Watching the cake batter rise bit by bit under the warm yellow light of the oven, Lin Chen nodded in satisfaction and turned back around.
"The cake base is done. Next, we need to make the filling for the middle and the coating for the outside."
"Before we even start—back when we're buying the ingredients—we have to be clear on what the main flavor of this dessert will be. Only then can we pair it with other flavors."
"For example, with the one I'm making, the primary flavor is definitely chocolate—and a rich chocolate at that. With that as the foundation, adding any kind of fruit would be pointless. The fresh sweetness of the fruit would be completely overwhelmed by the heavy sweetness of the chocolate. It would also dilute the richness of the chocolate, which is not what we want."
"But we're making a Great Xia-style chocolate cake, not an American-style one. That means we can't be as over-the-top with the sweetness and richness. We need to make it as light as possible."
