Osmanthus cake

Overview

It is said that during the Ming Dynasty, a hawker named Liu Jixiang in Xindu was inspired by the story of the Toad Palace to win laurels. He squeezed out the bitter water from the picked fresh osmanthus and steamed it with rice flour and glutinous rice flour to make an osmanthus cake that is as white as jade, sweet and refreshing, delicate and scummy, and rich in cinnamon fragrance. It is loved by the public. We also have such cakes here, but their names are more popular, called sponge cakes. The most famous one is Double Ninth Cake. The names are different, but the method is similar - mix rice flour and glutinous rice flour, add water and knead into coarse particles, sift into loose wet rice flour, place fillings such as bean paste in the middle, and decorate the surface with osmanthus or red dates, walnuts and other nuts. It tastes sweet and soft. When the sweet-scented osmanthus was just blooming, I picked some fresh sweet-scented osmanthus to make sweet-scented osmanthus syrup. In addition to soaking it in water to drink, of course I also had to make some cinnamon-rich snacks, so I made this sweet-scented osmanthus cake. The recipe of my sweet-scented osmanthus cake is slightly different from the popular recipes on the Internet. The proportion of glutinous rice flour is larger, and I prefer the soft and glutinous texture.

Tags

• pastries
• afternoon tea
• clear water
• glutinous rice flour
• japonica rice noodles
• osmanthus syrup
• red bean paste
• white sugar

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 Weigh your ingredients.

   

2. 2 Pour the white sugar into the water and stir until the sugar dissolves.

   

3. 3 Put the bean paste in a plastic bag and roll it into a square bean paste piece that is larger than the steamer. Place it in the refrigerator to freeze hard, then use the mouth of the steamer to cut out a round bean paste piece and freeze it for later use. This step is best done in advance.

   

4. 4 Mix japonica rice flour and glutinous rice flour in a large bowl, stir while adding sugar water, and knead with your hands into coarse particles as shown in the picture.

   

5. 5 Find a coarser sieve and use a spatula or spoon to sift the rice flour particles into a loose powder.

   

6. 6 Place a piece of wet gauze in the steamer and fit it flat. Pour the sifted rice flour into the steamer. The height should be about half of the depth of the steamer. Use a brush to lightly brush the surface. Key point: Be gentle and don’t press the powder.

   

7. 7 Gently cover the rice noodles with the bean paste discs.

   

8. 8 Then cover the bean paste slices with all the remaining rice noodles and lightly smooth the surface with a brush.

   

9. 9 Use tools such as a shovel and scraper to insert the sponge cake vertically downwards to the bottom to pre-divide the sponge cake. There are two advantages to doing this. First, the steam can pass through the gaps, heating is more uniform and matures faster; second, the pre-divided finished product is easier to divide or even does not need to be divided again.

   

10. 10 Cover the surface of the rice noodles with excess gauze, cover the steamer lid, put cold water in the pot, bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to medium heat and steam for about 20 minutes.

    

11. 11 Pour osmanthus syrup over the pan. Unmoulding is also very simple, just take out the gauze. If the gauze sticks to the cake and cannot be removed, just pour some cold water and it will be easy to remove.

    

12. 12 It is as white as jade, sweet and waxy, and rich in cinnamon. Please allow me to boast that it is more delicious than the Double Ninth Cake on Shuishuilou!