This year's postponed college entrance examination is about to arrive, remembering that when I went to Suzhou Zhenze Ancient Town to play, I found a Chinese-style cake in the local area: Dingsheng Cake, which is said to be in short supply during the annual college entrance examination season, and students and parents rush to buy it. Not only because the name of this pastry is pronounced "Dingsheng", which has the meaning of "step by step", which means auspiciousness; it also stems from the long-standing local tradition, in ancient times, people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, when they went to Beijing to catch the exam or sent troops to fight, had the tradition of eating Dingsheng cake in the hope of achieving meritorious fame and victory. Today, this pastry has become an intangible cultural heritage project in Wujiang District of Suzhou City, and has been featured in the third season of "China on the Tip of the Tongue", and its fame is even louder.
Zhenze Ancient Town is located in Wujiang District, Suzhou, belongs to the south of Taihu Lake, is a famous silk town, in recent years, tourism development has also been done well. At the entrance of Baota Street in the ancient town, this Renchang food is a century-old local restaurant that sells a variety of traditional pastries and snacks, and is very popular. We also happened to meet the boss in Renchang who was making Dingsheng cake, so we recorded the whole process, which turned out to be an ordinary pastry, but it was quite exquisite and complicated to make.
Glutinous rice and japonica rice are the most important raw materials for making Dingsheng cake, and it is necessary to grind these two kinds of rice into powder in advance, mix them according to a certain proportion, and then add water to mix the powder. Rice noodles are of course white, and the name of the cake is so auspicious, it is natural to dye a good color, and the clever Zhenze people add the local red amaranth juice to the water to use it for color, natural and healthy, and the taste is better.
These are the three accessories that are indispensable for making Dingsheng cake, as well as wooden molds. The accessories are rose petals, white sugar and diced sugar oil, which is washed and diced with the best pork plate oil, mixed with sugar, and marinated for several days, which is used as the filling of The Dingsheng cake. In the back of the wooden mold, there are 12 small cells on each mold, and the words "Dingsheng" or "Renchang" are at the bottom of each small box.
After adding the toner water, the rice noodles need to be stirred and evenly blended by hand in a large vat, and repeatedly kneaded to reduce agglomeration. Then filter it several times with a sieve to ensure that the rice noodles are fine and uniform. The dyed rice noodles turn a seductive pink, fresh and festive.
This is the rice noodles that have been filtered several times through the screen, and it does not look particularly delicate. It is said that at its strictest, three different mesh screens are used, and a total of nine filters are used to meet the requirements.
After filtering the rice noodles, add rose petals and white sugar, and stir well by hand in a large vat.
The reconciled rice noodles are finally going to enter the mold. Before starting, sprinkle a few rose petals in each small compartment of the mold, so that the petals that come out of the mold are on the front of the Cake. Still use a sieve to slowly filter the fine powder and sprinkle it evenly into the mold.
After filling half of the rice noodles in the small compartment of the mold, you need to add diced sugar oil to make the filling. In the process of putting rice noodles into the mold, it cannot be pressed by hand, and can only be sieved into the mold little by little, so as to ensure that the good Dingsheng cake is relatively soft.
After the mold compartment is sifted full of rice noodles, then use a scraper to gently scrape flat along the template, and then buckle the mold upside down on the mat, gently tap a few times on the mold, and the Dingsheng cake is formed, released from the mold, and then sent to the steamer basket, steamed and can be eaten. Such a complex process, all completed by hand, has as many as a dozen processes, which is very cumbersome.
This is a steamed Dingsheng cake with a faint rose fragrance and an attractive color. Let it cool down for a while before eating, the taste is better. The bite is soft, sweet and not greasy, and the aroma of glutinous rice and rose is addictive and indescribable. In fact, Dingsheng cake is not only zhenze, but in the production process, zhenze is the most delicate, so the taste is better. How, students who are preparing for the college entrance examination, do they also want to taste a good head?