Let Me Ruffle Your Fur a Little

About an hour or so before the restaurant opens, Bai Yao, having nothing else to do, is coming up with a new dessert.

The restaurant’s dessert menu hasn’t changed in a long time – jiuniang tangyuan, matcha rolls, crème brûlée and chocolate profiteroles that children like.

Desserts aren’t Bai Yao’s specialty, and these four are the ones that Bai Yao already knows well, so he hasn’t tried his hand on new desserts for a long time. Still, he’s become a little tired of the same desserts over and over again. With the tourist season over, he’d have a bit more free time to research new recipes, just in time for the National Day holiday spree.

He has fresh blueberries in stock, and both cream and cream cheese. That’d be enough for him to try his hand at a blueberry cheese pudding. Bai Yao has a knack for cooking, and can learn a recipe after a few trial runs. His trials would never look too different from the stock completion photographs on the recipes he finds.

Qi Ya has teased him quite a few times for that.

Mu Mu’er is close by, watching Bai Yao make pudding while leaning on the counter. He’s quite excited by the looks of it.

Stir cream cheese and white sugar into a gelatinous mass in the bowl, while cooking blueberries on a low heat into a jam on the stove… The dessert is quite simple to make, but which also makes it challenging to be distinguished enough for a restaurant menu item.

Bai Yao allows Mu Mu’er to take all the spoons, bowls, spatula and butter knife for a lick after he’s finished using them. Seriously, is he caring for a boy or a yappy dog?

When he’s without things to lick, Mu Mu’er would stare right into the bowl. Bai Yao, defeated, gives him a small spoonful of the blueberry cream cheese mixture to put into the mouth.

It’s definitely not a pudding yet, but the taste is there. Cream cheese carries a slight sweetness, while the fullness isn’t overwhelming with the addition of light cream he’s using. The blueberry jam also gives it a fruity aroma. The dish would be quite suitable for the heat of summer.

Mu Mu’er has already licked the spoon clean, and would love more. Now he’s got his eyes on the bowl Bai Yao is mixing the cream in. One can imagine a line of drool going down Mu Mu’er’s mouth.

The pudding doesn’t become a pudding until thickened with gelatin. It’s more of a jam right now, not exactly appetising to the eye just yet.

Mu Mu’er is clearly quite hungry for more, though, so he gets another spoonful and is told to lick slowly… Only for Mu Mu’er to immediately stuff the whole spoon in his mouth as soon as he gets it. He blinks innocently at Bai Yao.

“Be patient. These are all Mu’er’s when they’re done,” Bai Yao is chuckling inside as he puts the tray into the fridge.

After half an hour, the pudding has solidified enough. Bai Yao carefully adds a dollop of cream onto each pudding, plus a piece of mint leaf for decoration.

Mu Mu’er is waiting next to him, looking right at the tray full of puddings. He’s already leaned his entire upper body on the counter, standing on tiptoes.

“Alright, it’s done,” Bai Yao puts the tweezers down and declares.

“Wow,” Mu Mu’er exclaims, but does not take it, instead waiting for Bai Yao to hand him one.

Bai Yao himself is not a fan of sweet food, and hasn’t planned on eating anything more than a sampling, but Mu Mu’er sees that Bai Yao isn’t eating, and immediately digs a big spoonful out of his pudding, and stuffs it right towards Bai Yao’s mouth.

“For Yaoyao.”

When Bai Yao eats it, he suddenly remembers this is Mu Mu’er’s spoon.

Of course, he’s not repulsed… He’s just wondering if this might be a little perverted on his part.

He’s just about to talk about it with Mu Mu’er when the boy, without pause, continues to use the spoon that Bai Yao just used to continue eating his pudding.

Bai Yao feels like he should probably say something to the happy pudding-consuming Mu Mu’er. After some deliberation, he slowly speaks up, “Yaoyao just ate with the spoon.”

“Mmhm,” Mu Mu’er nods, looking at his spoon, then back at Bai Yao, clearly not understanding what the fuss is.

Falling into thought, Mu Mu’er wonders why Bai Yao says so, and after some time, he gets it, and moves another spoonful towards him, “Yaoyao wants more?”

“… No.”

Oh well. The snow leopard and the sea otter are currently lost in translation.

The pudding was fine, but he finds the consistency a little bit much on the stiff side. He put too much gelatin in. He writes down in his notebook to try 8g of gelatine powder instead of 10g next time. He’ll need to make the dessert a few more times with new ingredients tomorrow or the day after.

“Yaoyao.”

Bai Yao is spinning his pen between his fingers, wondering what other fruity pudding might be vogue right now. He replies with a nonchalant ‘mm?’ to Mu Mu’er’s call.

The boy is tugging at his clothes, “Mu’er wants ma-ka-ron.”

The pen rolls between Bai Yao’s fingers a few more times before he remembers the food. Doing his best to stifle his laughter, he doesn’t correct his pronunciation, but asks, “who taught you that?”

Since Mu Mu’er has gained access to the Internet through his phone, he’s learned how to use Tiktok and Sina Weibo. He happened to see a dessert-making channel’s macarons one time.

He really, really wants to try the cute little spherical dessert, but he didn’t tell Bai Yao before, not wanting to appear greedy for food.

The boy has his phone right in his pocket, and he retrieves it, clicks the video open for Bai Yao.

“Yaoyao, make!”

Macarons are quite difficult to make among desserts. At least dozens of practice runs would be required.

Bai Yao glances at the phone. Great, Mu Mu’er is actually interested in this macaron in the shape of a sheep, adding to the difficulty. He’d need three different colours of batter, and can’t settle for simply using a piping bag to squeeze out a round shape. He’d have to squeeze each slick of fur out.

The little guy sure has lots of confidence in his cooking ability, huh.

Bai Yao studied the basics of cooking both Chinese and Western meals at school, before specialising in seafood in his later academic pursuits. He’s not remotely qualified to be a pâtissier.

He can make simple desserts by following recipes to the word, but macarons demand much more stringent precision than he’s confident with. Most importantly, if he does have to make the effort, he’d rather be working on a more nutritious, healthy food for Mu Mu’er than a good-looking but highly sugary and unhealthy dessert.

So he refuses, “Yaoyao doesn’t know how to.”

“Yaoyao can! Mu’er will help.”

Bai Yao chuckles. Looks like the little sea otter has become quite confident in his cooking abilities already.

Really, anything that’s remotely edible and he’s going to excitedly pounce and nibble on it, like he’s been starving for centuries.

Mu Mu’er is unhappy to be turned down, so he turns away, mumbling, “Mu’er will ask gege, gege can buy.”

Ah, the little scheming sea otter has learned to gather backup from Mu Yi.

The busy businessman maintains contact with Mu Mu’er on the phone every other day or so, and he’d always call if Mu Mu’er wasn’t calling as usual. He is mainly concerned about whether Bai Yao is treating him well.

Though every time it ends up simply being Mu Mu’er’s endless praise session for Bai Yao with a genuine tone.

Of course, sometimes he’d also call Bai Yao, and when that happens, the topic is still about Mu Mu’er. They might have a few sentences of small talk, but it’d switch to Mu’er soon enough.

“No, you can’t,” Bai Yao refuses again, and takes Mu Mu’er’s phone away, confiscating it, while U-turning on his earlier stance, “don’t buy it. Yaoyao will make it for you.”