“So you’re looking for something to sell at the orphanage’s stall because the flowers you were supposed to sell have gone bad?”
“Yes…preferably food. So, I want something easy to make.”
“Something that children can make, and is pretty rare.”
“A highborn noble knows more about sweets than we do, right?”
I understood the reason, but there were too many orders.
There aren’t that many ingredients that can be prepared.
I think the basic ingredients are flour, lard, sugar, eggs and milk.
With that in mind, I search for recipes in my head.
“… I think it’s good to have something that can be prepared, so the first one is baked goods.”
From that point of view, cookies are a pretty good place to start.
“Would you mind if I used those fegs?”
“Ah, yeah. I can get more if you need. I can get as much as needed from the forest out back.”
“…How much?”
“There’s a forest of fegs in the back. At this time of year, most of the snacks at the orphanage are fegs…They’re so easy for little guys to get.”
“You mean, it won’t cost you anything in materials?”
“Yeah. I’m always letting them rot, and I can’t eat them all…The perfume comes from the white flowers of the pegs, which are used to make the Rosy Scent of the Goddess. That’s why the fegs are planted in every cathedral.”
“…anywhere in the cathedral…”
That’s great.
By the way, a feg tree is a tree that grows to a maximum height of only about two meters. In the fall, the tree has white flowers and produces fruit in the winter. The berries, while still blue, have a small amount of oil removed from them, and the brown ones, which are harvested in the spring, look a bit like large almonds. Not only do they look like almonds, they taste just like almonds, and you can often find them roasted with salt and pepper and sold as snacks at a street stall in downtown.
“Feg fruit is adopted. Please chop them into small pieces for now. This one is coarsely chopped.”
“Roger that.”
“Also, is butter or lard easier to get in this orphanage?”
“Hmm, butter?”
“Is it expensive?”
“What?”
“No, the butter is in the offering pile too…I don’t buy much butter.”
“Then I’ll use butter…yes, about half a lump of butter in this bowl and two cups of sugar here.”
“Oh.”
“When you’ve done that, put this cupful of powdered sugar in that bowl and stir it up.”
It should be creamy, and Rufa’s hand increases its speed.
Let’s make a polvorón. (*** A type of heavy, soft, and crumbly Spanish shortbread made of flour, sugar, milk, and nuts)
It’s a delicious pastry that was made in a convent in Spain or Portugal.
“I’ll write up the recipe later, but for now, just watch the working instructions.”
The best thing about polvorón is that it’s crispy and unravels in your mouth. This crunchiness is not too difficult to achieve.
“The most important task is to the finely chopped feg nuts and to first roast the flour.”
I’d like to use skinless almonds just for looks, but it’s better to make them with as little work as possible for the kids to do.
First roast the flour for fifteen minutes, then transfer it to a bowl, and mix it with the creamed sugar and butter that I asked to be made earlier.
“After mixing well, make a block like this and let the dough rest for a little bit.”
“How much is a little?”
“Well, about thirty minutes. In the meantime, let’s make another sweet.”
The polvorón is ready to be baked by cutting the rested dough into slices about an inch thick and placing it on a baking sheet. Sprinkled with a bit of pure white powdered sugar at the end, they’re lovely.
It’s easy, and yet the texture of polvorón is rare, so I think it fits their requirements.
At least as far as I know, I’ve never had them here.
“What’s the other sweet?”
“Feg nut sweets.”
“With fegs? This time of year, fegs aren’t anything unusual. They’re sold at every stall.”
“There’s a trick.”
I use the leftover sugar to make a candy batter.
If they were sugar battered feg berries, I think they’d be a little unusual.
It’s too easy to make, so someone else might be making it, but it’s only readily available because it’s an orphanage with a cathedral, and sugar is basically an expensive thing.
Considering that, it should be profitable enough, right?
Put a handful of fegs in a frying pan and fry them. When the whole thing is cooked, sprinkle the sugar over the fegs and cook them down, boil down and shake to coat them with the candy batter.
“If you wanted to make this look a little more upscale, I’d finish it off by putting it in the powdered sugar and coating it, but it’s more of an extra step, so I’m leaving it as is this time.”
““Ohhhhh””
The two men sound impressed.
“If you have a gas stove, you might be able to make these sweet feg candies locally.”
After all, the procedure is simple. All you have to do is fry it up and add sugar.
“You can use any kind of nut, and you can use the same ingredients to make a candy. You can also use the same ingredients, but with more sugar to make a different kind of candy.”
“Different kind?”
It would be faster to make it than to explain it.
I poured the nicely sugar-coated fegs to a plate, lightly rinsed the pan and put it on the heat. Then I put the roughly crushed fegs into the pan and began to fry them.
Ragg’s and Rufa’s hands were constantly moving back and forth between the plate and their mouths as they reached for the sugar-coated fegs to taste them.
It looks like they’ll be all gone just by tasting.
Sprinkle in the sugar when the roughly crushed feg nuts start to turn lightly colored. Unlike before, I used a little more sugar.
“If you put a little more sugar and increase the amount of sugar in the bat, you can cool it down and make it into a candy, but this time it’s more like sprinkling pegs on top of a candy bar.”
The sugar melted and bubbled up in a puddle. I watched it gradually take on a candy color, stopping when I thought it was appropriate and stirring it with a wooden spoon.
“’So, this will form while it’s warm.”
I scoop them into rounds with a wooden spoon and place them on a plate.
“You can put the uncrushed ones like this on top of it while it’s warm for decoration.”
It’s a feg candy rather than a licking candy, so I molded each one a little larger.
“What about the packaging?”
“Just use the thin waxed paper that was supposed to be used for the bouquet. The cookies and candy canes are wrapped like candy and held together with ribbon. I think it’s a good idea to change the color of the ribbon.”
The waxed paper is a plain white, but the ribbons are available in a variety of colors.
“Well, then, it’s time to start baking the cookies.”
However, there is nothing difficult to do from here on.
If you can bake cookies normally, there won’t be any problems.
As if to spare them the time to bake, they hurried off to wait for a moment.
They said they’d have the other kids go get the fegs.
…I’m tired.
I breathed a sigh of relief in the empty kitchen.
…What should I do?
I know that this is not the time to be doing this here.
But I don’t know what to do.
…First, let’s get the situation straight.
First things first. I don’t know if it was a sniper or the real deal, but an attempt on my life was made.
Next, when I ran away, I got lost in the palace and couldn’t go back, so I had to leave the palace. By the way, I was so exhausted from getting lost that I fell ill.
And although I’m not sure of the details, I’m now in an orphanage in the Regalia area. Probably no one knows I’m here.
Then the most important thing—The time limit to return is five days with a margin.
It’s not just a matter of returning.
Almost the only and absolute condition is that I must ‘return in secret’.
For it will be assumed that the fact that I went out of the royal palace never happened.
But it’s probably not possible for me to sneak back to the royal palace alone.
I can’t rely on the Grachies now that Lady Elaine isn’t around.
It was strange, but I was certain that Lady Elaine would be safe and sound. Lady Elaine is a naive person, but she’s lucky, and besides, I don’t think anyone can do anything seriously awful to that person.
For Lady Elaine has no front and back.
People are like mirrors that reflect themselves.
That’s why sincerity comes back to sincerity, and malice comes back to malice.
Then I’d have to rely on Elzevert…
It is natural for me to rely on my family’s home, Elzevert, but to be honest, I don’t feel that way because I have little connection to my family’s home.
Above all, His Highness would absolutely hate it…
But Elzevert would be able to sneak me back to the royal palace.
It’s a bit sly, but I’m sure my father wouldn’t say no.
The Duke of Elzevert, who owes me a debt of gratitude, will never refuse and will do everything in his power to help me.
Later…
I’ll see if I can get around to successfully meeting the people under His Highness’ command who will probably be looking for me in secret…
In the meantime, relying on Elzevert is the last resort
The image of His Highness’s calm face flashed in my mind.
I’m sure he’s worried, but I can’t imagine His Highness being in any kind of panic or impatience.
Just because I’m missing doesn’t mean I have time to be bothered by that alone…
I’m sorry that this happened at a busy time in your preparations for the coronation.
…I hope Miredei isn’t blamed for this.
I was targeted right in front of her, and that’s why I ended up missing. I’m sure she would have cared.
And yet, when the good smell of feg and butter drifted out of the oven, I felt a soft lightening of my irritation for no reason, or anxiety that I didn’t know what to do with.
“We’re back.”
“I’m back.”
They come back.
“…Um…”
Am I supposed to say welcome back here?
But I’m not home here…
After hesitation, I ended up not being able to say anything.
But the two of them didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Oh, young lady, we’ll introduce you. These are our little guys.”
It was the children who emerged from behind them.
The older ones were probably around twelve years old and the younger ones were about three years old. Including them, there were nine in all.
“Sister, thank you for the snack!”
“You know, it was sweet and delicious!”
Hey, what’s that good smell?”
When they started talking in unison, it was like being thrown into the hustle and bustle in the middle of a scramble.
“Ah, you guys, you don’t need to talk all at once, the lady can’t understand!”
“Yes, yes, line up.”
Ragg and Rufa are probably the leaders.
The children follow their words properly.
“We’re all asking you a favor.”
What? What?
“We need you to show the little guys how to make that stuff again.”
“What?”
“Oh, only these two will use the fire.”
‘These guys,’ he indicated, wee a girl and a boy not that much older than me.
And then a small voice cries out, “All together now!”
“Eh?”
As I was about to ask them back, they all lowered their heads in unison. A moment ago they would have been talking about something else, but I was surprised at how well they were breathing together.
“““““Thank you for your consideration”””””
“Oh, yes.”
I don’t have time for this kind of thing, but at the same time, I think to myself, ‘I’m just getting on board.’
It’s not that I feel sorry for the children.
I just thought of myself as an orphan, so I had some kind of one-sided empathy for them. And now I felt a desire to help in any way I could, if I could.
It’s only until I get home…
“…Thank you very much.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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