Mille-feuille cake is a traditional Chinese snack, it is finely made, the cake body is soft, the layers are rich and clear, the colors are colorful, and the taste is sweet and delicious.
Millefeuille is a delicious Gangnam pastry, but in some places, this delicacy has more meaning. In Suichang County, Zhejiang Province, mille-feuille cake is a childhood delicacy that locals will never forget. For Suichang people, making mille-feuille cake is the basic skill of every household. The recipes of each household are not the same, only one raw material has won the general recognition of everyone, only by adding it, the mille-feuille cake can be regarded as the authentic Suichang flavor, it is the loofah leaf.
The raw materials for Suichang Mille-feuille cake are very simple: rice, loofah leaves, straw ash, brown sugar. The most tender loofah leaves in summer are the best raw materials, and the ash from straw stems is also indispensable. The mille-feuille cake is made up of turquoise and orange-red colors, and in addition to the rich aroma of rice, it also has the fragrance of loofah.
Today, let's take a look at the authentic Suichang mille-feuille cake recipe.
【Ingredients】
Rice, loofah leaves, straw ash, brown sugar, white sugar.
【Directions】
The rice is soaked overnight in ash juice.
Rice is soaked overnight in advance, or 6 to 8 hours in advance. Soaked rice absorbs enough water, making it easier to beat the delicate rice milk.
Ash juice water is straw ash soaked out of the water, drained impurities after soaking rice, because the straw ash contains alkaline substances, is the most primitive, natural alkaline water, it can make dry raw materials rise rapidly, soften the fiber, remove the sour taste of the dough, proper use can bring excellent color, aroma, taste, shape for food, in order to enhance people's appetite.
The rice is mixed with loofah leaves and sugar and beaten to make rice milk.
White sugar is to increase the sweetness of rice milk, colorless white sugar does not affect the color of loofah leaf water, is the best flavoring agent. Loofah leaf is the leaf of loofah, in addition, few people know that it is also a traditional Chinese medicine, with the effect of clearing heat, detoxification, hemostasis, and heat removal.
Brown sugar water soaked rice is beaten into rice milk.
Remember to make it separately from the previous rice syrup, or clean it after using the machine to prevent cross-coloring.
Brown sugar refers to the finished sugar of sugarcane with honey, which is juiced and concentrated to form honey. Brown sugar according to the crystalline particles are different, divided into piece sugar, brown sugar powder, bowl sugar, etc., because it has not been highly refined, almost contains all the components in the cane juice, in addition to the function of sugar, but also contains vitamins and trace elements, such as iron, zinc, manganese, chromium, etc., the nutritional content is much higher than white sugar.
Boil water, boil the water and put it into the steamer basket, spread a layer of gauze in the steamer basket, pour a layer of green rice milk, the thickness is about 1 to 2 mm.
Before steaming the rice milk, let the gauze in the steamer be thoroughly wet, which can prevent the rice milk from sticking to the gauze. It should be noted that the steamer must be placed as horizontally as possible, otherwise there may be uneven thickness of rice milk.
After about 8 minutes, pour in another color of rice milk, which is also 1 to 2 mm thick.
How to ensure the thickness of rice milk, this is a university question, it takes many times of practice to accumulate experience. The first time you do it, you can also choose a reliable method: first pour a small amount of rice milk, slowly add it, and then use a chopstick as a ruler to insert into the rice milk, and observe the approximate thickness.
After repeatedly adding rice milk, about 5 layers in total, cover and steam for about 30 minutes.
Before cooking, spread a layer of plastic wrap on the cutting board and brush it with cooking oil. The kitchen knife used to cut vegetables is also wrapped with a layer of plastic wrap and brushed with a layer of oil.
The cutting board and kitchen knife are wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent the mille-feuille cake from sticking to these two things. For the sake of safety, we will also choose to brush an extra thin layer of cooking oil, which can not only ensure non-sticking, but also add an extra flavor to the mille-feuille cake.
Mille-feuille cake comes out of the pot, places on a cutting board and let cool, then cut into small pieces and serve.
It is not easy to stick after cooling, it will be more tough, and it will be smooth to eat and taste good. But the older generation of Suichang people seem to prefer the hot mille-feuille cake that has just come out of the pot, and the hot mille-feuille cake tastes more fresh.
The sweet taste of mille-feuille cake rises in the air. After standing and cooling, cut into a suitably sized diamond shape with clear layers. With a gentle tear by hand, it can be uncovered, and the crystal layer can penetrate the light. Put it in your mouth and chew it carefully, and the rich sticky fragrance with a hint of sweetness instantly bursts open in your mouth.
Delicious food can always instantly pull people's memories back to childhood. For the Suichang people, mille-feuille cake is a delicacy with magical powers.