How to Make a Cake

After the lively lunch and sweets tasting, I returned to the kitchen. Things were going to be difficult from here on, since I didn't really know these recipes either. But I trusted Yoan to figure them out!

First and foremost, I wanted to make cake. When you think of a sweets specialty shop, you think of cake, right? There are all kinds of cakes, including shortcake, chocolate cake, cheesecake, and fruit tarts, but I wanted to start with the most basic one: shortcake.

It had to be strawberry shortcake! If I could make that in this world, I thought it would be incredibly moving. Fortunately, fruit was cultivated in this world, and I could buy fruit similar to what we had in Japan. That meant strawberries were available.

They were quite expensive, of course. But at least I didn't have to start by developing a new variety, and I was truly grateful that I could obtain them as long as I was willing to spend the money.

So strawberry shortcake should be possible.

With that decided, let's make shortcake first! Shortcake requires sponge cake and whipped cream. For now, those two things should be enough to make a cake.

The biggest problem was the sponge cake. It was similar to bread, but fluffier, softer, and sweeter, with a delicious melt-in-your-mouth texture. The question was, how was I supposed to make it...?

Hmm... I had managed to make pancakes, so the process should be similar. Eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and perhaps butter too. If I somehow mixed those together and baked them, I should be able to make sponge cake... probably. Or did it require some more unusual ingredient?

Aah! Why wasn't cooking my hobby!? I had only ever done the bare minimum! I had lived alone after entering university, but I had convenient meals from convenience stores and prepared foods from supermarkets. Whenever I did cook, I just grilled meat with yakiniku sauce or boiled pasta and mixed it with store-bought sauce... Japan really was an amazing country.

You could buy cake at a supermarket for just a few hundred yen. Convenience stores sold plenty of it too, and I used to buy their new sweets... In a world that convenient, it was only natural not to make things yourself.

In any case, I had to dredge up my memories of Mom occasionally making sweets!

If I remembered correctly... I had a vague feeling that she mixed something. She'd done the same for the whipped cream, but before that, when she made the batter, she'd mixed something very thoroughly. I had just remembered the name of the tool she used: a hand mixer.

I must have helped her when I was little... and if I remembered correctly, we had ended up with something white.

Then she mixed flour into that white stuff and baked it, right? Something like that, probably...

"Yoan, from here on, this will be research since we don't have a recipe yet, but I think we can make something delicious by using flour, milk, sugar, eggs, and butter to make a batter and then baking it in the oven. Something like the pancakes we made earlier, but fluffier, lighter, moister, sweeter, and so soft that it melts in your mouth. That's what I think we should be able to make, but I haven't succeeded yet..."

"Using the pancakes from earlier as a reference, we need something fluffier, lighter, moister, and sweeter..."

"That's right. To achieve that light, fluffy texture, I want to mix something light and fluffy into the flour, but I don't know how to make it."

"Something light and fluffy to mix into the flour..."

"Yes, something like the whipped cream we made earlier."

After I said that, Yoan seemed to be seriously thinking something over. A little while later, he spoke again.

"Indeed, if we mixed something fluffy into the pancake batter from earlier and baked it, the texture would change. For now, may I try mixing in whipped cream and baking it?"

Hmm, that sounded like the whipped cream would melt and turn into a disaster, but we might as well try it.

"Just try anything you can think of. It might also work if you used only the egg whites or only the egg yolks. Using just the yolks worked in a non-dessert dish before. I feel like egg whites can be used in sweets, but..."

"Egg whites, then. I'll try all sorts of things for now."

Yoan apparently decided to try adding flour to whipped cream and baking it, so he began beating the cream with all his might.

If you beat the cream hard enough, it became stiffer, so maybe this really was the right answer after all? I remembered it being white, too.

I thought about helping, but I would probably only get in Yoan's way, so I quietly watched. Yoan was very skillful and incredibly strong, making him well suited to making sweets. He could whip cream by hand at a speed I would never have thought possible.

Could it be that Yoan had the Body Enhancement attribute?

"Yoan, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but what attribute do you have?"

"I have a magic capacity of five in the Body Enhancement attribute. Did you notice that I've been using it?"

"No. I just noticed that, despite your strength, you don't seem tired at all even though you've been mixing this whole time."

"Cooking basically requires stamina, so this magic has been a great help to me."

"Didn't you ever think about becoming a soldier? Isn't the Body Enhancement attribute supposed to be an advantage?"

I remember hearing that anyone with a magic capacity of four or higher in the Body Enhancement attribute could become quite strong with training. Apparently, if you learned to strengthen specific parts of your body or boost your physical strength for only an instant, you could keep using it for long periods, and it worked well with a sword.

Body Enhancement can't be turned into a magic tool, but I feel it may become even more valuable once offensive magic tools are developed.

Although I had once managed to imbue a magic tool with Body Enhancement magic, it didn't activate at all, and my magic power just kept draining away.

Or maybe it did activate but simply had no effect. It didn't work even when I used it on myself, so it was completely useless as a magic tool.

"That's right. At first, I planned to become a soldier. I even took the exam and passed, but my family took me to a café to celebrate. I ate French toast there, and I was so moved by how delicious it was that I gave up on becoming a soldier and started working at that café that very day."

He had actually planned to become a soldier? His family must have had mixed feelings. They had taken him to a café to celebrate his passing the exam, only for him to announce that he was quitting to work there...

What a shocking turn of events.

"Your family didn't object?"

"No. My family is pretty laid-back and believes everyone should do what they like, so they just said, 'Do whatever you want.'"

"That's good to hear."

"Yes! We're still close, and I go back to my family's home sometimes. After I worked at the café for about five years, I told them that I had been hired by a noble household, and they held a celebration for me."

He'd worked at a café for five years. Come to think of it, how old was Yoan?

"By the way, how old are you, Yoan?"

"I'm twenty-two. I worked at the café for about five years after I turned fifteen, and I've been working for the Daligard baron's household for about two years."

"I see... Your family won't object to you working for a commoner, will they?"

"I think they'll be fine. I'll go home and tell them about it sometime soon."

"That's good. In that case, why don't we invite them to the shop once it's ready?"

"I'm afraid my family isn't wealthy enough to come to your shop, Leon-sama. Your shop will be intended for nobles, won't it?"

That was true... But they probably wanted to taste their son's desserts. It would be difficult for them to come to the shop, so perhaps it would be better to have Yoan take some home to them.

"In that case, why don't you take some sweets you've made to your family home? You wouldn't have the equipment or ingredients to make them there, right? If you broke some ice, wrapped it in cloth, and put it in a box with the sweets, they should keep for a few hours."

"Really!? My parents' home isn't that far from the central district. It's about an hour by shared carriage, so I think I could take them there."

"Then you should do that."

"Thank you! I'm sure they'll be incredibly happy."

"It's still a ways off, but I would like to open a shop for commoners too. When that happens, we'll have them come to the shop."

"Yes!"

Even as we talked, Yoan kept working, and eventually he produced a mixture by combining whipped cream with flour, eggs, butter, and milk.

He baked it, but the result was a complete failure. We still had a long way to go before achieving success.

"This isn't going to work."

"You're right... But a failure means we've learned that this method doesn't work. I'll definitely make delicious sweets!"

"Hehe... That's true. Let's keep working hard without giving up!"

"Yes!"

"I might not be able to come here again until the next Recovery Day, so until then, please continue your research as you did today. The ingredients will be delivered every day, so if there's anything you're missing, tell whoever delivers them. The message will reach me that way."

"Understood. I'll make as much progress as possible over the next week."

"Right. You can practice making cookies and pancakes too. If you think of anything else, try it out. If it tastes good, we'll add it to the menu."

"Yes. I'll do my best!"

And so, the first day of sweets research came to an end. We still had a long way to go, but we had managed to make whipped cream, so the results gave me at least a little hope.

I climbed into the carriage with a spring in my step and returned to the ducal household.