Osmanthus cake

Osmanthus cake (Chinese: 桂花糕; Cantonese Yale: gwai fā gōu) is a traditional sweet-scented Chinese pastry made with glutinous rice flour, honey sweet-scented osmanthus and rock sugar.[1][2] It has crystal clear, sweet, and soft waxy characteristics.

Osmanthus cake

Characteristics of food

The appearance of the jelly is opaque and slightly translucent. The taste is often described as mildly sweet. It is a popular snack sold at street-vendors in Taiwan.

Food culture

Sweet-scented osmanthus cake originated in China during the Ming Dynasty. Though its exact origin is unclear, folk tales have it that the poet Yang Shen dreamed of visiting the moon in order to take the imperial exam. In the dream, he saw a magnificent palace and a huge and sweet-smelling osmanthus plant. He picked it and brought it back with him to earth. Toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, a peddler from Xindu named Liu Jixiang was inspired by this story to collect fresh osmanthus flowers. He extracted their essential oils, strained them over sugar and mixed them with glutinous rice to produce the familiar form of the sweet we know today. It is now a Xindu specialty.

See also

References
  1. Shiu-ying Hu (2005). Food Plants of China. Chinese University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-962-996-229-6.
  2. Autumn fragrance osmanthus oozes depth
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.