(CCTV Finance "Is It True") Cake is a staple food that we eat every day, often eating shortbread, flapjacks, pancakes, filling cakes, mille-feuille cakes and so on. Although there are many types of cakes, the processing process is nothing more than oven baking or iron plate frying. However, some netizens on the Internet said that there is a kind of cake that is processed with stone.
Can you make bread on stones? This statement has aroused the curiosity of many netizens. In order to answer the questions of netizens, CCTV financial reporters decided to leave for Fenyang, Shanxi, to investigate the field.
Fenyang folk customs are very particular about diet, even home-cooked meals are also finely made, pasta is no exception, simple flour is processed by the women here into a variety of different pasta. So, can you find a cake made of stone here?
The reporter thinks that the very magical stone cake is very ordinary in the eyes of the local people, so this cake should not be particularly difficult to find. However, the reporter found a number of cake shops, some selling mooncakes, some selling shortbread, but did not find anyone who sold stone cakes. Isn't it said that stone cakes are common? Why can't I find it?
It turned out that it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the sales of mooncakes were very good, so in order to meet the demand, the boss suspended the processing of other cakes. Is the reporter going to come in vain this time?
The enthusiastic aunt told reporters that there are many farmers in the local countryside who will specially process stone cakes and send them to the county town to sell, and the reporter asked the aunt about the address of the family that processed the stone cakes, and followed the address to a small village called Jiajiazhuang.
Not far into the village, the reporter saw a small cart with the words "stone cake" written on it. Will you be able to find the stone cake this time?
The boss's surname is Guo, and he is a native of Fenyang. When the reporter went, the stone cakes in the store just ran out. Seeing that the reporter still did not believe that the cake could be processed with stones, Uncle Guo decided to process some stone cakes now, so that we can see it as a reality.
After the fire was ready, Uncle Guo took out the tools for making cakes. Inside this pot were some small stones, about the size of a finger, dark and round, glowing with oil. Uncle Guo said that when the stone reaches a temperature of about two hundred degrees Celsius, it can be done.
While waiting for the stone to heat up, Uncle Guo made noodles for stone cakes. According to a certain proportion, the hair noodles and baking soda are neutralized, and three pounds of oil are put on ten pounds of noodles.
Under the action of sesame oil, and the dough that comes out is golden yellow. Then the large pieces of noodles are rolled into a small uniform dough, commonly known as the next agent. At this time, the small stones in the iron chain have also been heated. How exactly is the stone cake made?
Uncle Guo said that after rolling out the dough, you can put it away, press the stone on the cake, the fire up and down does not have to churn back and forth, two or three minutes can come out of one.
It turned out that the bread was to be buried in a pile of stones. Uncle Guo said that the cake can be cooked in two minutes, which makes the reporter feel both curious and looking forward to it. Although the dough is rolled thin, it is not as thin as a pancake, can it really be cooked in two minutes?
After looking for half a day, the reporter finally saw the real body of the stone cake. From the surface, the stone cake is golden in color, uneven on both sides, potholed, and the shape is slightly vicissitudes. It smells fragrant and crispy to eat, and the flavor is full of flavor. Less of Ichijing's ingredients and multiple flavors, and more of a homely and peaceful taste.
Uncle Guo said that there was an endless stream of people who came to buy stone cakes. Often this side has just rolled out the dough, and the other side has to get the pot.
Uncle Guo told reporters that since ancient times, Fenyang people have paid great attention to etiquette, and they will never go to visit relatives and friends empty-handed. In the old days, the people's life was poor and the materials were poor, the stone cake work was relatively complicated, it was not the staple food that the people often ate, and it had the advantages of long preservation, rich nutrition and good digestion, so it became the first choice for visiting relatives and friends to give gifts, and has continued to this day.
So how did this stone cake come about?
Wang Xiliang, vice president of the Folklore Society of Fenyang City, Shanxi Province: "At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were two royal palaces in Fenyang, and the people in the palace were very particular, and this stone cake was relatively complex in its production process, so I think there is a possibility that this practice came from the palace, and then I think it is related to the fenyang merchants, fenyang people are good at business, especially in this Ming and Qing dynasty stone cake is a very good dry food, because it is very light and thin, but it has a large capacity. Twenty days a month can't be bad."
Experts told reporters that the emergence of stone cooking is very ancient. Stone cake is called "living fossil" because of the inheritance of ancient cooking techniques. In the current era of such advanced technology, stone cake still retains this ancient processing method.
So, compared to other cake making methods, what are the benefits of stone processing?
Beijing Jiaotong University Physics Demonstration and Exploration Laboratory Dr. Chen Zheng: "The specific heat of iron is relatively small, it heats up very quickly, when you add the stone, the specific heat of the stone is relatively large, it will conduct heat slightly slower, it will play a buffering role, so that the heat can be transmitted to the dough cake relatively slowly and evenly."