aromatic nuts.

Such meticulously made five-nut mooncakes couldn’t help but taste good!

This batch of mooncakes made at home would be taken to the shop for the bakers to taste.

After all, the bakers in the shop have only eaten five-nut mooncakes and bean paste mooncakes, they must taste others to know the recipe requirements so they can bake sellable quality mooncakes.

Tong Huaqiong handed the mooncake recipe to Chen Sufen.

Chen Sufen would then teach the shop’s bakers.

Tong Huaqiong was just waiting for these delicious fresh mooncakes to make Taohua Dessert a hit once again.

As she anticipated, once Taohua Dessert’s mooncakes were launched, they triggered a new buying frenzy.

Yan Guan Town used to celebrate Mid-Autumn with Crispy Food Garden’s five-nut mooncakes as the essential pastry for visiting relatives and friends.

Now they have been replaced by Taohua Dessert’s mooncakes.

Unlike Crispy Food Garden, Taohua Dessert’s mooncakes offer more variety and choices.

For those nostalgic for Crispy Food Garden’s five-nut mooncakes, after eating Taohua Dessert’s five-nut mooncakes, they silently gave a thumbs up to Taohua Dessert in their hearts.

Apart from the mooncake’s huge success, what made Tong Huaqiong even happier was that a pig in the pigsty was about to be sold.

Speaking of pigs being sold, Tong Huaqiong felt both joyful and worried.

Joyful because she could finally indulge in meat buns, braised pork, big elbows, and braised ribs; worried because this pig was raised by Man Er with pig grass, even if this pig went to the temple’s pig farm, Man Er would still go to feed it pig grass every day.

Tong Huaqiong feared that killing it would make it difficult to give Man Er an explanation.

But if it weren’t slaughtered, its contribution wouldn’t be realized.

As the seed player of Tong Huaqiong’s pig farming business, this pig was the first to be neutered, and now it had grown the strongest, fattest, and was most suitable for autumn sales.

Its sale would mark the initial success of Tong Huaqiong’s farming business.