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Having made up her mind, Lin Yuan planned that next time she saw her eldest uncle, she would definitely have a good discussion with him about the things to pay attention to when planting soybeans.

While thinking about the soybean matter, Lin Yuan had already calmly finished cooking all the bean skins and had taken them out. The weather outside was just right. She tied a clean and sturdy string to the wall and used chopsticks to hang the spicy strips one by one on the string to dry.

Just when she was in the kitchen, these spicy strips had already half dried. If she let them dry for another half day, they should be ready.

Seizing this opportunity, Lin Yuan took out the small notebook she had used to write recipes and continued to list various pastries that Rice Flower Fragrance planned to sell.

Mooncakes were a must, except that they were highly seasonal and couldn’t be sold all the time. Therefore, she made some modifications to the mooncakes and converted them into wife cakes.

In fact, the fillings were the same, but the pastry was crispier, and with more oil added, it became easier to separate into layers.

Besides that, she also came up with two other series, one was the festive pastries used by wealthy families during joyous occasions, and the other was the pastries for mothers to enjoy during their postpartum confinement.

The fillings for these items weren’t much different from those of the mooncakes; they varied mainly in shape.

The festive pastries for joyous occasions were all round, and each pastry had a different pattern.

Some featured various auspicious blessings, some had silhouettes of the bride and groom, and others were symbols of happiness like roses—actually, they were China roses.

She had originally planned to find roses, but after searching many places, she found no authentic roses, so she had to make do with China roses, which looked similar.

In that era, people only appreciated flowers for their beauty and hadn’t considered the meanings they represented.

From this perspective, Lin Yuan deliberately assigned different meanings to various flowers, like roses representing romance, lilies representing a harmonious marriage, and orchids meaning ’I wait for you’.

She had already planned that on the opening day of Rice Flower Fragrance, she would place pots of blooming, dewy fresh flowers in every corner of the store and promote the meanings of these flowers. It was both refreshing and a great way to advertise her pastries.

As for the pastries for children’s full-moon celebrations, she made them even cuter.

The one she was most satisfied with was a set of animal pastries representing the twelve zodiac signs.

Later on, the Boss could choose the appropriate pastries for the child based on their zodiac sign, which would be very representative.

Apart from those two specialties, she designed many other snacks, like donkey-roll cakes she had made at home, popcorn, and of course, the Osmanthus Cake she made while competing with Master Wu at Fuman Building.

The Osmanthus Cake could be considered one of Lin Yuan’s signature skills, and she believed that once it was introduced, it would definitely become a signature pastry of Rice Flower Fragrance.

After listing everything in her notebook, she looked up and saw that the spicy strips outside were nearly done drying.

Lin Yuan smiled with pursed lips and spontaneously added the spicy strips to her notes.

Little did she expect that this impromptu addition, not part of her original plan, would become a wildly popular delicacy throughout the city.

After revising the list, Lin Yuan checked the spicy strips and, seeing that they were almost dry, began to prepare to fry them.

She put some oil in the pan and waited for it to heat up before adding minced ginger, crushed red pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and some sugar.

After sautéing until fragrant, she poured in soy sauce and half a bowl of water.

Once it came to a boil, she added the spicy strips and simmered them on low heat.

When the sauce in the pan was almost dry, she used chopsticks to carefully take out the spicy strips one by one.

Extra care was needed when picking out the spicy strips; one reason was to avoid breaking them and ruining their appearance, and the other was to make sure all spices were left in the large pot. If the spicy strips had spices sticking to them, it would affect the taste when eaten.