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#61 Baking Bread
🕑 Added 2021-03-13 12:00:55 +0000 UTCBaking bread is the current trend in our settlement.
We’ve been trying to bake it ever since we harvested wheat.
We already have a big oven in the kitchen, and as a matter of fact, we have everything else we need.
As a Japanese otherworlder, it’s a shame that I’m making bread first since rice is our staple food. I really want to grow rice as soon as possible.
Nonetheless, bread is still delicious.
That’s why all the residents are trying their hands at baking bread.
“Kneaaaaad.”
“Kneaaaaad.”
“Knead the bread dough.”
“Add a little water and kneaaaad.”
The ladies were all doing it rhythmically.
It seems bread also exists in this world because even Batemy and Belena who both come from ordinary families kneaded the dough as if they were used to it.
The mermaid princess, Platy, on the other hand, is struggling. Her entire face is white with wheat flour.
“Nghhhhh!”
I can’t even bear to look at Veil’s situation.
Her entire body is completely white, and the amount of wheat flour she used is less than required so the bread dough is all wobbly.
“Gaaaaah! A dragon like me can’t be bothered to do this trivial thing! Give me the finished product instead! I’ll just eat it!!!”
There’s no way I can allow you to do that.
If you know how much effort goes into every dish, it will taste even better.
“Everyone, the softness of the dough should be similar to an earlobe! Touch your earlobes and see how it compares.”
Squish, squish.
Squish, squish.
Squish, squish.
Squish, squish.
“Why is everyone touching my earlobe?!”
You’ve got your own pair, touch those instead!!!
Thanks to everyone’s flour-y hands, my earlobes are white as snow now!!!
“Maybe we can use our chests to compare the softness. Oh wait, Veil can’t do that.”
“Youuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!”
Busty Platy was teasing flat-chested Veil.
After kneading, the dough underwent several more steps before we put it in the oven to bake.
Soft and fluffy bread, complete!
Everyone gave the freshly baked bread a try.
“Good! So good!!!”
“The outside is crusty but the inside is so soft and fluffy!!!”
“Why is the bread made here taste so good?! We can’t even call this bread anymore! It’s something beyond it!!!”
It’s best eaten fresh out of the oven, after all.
You can eat it as it is without adding jam or butter.
It’s a hit with the ladies as well.
They say it’s completely different from the bread in this world as they devour it, but is it really that different?
Maybe it is.
Even I had the experience of buying and eating the bread of this world as emergency food on my way to this settlement, so I can understand.
The bread in this world can’t be called bread.
It’s more like hard-baked wheat flour.
I think it uses a different type of flour as one of its ingredients.
Along with the progression of history, various ingredients were tested with each other back in my world. Ultimately, it was established that wheat flour is the most suitable ingredient. But people here never bothered going through trial-and-error, and thus have always used the very first method they discovered. Which explains why cooking here doesn’t evolve at all. By the way, they also don’t use yeast to raise the dough, so it seems they simply toss the flour they kneaded with water into the oven.
Since we have Platy, a specialist in drug compounding, combined with my knowledge, “The Hand of Supremacy”, and prior experience producing miso, soy sauce, and malt, we were able to produce yeast with much more ease.
That’s how the wheat bread fermented with yeast became an instant hit.
We made a lot so we can have it for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Even if it gets cold over time, we can just turn it into toast.
Since we still haven’t made jam or butter, we garnished it with some leek miso. Surprisingly enough, it was also delicious.
While bread is nice, as Japanese, I’d still love to have some rice.
Rice.
I haven’t forgotten to offer rice balls to the god Hephaestus who blessed me with “The Hand of Supremacy.”
Food stocks have increased, a house has been built, and there are also a lot of people who will cooperate.
Is it time we start acting towards long-awaited rice cultivation?
Growing rice is not like any other plant because you need to irrigate water in the fields and watch over it as it grows.
And for that, we’d need a large amount of water.
At present, the water here is completely dependent on “The Hand of Supremacy” by turning saltwater into freshwater upon me touching it.
Because of this, we can replenish our water supply as many times as need, while getting salt as a by-product at the same time. However, now that the residents have increased and the lands that need sprinkling have expanded, relying on my ability alone is no longer practical.
Whether we will make paddy fields does not matter. We still need other ways to obtain water in large amounts. So, we’re creating a waterway that draws clean water into the settlement that can also be suitable for drinking. Then, we’ll be making paddy fields from that water.
I set my eyes on a new goal.
I’ve already selected the finest river to draw water from: An affluent two hours away from the settlement and opposite to Sensei’s dungeon.
Let’s dig a branched waterway from here and lead it back to the settlement!
We’ll make civil engineering pros out of the orc team who already excel in construction work as our land enters a new stage!
