Zhejiang fragrant cake, which has long been known as "entering the Beijing fragrant cake", is square, white and browned, delicate in texture, crisp in the mouth, and sweet. Take a bite, that's called a good one!
Fragrant cake used to be called muffin cake, and there is still a difference between the current fragrant cake.
Legend has it that there lived a Shaoxing man surnamed Meng at the foot of the Chenghuang Mountain by the West Lake, and because of his young age, everyone called him Xiao Shaoxing. Xiao Shaoxing and his blind old mother depend on each other for their lives, selling muffins to survive. Xiao Shaoxing is very industrious, getting up every morning, grinding rice noodles, steaming pine cakes, and then picking up the cakes after dawn to sell along the line, and the days are tight.
On the first day of the Chinese New Year of this year, Hangzhou people who have the habit of climbing mountains during the Spring Festival to seek auspiciousness go to Chenghuang Mountain in groups of three or five to play. Because of the large number of people, Xiao Shaoxing's muffins sold quickly, and after a while, only a small piece of broken horn cake was sold. Xiao Shaoxing remembered that his mother had not yet eaten, so he left this piece of broken corner cake and prepared to take it back to his mother to eat.
When I walked to the City God Temple, I saw an old man with white hair and silver beard, his head resting on two broken bowls placed mouth-to-mouth, reaching out to beg him. At that time, Xiao Shaoxing did not know that this was Lü Dongbin. When he saw the old man in rags, skinny and bony, very pitiful, he felt sympathy and felt a few copper coins for the old man. Who knows that the old man does not want copper money, but he wants to ask for a piece of muffin to eat. Xiao Shaoxing took out the broken corner cake left for his mother and handed it to the old man. The old man ate it unceremoniously. In fact, this is Shangxian Lu Dongbin, because he saw the trouble in the world, he went down to see the situation.
After Xiao Shaoxing returned home, he told his mother about this matter, and her mother was very praised. Since then, Xiao Shaoxing walked through the temple gate every day, and as long as he saw the old man, he gave him a piece of muffin.
One day, the old man saw that Xiao Shaoxing was frowning, so he asked, "Do you have anything unsatisfactory?" ”
Xiao Shaoxing replied: "It has been raining for days, the business is light, and the muffins cannot be sold." My mother ate the leftover cake, got seriously ill, and did not think about tea and rice. ”
The old man listened to the mysterious laughter on his chin repeatedly: "Don't worry, I don't have any food to eat, I have good medicine." Saying, he took out a gourd from his arms and handed it to Xiao Shaoxing. When he was instructed to make a muffin, put the medicine in the gourd into the muffin, and his mother would get better after eating this cake. After speaking, a gust of wind rose and the old man disappeared. Xiao Shaoxing Fangzhi met the immortal, thought of the old man's broken bowl that was mouth-to-mouth, and suddenly realized that this was Lu Dongbin. So he happily returned home and made muffins according to the method pointed out by Lu Dongbin. He first poured out a little of the medicine in the gourd, put it into the cake powder, made a cake embryo, and put it on the fire to steam it thoroughly. After the cakes have cooled, they are then placed on the charcoal fire one by one and baked to a golden brown. The baked muffins give off a strange smell. The old mother who had been in the water rice for three days smelled this strange fragrance and suddenly felt hungry in her stomach, that is, she asked Xiao Shaoxing to bring the cake to eat. After the old mother ate the cake, the next day the illness was cured. Since then, Xiao Shaoxing has been using this method to make cakes.
Mint cake
Because of the strange aroma of this cake, the food is sweet and delicious, and everyone praises it. So I changed the name of the muffin cake to "Fragrant Cake". Because the fragrant cake is made by Xiao Shaoxing, it is also called "Shaoxing Fragrant Cake". Later, people understood that the medicine put in the cake turned out to be the sand kernel in the Chinese medicine. Sand kernel is warm, can rationalize the qi and wide chest, strengthen the spleen and stomach, enhance appetite, suitable for spleen and stomach stagnation and indigestion and other symptoms. As a curative food, fragrant cakes are more popular.