Regarding how wet and cold Nanjing is in winter, various answers have long frightened the people of the north.
However, what you may not know is that those Nanjing people who immigrated to the north, while recalling to you a temperature outside the house in Nanjing in winter, they remembered the hot and sweet food and quietly swallowed a liter of saliva.
Plum blossom cake is a famous flavor snack in Jiangnan, which originated in the Ming Dynasty and developed into the most famous traditional cake snack in Jiangnan during the Qing Dynasty. According to legend, when the Qianlong Emperor descended jiangnan, he saw that it was shaped like a plum blossom and had an attractive color, so he gave it the name "plum blossom cake", which has been passed down to this day.
As soon as the weather is cold, the memories of Nanjing people about plum blossom cake will naturally emerge from their minds.
Many Nanjing people, when they saw plum blossom cakes selling when they were young, they would be immediately attracted and could not move a step.
▲This store is not large, but it can't stop many people from coming from all over the place.
That's because, first of all, the plum blossom cake looks very good, after all, the name of the family is there. Then watch the boss tinker in a special mold that looks like a pot for half a day, and then a pot of plum cake is good, the process is particularly interesting.
In Nanjing, as long as plum blossom cake is mentioned, the C debut must be "Zuo Master".
▲ Although the plum blossom cake is tangible, it is soft and sticky, and it is particularly hot when it first comes out of the pot, so it must be put in a paper cup to take it away.
Don't look at the plum blossom cake is a small piece, the production process is not simple at all, flour, bean paste, white sugar is the protagonist, small lantern, green and red fruit, pine nuts are accessories, and now it is a new jam, nuts and other more than a dozen different ingredients.
No wonder Qianlong Ye liked it! This reminds people of his unique aesthetic, plum blossom cake is simply a large bottle of glaze in the world of food.
Nanjing people who love food can't forget Matai Street, and Master Zuo has gone through several twists and turns, and finally settled here.
Compared with the rapid rise of various Internet celebrity shops in recent years, "Zuo Master" means a precipitation, but also represents a certain feeling.
▲ Walking in the wet and cold streets of Nanjing in winter, if you can take a steaming plum blossom cake in your hand and eat it while walking, it will make passers-by envious.
Although Matai Street has long ceased to be bustling in the past, the taste of Master Zuo's plum blossom cake has spread from here to far away.
It has been open for 32 years, and the business has been booming for 32 years. In addition to the regular customers who visit every day, many people are admiring, and even many foreign tourists will come according to the navigation.
▲Sure enough, we met a guest who came from Pukou to buy plum blossom cakes.
A layer of pulp is laid on the base, covered with a layer of delicate and delicious filling, sprinkled with a handful of red dates, a handful of raisins, and finally covered with a layer of soft and sticky pearl balls, which is the standard of each pot of "Left Master".
▲ What octopus balls, this ball and that ball, it seems that the method is to steal from the plum blossom cake here.
When Master Zuo arrived in Nanjing at the beginning of the 26-year-old, he wanted to make plum blossom cakes, so he went to Suzhou to find a very famous dim sum chef to study, and a few months later, he opened his first store in Nanjing.
Then, according to the taste habits of Nanjing people, Master Zuo lowered the sweetness a little, and then supplemented it with small lanterns, melon seeds, preserved fruits and other ingredients that Nanjing people liked. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that this store can be opened for 32 years.
▲Different flavors of plum blossom cake, the price is the same. The "friendly reminder" below the price list is not only intimate, but also catches people's appetite.
Master Zuo did not have the aesthetics of Qianlongye, and naturally could not make dozens or hundreds of flavors, and these four tastes had also experienced a long period of precipitation.
Unlike most pastries on the market, the plum blossom cake of the "Zuo Master" family, all the fillings are made by Zuo Fu himself, each of which is very delicate and not astringent at all.
The shape of each piece of plum blossom cake is wide and narrow, just like an enlarged plum blossom, put into a paper cup printed with the "Zuo Master" logo, Huang Chengcheng is hot, really beautiful and delicious.
▲ I can eat two plum blossom cakes that have just come out of the pot, first eat a bean paste filling, and then eat a purple potato filling. This picture is written by netizens @
The busiest time period in the store is generally from the afternoon when the children are out of school, spending 5 yuan to buy a plum blossom cake, several children chasing each other to run to the station, sweet in the mouth, sweet in the heart, and the future memories are also sweet.
In order to ensure that the plum blossom cake tastes good, it is usually necessary to wait until the last pot is about to sell out, and the master will start to make the second pot, and during peak hours, there is no rest for a moment.
For each pot of plum blossom cake, the chef holds aloft a copper pot so that the batter is evenly flattened. It is said that this long-handled copper pot weighs 60 pounds, which is a real "tough guy who lifts iron".
▲True ·" Lifting iron man"· Ben Han.
The most classic and best-selling in the store must be the "bean paste taste", after the improvement of the bean paste is no longer so sweet, but also more suitable for the taste of Nanjing people, often out of the pot within a few minutes is snatched up, the customer in the back can only spend seven or eight minutes waiting for the next pot.
In order to distinguish between different flavors, the hostess invented a good way to decorate them with fruit cherries:
"Yellow" is sesame, "red" is fruit (banana) flavor, "green" is purple potato flavor, and what is not embellished is bean paste. After understanding these "careful machines", small partners can also see at a glance whether there is a taste they want
▲The fruit cherries placed on the top of the plum blossom cake are actually marks, and different colors represent different tastes.
Shop Address: Matai Street Xincai Market No. 1 (Tongjia Lane Exit)
Business hours: 7:00-20:00
Transportation: Get off at Yunnan Road Station of Metro Line 4 and ride for 1.2 kilometers
Get off at Xuanwumen Station of Metro Line 1 and ride for 1 km