Can moon cakes not be cakes？ can

Original Jian nei Wen chi huo institute

As the saying goes: "How rich the imagination is, how broad the chopping board is (no, I’m talking nonsense)." People put unlimited talents and creativity to full play, and only within a square inch, they created a wide variety of wonderful and rich regional food culture. The same is true for moon cakes.

01

Is this pie a moon cake?

/This mung bean cake is also a moon cake? /

Qinghai Dayuebing

Delingha in the morning, the air was cool early. Although it is only early autumn, the hurried pedestrians walking on the street have begun to have a strong desire to be surrounded by warm food in their hearts. As a result, when the nearby steamed bread shop began to calmly emit a series of long hot air, people always couldn’t help speeding up their pace.

Early in the morning, the steamed bread shop was filmed by Fan Beiying.

"Wife of shop-owner, how many minutes will it take to cook?" I stood by the steamer and looked around. The cages are stacked very high, one on top of the other, and the proprietress has to stand on the bench to open the top floor. Under the steamer, the invisible hot water is surging with all its strength, urging the hot air in the cage, trotting all the way and trying to "climb the stairs".

"Come on, get out of the pot!" After saying his word, the boss’s wife has set foot on the bench quickly.

"Wow," the eyes were white and foggy, just like when I was a child, the immortals in the TV series The Journey to the West were walking around. The top layer is steamed bread, white and plump, like a baby’s full arm; The second layer is a flower roll, and the dough is added with red yeast, pink and full of roses.

Shooting Fan Beiying with the Flower Roll with Red Monascus

"What else?"

"Moon cakes."

"Ah?"

I’ve eaten a lot of baked "naturally invited red" and "naturally invited white", and I’ve tasted a lot of frozen "ice skin", but it’s the first time I’ve heard of this moon cake steamed in a steamer. Just wondering, the proprietress opened the cage and revealed the "mystery".

The darker color in front is the moon cake shot by Fan Beiying.

"But … this, this is a moon cake?" I pointed to the same huge colored dough in the huge steamer and thought to myself: I do read few books, but I have a lot of meat. You can’t lie to me. What kind of moon cake is this? "The moon cakes in the wife of shop-owner’s mouth are also dyed red, and the flowers are blooming, as if they were laughing at my rarity.

"Then come first!" I stared at the huge "moon cake". It’s said to be a moon cake, but it’s as big as a European farmer’s bread. Great, the rations will be available for the next three days!

"The red one is monascus, and what is the green one?" I pointed to the colored part of the moon cake and asked.

"Sweet beans."

The huge Qinghai "Little Moon Cake" was shot by Fan Beiying.

Later, I found out that the Mid-Autumn moon cakes in Qinghai can be divided into big moon cakes and small moon cakes, both of which are made of steamer. Only one big moon cake is steamed in a steamer, and 4-8 small moon cakes can be steamed in a steamer according to the size of the steamer. When making, people grind bitter bean powder, red koji, turmeric, etc., which have both color and fragrance, as "pigments" respectively, then spread a layer of clear oil on the fermented rolled bread, sprinkle a kind of "pigment", then roll them up, knead them into round pieces, roll them out, spread the clear oil and add another kind of "pigment". Just three, four and five times, add the "pigment" layer by layer, and sometimes add powdered sugar such as brown sugar. Therefore, when you cut the steamed moon cakes, you will see ten or eight layers of moon cakes, which are not only colorful, but also fragrant and delicious.

There are many, many layers of big moon cakes.

Moon cakes in Fengzhen, Inner Mongolia

In fact, in addition to the big moon cakes made of dough in Qinghai, the moon cakes made in Fengzhen, Inner Mongolia also "subvert" our traditional impression. The taste and shape of Fengzhen moon cakes are closer to those of brown sugar-flavored shortcakes. The crust is brown, the outside is crisp and the inside is crisp, and the crack on the cake surface is as crisp as a flower, which makes you want to bite and chew. When you open it by hand, the cake stubble is dull and crisp, with the unique smell of oil, sugar and flour mixed and baked by fire. The cake crust will be embedded in the texture of the cake blank, and it will be ready to be eaten. Take a bite and it will be crisp, loose and soft. In my opinion, the moon cake in Fengzhen is the best of the cakes. A bowl of gruel and a moon cake in the morning is enough for me to get a happy day.

Fengzhen moon cake, tmall

Taiwan Province mung bean linden

In addition to the traditional moon cakes, there is also a special "moon cake" in Taiwan Province. It is mainly made of multi-layer pastry wrapped with mung bean paste.

In Taiwan Province, pure mung bean paste is called "mung bean paste (pèng)", crispy red bean paste with a whole salted egg yolk is called "egg yolk cake", and others are crispy taro paste and crispy jujube paste. Nowadays, there are also improved souffles with Japanese-style sweet potato stuffing.

Mung bean, wikipedia/Mimichung123

Korean "moon cake"

Looking abroad, coincidentally, in South Korea, people also have the habit of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. It’s just that the Korean "moon cake" is actually a kind of sweet jiaozi with glutinous rice wrapped in stuffing. Their skins are usually white, and some of them are colored by fruits and vegetables. The stuffing is mainly composed of red beans, sesame seeds and chestnuts. The wrapped "moon cakes" are all steamed in a steamer covered with pine needles, and when they come out of the pot, they naturally carry a faint fragrance of plants. Friends who have lived in Korea for a long time sincerely sigh: in the eyes of Koreans, everything can really be "rice cakes"!

Korean "moon cakes" are not round freeqration.

02

What exactly is a moon cake?

/Maybe there is no standard definition of moon cakes/

In fact, the standard of moon cakes, broadly speaking, is that there is no standard. In China, cakes that are eaten in season can be called "moon cakes". It doesn’t even matter whether it is a "cake" or not. Many times, the so-called "moon cake" is actually closer to "cake".

In other words, the so-called "moon cake" has nothing to do with a certain taste or a certain food. More often, it is a concept that is imperceptibly accepted and recognized by most people, just like "nation" and "country".

Moon cakes, worms, creativity

Although the word "cake" appeared long ago, the original intention of the cake was dough at first. Today, most moon cakes with baking as the mainstream production method are actually born out of Hu cakes-its production method is similar to sesame cakes. After the dough is pressed into a flat circle, it is baked to make it crispy.

Creativity of sesame seed cake and worm developed from Hu cake

The most common moon cakes on the market today are the following.

The first kind is crispy moon cakes. After fully mixing oil and flour and baking, the effect similar to fermentation can be obtained, which is porous, loose and crispy, similar to biscuits or cakes.

This kind of oil skin wrapping stuffing, which is the most traditional and extensive pastry practice, is only reserved in areas with little inconvenience in ancient land, such as Quzhou and Wenzhou in Zhejiang, Minhou in Fujian and so on. Among them, the most famous one is Yunnan leg moon cake.

From the origin of moon cakes, these crispy moon cakes may be the oldest remains in today’s moon cake pedigree.

Cloud-legged moon cake, worm creativity

The second kind belongs to shortbread. People roll pastry and water-oil skin in a complicated way, and after baking, they get layers of crisp cakes, which are made into crisp cakes with crumbs removed and slag melted in one bite. Because it is not easy to transport for a long distance, and it is easy to deteriorate, this kind of shortbread is often confined to a certain area. After meeting the local specialty fillings, its name changed to Su-style moon cakes, Hui-style moon cakes, Qin-style moon cakes, Ningbo moon cakes and Chaoshan Fang cakes …

In fact, except the choice of fillings is different from some production details, they are all born by one mother.

Chao shan ba bing gu tu chong creativity

The third kind is based on the above-mentioned oil cake, adding syrup and alkali. Syrup can color the crust, make the baked product with a beautiful brown-red color, and extend the shelf life.

Guangdong-style moon cakes are creative.

The cakes made in this way can often reach a ratio of 1 to 5 or even higher, which is beyond the reach of other kinds of moon cakes. Today, there is also a more widely known name-Cantonese moon cake. In fact, "Cantonese style" does not mean that it is only available in Guangzhou. Most of the moon cakes produced by standardization in various places are made on the basis of alkali peel. Its name may reflect the history that Guangzhou first contacted and introduced western baking pastry before the opening of the port in Qing Dynasty. It may also explain the inclusive relationship between Cantonese dim sum and alkaline moon cakes.

Nowadays, a popular five-kernel moon cake weighs a kilo of taoba.

Although the controversy about the taste of various moon cakes has never stopped, Cantonese-style moon cakes have become the standard of moon cakes in China by the middle of the Republic of China at the latest because of their online value, easy transportation and natural preservation.

After 1990s, Chinese had many new ideas based on the shape and texture of Cantonese-style moon cakes. Taiwan Province people, for example, put the "Taoshanpi" in Japanese and Chinese gooseberry into the stuffing of traditional table-top souffle, and invented the table-top Taoshanpi moon cake. Taoshan skin is a kind of delicate and soft cake skin made of white kidney bean paste mixed with milk and cream to replace flour skin.

Taoshanpi moon cake and bean fruit food network users love baby alone (.)

For example, in recent years, the ice-skinned moon cakes are popular. In order to show the glittering and translucent effect, glutinous rice flour is often used as the skin to wrap colorful fillings. Low-temperature freezing solidified the original soft-collapsed vermicelli, so that it also had a coating effect similar to that of alkali skin.

Ice-covered moon cakes are creative.

At the same time, due to the maturity of the logistics network, crispy moon cakes from all over the world, such as Suzhou-style fresh meat moon cakes, Yunnan’s flower cakes with cloud legs and Chaoshan’s fork cakes, which were not suitable for long-distance transportation in the past, have stepped out of their hometowns and entered an increasingly big world.

A small moon cake can give you a glimpse of the complexity and splendor of the world. It is better to set a flag: Keep striding around the world! See the scenery you have never seen before, and chew the moon cakes you don’t often eat.

Authors: Fan Beiying, Wei Shuihua,

Do you like moon cakes? What kind of moon cakes do you like best?

Original title: "Can moon cakes not be cakes? Sure！ 》

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