Golden cake is hawthorn cake, making golden cake began in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, is the traditional flavor of Beijing food. When the Empress Dowager Cixi loved to eat this, she sent someone out of the palace to buy hawthorn cake. Empress Dowager Cixi ate hawthorn cake from Taixing and thought it tasted good, but the name of hawthorn cake was not elegant, so she gave it the name of gold cake. At that time, there were two most famous gold cake stores in Beijing: Taixing No. and Fu Chuan Zhai, which had different ways of making hawthorn cake with their own specialties. Taixing number of gold cake to do when adding alum, gold cake color like rouge, bright and translucent, but generally put not day; Fuchuan Zhai's gold cake is to use ancestral secret recipe to do when not add alum, gold cake color golden, can eat until the day after the ambush. Although the two gold cake shopkeeper are surnamed Zhang, but people only call the Taixing number of gold cake Zhang. Not that Fuchuan Zhai's gold cake than the Taixing number of poor, but the Taixing number dipped in the light of the "old Buddha". Taixing gold cake production of gold cake and Xin Yuan Zhai sour plum soup, Tong Yi Zhai autumn pear cream is famous. "Taixing gold cake Zhuang" 1956 public-private partnership by the old boss Zhang Yuantai's nephew Zhang Zhongheng business, Zhang Zhongheng died in 1964 after the merger of Taixing gold cake Zhuang Mule City Qianmen Food Factory, later called Xuanwu Food Factory.

There are many varieties of gold cake: eight treasures gold cake, osmanthus honey cake, improved flower cake and crystal gold cake, etc., with different flavors, each with its own characteristics. Eight treasures gold cake that is to add a certain amount of dried fruit, fruit pulp, etc., beautiful appearance, eat up the unique flavor. Osmanthus honey cake is to add a little fresh osmanthus to the golden cake, the flavor is fragrant, mainly sweet, not very sour. Improved flower cake is the gold cake with molds made of various shapes, commonly found in the eight immortals, longevity, Sun monkey, the eight precepts, the Tang Monk and other legendary characters, such as the face of the general, but also exquisite. Crystal gold cake is unique, it is generally made of about 1 cm thick sheet, transparency is very strong, hold in the hand can clearly see the opposite side of the people and things.