I Didn’t Lull You to Sleep Only for You to Be Obsessed With Me - Chapter 28

RP: Haebaragi_syk

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Chapter 15.1

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The day before leaving for the capital, April bought a lot of good-quality butter from the village. When Asher saw the large chunk, he showed interest.

“Why did you buy so much butter? Aren’t we leaving tomorrow?”

“I’m going to bake cookies. I want to give them to the villagers before we leave.”

“Can I help, too?”

“Would you like to?”

In the next moment, April took an extra apron and gently wrapped it around the child before putting on an apron and a headscarf for herself as well. They decided to first do the preparatory processing for the main ingredient of today’s cookies, which was walnuts.

Asher blinked and asked.

“What is preparatory processing*?”
[ T/N: The author actually use the word ‘전처리,’ which meant ‘preprocessing or pretreatment’ though it doesn’t really translate well and fit with the context, so I’ve changed the word to make it fit more! ]

“Nuts like walnuts are naturally encased in a hard shell.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yes. It would be difficult to crack the hard shell, right? So sometimes, we store just the inner kernel separately. Although the shell inside can go rancid and affects the taste.”

“What does rancidity mean?”

“Hmm.”

Even though she tried to explain at the height of a five-year-old’s understanding, she couldn’t think of the right words. Instead, she placed a small walnut into Asher’s mouth.

“How does it taste?”

“It’s nutty but slightly bitter.”

“Yeah? That bitterness is what happens when it goes rancid.”

“So, does preparation make that bitterness go away?”

“Okay. Let’s compare them in a little while.”

Finishing her words, April cut the walnuts into suitable sizes before boiling them in a pot. As the water boiled, foam appeared, causing the water to become murky.

Asher frowned.

“Eugh!”

“That’s the impurities coming out.”

After boiling for about two minutes, April rinsed the walnuts in cold water. This alone made the walnuts become much whiter than before.

“Now, I’ll bake these in the oven.”

As she spread the walnuts evenly on a large baking pan and placed them in the oven, the delightful aroma of roasting walnuts soon filled the air. After about fifteen minutes, she removed the pan, revealing beautifully toasted walnuts with a golden brown color. Then, choosing the prettiest piece, she blew on it to cool it down before placing it in Asher’s mouth. The child’s eyes widened as he chewed on the walnut.

“It’s savory!”

“No bitterness either, right?”

“Yes!”

That was the effect of the preparation. Even though you could eat them without doing it, if you wanted a cleaner flavor, it would be better to do the preparatory processing.

“Don’t eat too much. It might upset your stomach.”

April’s smile widened as she observed the child excitedly munching on the walnuts before she turned her attention to preparing the ingredients for the cookies they were about to make. Today’s cookies were inspired by the famous ‘Levain Bakery’ cookies from a New York street. As the first step, she retrieved cold butter from the refrigerator and cut it into small pieces, roughly the size of a little fingernail. Mixing in the sugar, she vigorously stirred the mixture with a spatula.

‘I wish I had an electric whisking machine…’

Suddenly, she thought about asking Claude for a favor as soon as they got to the capital.

‘Let’s ask him to introduce me to an alchemist.’

Setting up a cafe required various things, including a milk foam machine and an electric whisk… since he had offered to support the necessary items for the café, he might also help her find an alchemist, right?

‘Alchemists are quite expensive, but… it would be great if it works out. Otherwise, we’ll have to give up on the idea.’

Once a certain amount of butter and sugar were mixed, April incorporated the room-temperature eggs into the mixture. The next step involved adding flour, salt, and baking powder. And, of course, she took care to sift the flour before combining it.

With her sleeves rolled up, she firmly grasped the spatula and kneaded the dough.

The key was to lower the spatula straight down as if cutting through the dough.

Once everything was well mixed, she introduced the prepared walnuts and chocolate chips into the dough and completed the final mixing process.

Finally, the dough was complete.

‘Oh, I forgot something really important.’

April closed her eyes and prayed.

‘I hope all the villagers who eat these cookies are healthy and happy.’

Even though they rejected her as an outsider at first, in recent days, they had been warm and kind to her. She sincerely hoped that they would be happy and in good health.

Now, the dough was truly complete.

“Alright, Asher. Will you help sister from now on?”

After washing their hands clean, the two of them divided the dough into round balls and arranged them on a pre-buttered pan. They covered it with a clean cloth and allowed it to rest in the refrigerator for one hour before finally baking it in a preheated oven.

The sweet and nutty aroma of the cookies filled the kitchen as they baked. Once fully baked, they carefully moved the cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Asher stood by the cookies, trying to resist the temptation.

“Can I eat them now?”

“Not yet. There’s a lot of chocolate in them. The chocolate needs to be set, or the cookies will lose their shape.”

Still, the child couldn’t take his eyes off the cookies.

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