"Snowflakes fluttering, grandma cooking cake, big cage cake, small cage cake, white sugar cake, brown sugar cake, osmanthus cake, lotus cake, Daji Dali dragon cake..." Speaking of dragon tour, the food that cannot be avoided is the hair cake.
Longyou Fa Cake is a specialty of Longyou County, Zhejiang Province, a special pastry food during the Spring Festival, and a national geographical indication product of China. Longyou Hair Cake started with a long history, because of its unique flavor, exquisite production, and the harmonic sound of "Fugao", symbolizing auspiciousness, so it has become a holiday gift. During the Chinese New Year, every household steames cakes and uses them as snacks or gifts for relatives and friends.
According to the "Chronicle of Longyou County", the production of Longyou hair cake began in the Ming Dynasty in the 14th and 17th centuries, with a long history of more than 600 years, steaming hair cakes every household during the New Year's Festival, which is used as a snack or gifted to relatives and friends.
In Longyou, almost every household will make hair cakes, because hair cakes mean "Fu Gao", which forms a unique style in the folk. It is said that when the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty visited Jiangnan, he tasted the Longyou hair cake and praised the color, aroma, taste and shape of the hair cake. Since then, Longyou Fa Cake has been used as a tribute to the imperial court. It is still well-known in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
- Production Process -
In the abundance of products, "what to eat" is already a topic of conversation, and a food such as Fa Cake, which brings a soft and mellow taste experience, can highlight its unique charm. ”
——— "Zhejiang Recipe"
Longyoufa cake began in the Ming Dynasty, the traditional production process is very complicated, raw materials need to choose the best glutinous rice, lard, sugar, lees, etc., after water immersion, bleaching, grinding, dehydration, mixing into lard sugar, steam, fermentation and other dozens of processes from the material to the finished product each step pay attention to meticulous, patient.
The steamer basket is washed, the cut rice dumpling leaves are placed in a special steamer basket, and the steamer basket is laid on the steamer basket in turn, then the pork fat is put into a hot pot and slowly simmered, waiting for the ingredients of the lard; finally, the other prepared ingredients and the ground glutinous rice powder are gently kneaded.
The kneaded dough is placed in a gauze-padded pot in turn, and the unleavened hair cake should be gently pressed and flattened. Making a fire, boiling water, when the steamer fog rises is the process of cake fermentation, take care of whether the heating of the cage is uniform, it takes half a day to wait for the good news of fermentation
When the hour comes, we can re-ignite the fire, put it into the steamer basket, and in an hour they can sprout like spring, expanding and emitting heat in front of us.
Fragrant and delicious, full of elasticity, this is the product of our Zhejiang Longyou heritage for more than 600 years
The article is still clearly described, but in the process of production, the attention paid to it can not only be conveyed by the eyebrows, but also needs to be skilled in grasping the heat during steaming, the meticulousness of the glutinous rice when taking materials, but how to judge the taste of the material, these experiences are all recorded in the footsteps of this history.
The hair cake outside the steamer, the aroma of rice dumplings and glutinous rice between each pore is intertwined, and each piece is white and smooth, and the snow white is soft.
If you taste a bite, there is a sweet taste plus the warmth of the hot pot just out of your tongue blooming, the taste is fragrant, both soft and chewy, like an old saying "jade food is in the mouth, this cake is unique"
© Dragon Tour Cake
In fact, the process and method of making hair cakes in different regions of Zhejiang Province are also different, like the Zhejiang Suichang hair cake known by Xiaobian, which is different from longyou hair cake in appearance, but it is also soaked through high-quality japonica rice.