Shaoxing people like to eat rice flour cake balls, according to the season or custom division - Qingming eat "Ai Cake", New Year eat "Rice Cake", Chongyang Ascend to eat "Chestnut Cake", Marriage "Dragon Phoenix Cake", Wish Shou "Shou Peach Cake", Baby Full Moon "Soup Cake Cake", Children Enter the School "Dingsheng Cake", Fresh Luohan Bean Market Has "Shi Fresh Cake" and "Bean Flower Cake", as well as "Black Cowpea (Black Bean) Cake", "Square Cake (Printing Cake)", "Pine Flower Mochi" and so on. Although these cake dumplings are delicious and inexpensive, they have a major disadvantage, that is, they are difficult to preserve and easy to spoil.
In order to make the perishable cake dumplings good to preserve, the clever Shaoxing people put the rice cake on a charcoal fire and baked it dry, so that it is stripped of moisture and becomes a dried cake. Later, in the production of dried cakes, Chinese herbal medicines were added as spices to increase the aroma of dried cakes and help digestion, which became the famous Shaoxing fragrant cake.
Because in the production of water mill rice noodles, osmanthus flowers, pine flowers, poria, sand kernels, white root, cloves and other Chinese medicinal materials are added, so that the fragrant cake is not only loose, crisp, fragrant and sweet, the preservation time becomes longer, but also has the effect of depressing, neutralizing, appetizing, and strengthening the spleen.
In the past, Shaoxing people who visited relatives and friends would bring some gifts as gifts, which were later introduced to the court as tributes. Shaoxing fragrant cake has a variety of varieties, including "Osmanthus Fragrant Cake", "Rose Qin Cake", "Seven StringEd Qin Cake", "Chao Wat Cake", "Chicken Bone Fragrant Cake", "Pepper and Salt Fragrant Cake", etc., the taste is great!
Shaoxing fragrant cake is also called gong cake, represented by Meng Damao fragrant cake created in the twelfth year of Qing Jiaqing (1807), which has a history of more than 200 years.
As a cake with unique local characteristics in Shaoxing, its shape is square, white and golden, the texture is delicate, and the entrance is crisp. Not only that, the origin of Shaoxing fragrant cake is not simple, it is said to be related to Lu Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals.
Legend has it that a long time ago, at the foot of Chenghuang Mountain on the west lake of Hangzhou, there lived a mother and son from Shaoxing, and neighbors called this son "Little Shaoxing".
"Xiao Shaoxing" is a hard-working and simple person, getting up to work every day before dawn, grinding rice noodles, steaming muffins, and then picking up burdens to sell along the street after dawn to live.
Hangzhou Spring Festival has always had mountaineering customs, which means "step by step to ascend". On the first day of the Chinese New Year, the City God Mountain was crowded with people, and seeing that only a small piece of broken muffin was left on sale, "Xiao Shaoxing" remembered that his mother had not yet eaten, so he left a piece of muffin to take back to his mother to eat.
On the way home, I saw an old man with white hair and silver beard on his head resting on a broken bowl and reaching out to beg passers-by. He saw that the old man was ragged, skinny, and very pitiful, and when his kindness grew, he felt a few pieces of copper money for him. Who knows, the old man refused to do it, as long as the broken muffin in the burden. "Xiao Shaoxing" hesitated for a moment, and then handed the piece of muffin cake that was originally left for his mother to the old man, who devoured it and ate it.
After returning home, he would inform his mother of the matter, and her mother was very much in favor of his approach. From then on, as long as "Xiao Shaoxing" saw the old man passing by the temple gate, he would give him a piece of muffin.
One day, "Xiao Shaoxing" was a little sullen when he delivered muffins to the old man, and when the old man saw the situation, he asked: "Seeing you today, what is the trouble?" ”
"Xiao Shaoxing" thought about it for a moment and then replied, "The rainy days have seriously affected my business, and the muffins really can't be sold." My mother also fell seriously ill because she was reluctant to throw away the remaining muffins, and even ate the leftover cakes for several days. ”
After hearing this, the old man not only did not give relief, but laughed and said, "It was because of this time!" Don't worry, I have a good medicine to solve your worries. ”
After saying that, he took out a gourd from his arms and handed it to "Xiao Shaoxing": "The next time you make a muffin, put the medicine in the gourd into the muffin, and your mother will be fine if she eats it." "After saying that a strong wind blew through, the old man disappeared." Xiao Shaoxing "looked back and thought about it, and he knew that he was fortunate enough to meet the immortal." Thinking of the old man's broken bowl that was mouth-to-mouth, I suddenly thought that this person was not Shangxian Lu Dongbin. So hurriedly returned home according to the method pointed out by Lu Dongbin, poured out a little of the medicine in the gourd into the cake powder to make a cake blank, and then steamed it through with a high fire, and then arranged it on the shelf after cooling, and then placed the charcoal fire to bake the cake until golden brown.
Who knows, the baked muffins emit a strange fragrance. The old mother who was lying sick in bed smelled this strange fragrance, and immediately felt a sense of energy, and the hunger in her stomach was suddenly born, that is, she asked "Xiao Shaoxing" to take cakes for her to eat. After the old mother ate it, the next day the illness miraculously improved.
Since then, "Xiao Shaoxing" has been using this method to make muffins. This kind of muffin cake is fragrant, the pine is sweet and delicious, and it is loved by everyone, so the name of "fragrant cake" came into being. And because the fragrant cake is made by "Little Shaoxing", it is also called "Shaoxing Fragrant Cake".
It was a long time before people learned that the medicine put in the cake was actually a Chinese medicine - sand kernel. Sand kernel is warm, can rationalize the qi and broaden the chest, strengthen the spleen and stomach, enhance appetite, suitable for spleen and stomach stagnation and indigestion and other symptoms. The combination of medicine and food, this method of making food, may only be thought of by people who have a deeply devoted heart to things.
There are many ways to make Shaoxing muffins, but the more common one is the following -
raw material:
25 kg of japonica rice, 08 kg of white sugar, 10 g of sugar osmanthus flowers, 5 g of spices.
method:
1. Wash the rice first, soak it in water for 10-16 hours, and then grind it into a fine powder;
2. Mix fine rice flour with granulated sugar, let stand for 2-5 hours, let the sugar fully melt, and bake in an oven at 60°C-100°C for 3-5 minutes;
3. Remove and mix in the spices, steam in the mold for 30-40 minutes;
4. Take out and put it in an oven with a temperature of 80 °C-100 °C, bake for 12-15 minutes, let the water evaporate, and then bake at a temperature of 100 °C-120 °C for 6-8 minutes, turn the cake upside down, and bake for another 5-7 minutes.
In this way, a fresh, fragrant, sweet and crisp Shaoxing cake is made.