China's food culture has a long history. As a part of Chinese catering, China dim sum, through the long-term practice of Chinese working people, especially the inheritance and development of dim sum chefs, has more and more varieties of dim sum, such as buns, dumplings, cakes, balls, rolls, cakes, crisp strips, frozen, rice and porridge. After thousands of years of creation by pastry chefs, their basic forms are also colorful and lifelike, such as geometric, pictographic and natural shapes.

Baked foods are imported from the West. Although they are convenient to eat and rich in nutrition, they are still slightly inferior to China dim sum in terms of shape. And we China producers who are engaged in baked goods, why can't we learn from the essence of our own country in this respect? The following is an article excerpted by our editor in Pastry Technology for the sharing of baking colleagues.

1. Shape of dim sum

1. Breads

Breads mainly refer to all kinds of steamed buns, which belong to fermented dough. There are many kinds of patterns, which are divided into big bags and small bags according to the degree of fermentation. According to the shape, it is divided into: pleated bags such as three-ding buns and steamed buns; Fancy bags, such as: Shoutao bag, goldfish bag, etc. Seamless packages, such as sugar packages, crystal packages, etc.

2. Dumplings

Dumplings are an important form of pastry in China, and their shapes are: wooden fish, such as dumplings and wonton; Crescent-shaped, such as steamed dumplings, pot stickers, dumplings, etc. Comb back shape, such as shrimp dumplings; The horn is shaped like a pot sticker; The bird's head is shaped like a small wonton; There are other pictographic varieties, such as fancy steamed dumplings. According to its materials, there are: water dumplings, such as dumplings, steamed dumplings, pot stickers; Oily dumplings, such as curry crisp dumplings, eyebrow dumplings, etc.; Others such as shrimp dumplings with noodles, steamed dumplings with corn flour, red and white jiaozi made of rice flour, etc.

3. Cakes

Cakes are mainly made of rice, flour and eggs. Rice flour cakes include: loose cakes, such as five-color small round muffins and red bean lard muffins; Sticky cakes, such as lard and sugar rice cakes, rose and honey cakes, etc. Fermented cakes, such as Lunjiao cakes and cotton cakes. Flour cakes include thousand-layer oil cakes and bee sugar cakes. Cakes include clear cakes and fancy cakes. There are also cakes made of fruits, dried fruits, miscellaneous grains and vegetables, such as yam cakes, water chestnut cake cakes, chestnut cakes and peanut cakes.

4. Pastry

Pastry is often called cake dough with rice flour as the main raw material, and it is mostly spherical. Varieties are: raw dough balls, such as dumplings, pigeon balls and so on; Cooked dumplings, such as double stuffing dumplings. There are other varieties such as dumplings with fruit stuffing and hemp balls.

5. rolls

have a wide range of materials and many varieties. Varieties are: yeast rolls, which can be divided into flower rolls, such as sixi rolls, butterfly rolls, chrysanthemum rolls, etc. Folding rolls, such as pig's paw rolls and lotus leaf rolls; Cut rolls, such as silver rolls and shredded chicken rolls. Rice (powder) rolls, such as: Ruyi sesame cold rolls, etc. Cake rolls, if you roll cakes with sauce, etc. Crispy rolls, such as crispy rolls made of olive kernels. Cake rolls, such as sesame milk rolls. There are other special varieties such as spring rolls.

6. Cake

Cake is one of the varieties with a long history in China. According to the different skins, it can be divided into: water cakes, such as pancakes and clear oil cakes; Yeast cakes, such as Huangqiao sesame seed cake and distiller's grains cake; Crispy cakes, such as onion crisp cakes and Soviet-style moon cakes; Others include fried rice cakes made of rice flour, pot cakes made of egg noodles, water chestnut cakes made of miscellaneous grains of fruits and vegetables, sweet-scented osmanthus millet cakes and so on.

7. Crisps

Crisps are mostly oil-water pastry. According to the way of expression, there are: Ming crisp, such as mandarin duck butter, Xuan crisp, lotus root crisp and so on; Dark cakes, such as double sesame cakes; Semi-dark crisp, such as apple crisp. There are other kinds of mixed crisp, such as peach crisp, lotus seed paste and manna crisp.

8. Stripes

Stripes mainly refer to strip-shaped pastry such as noodles and rice noodles. Noodles include: noodles with sauce, such as Dandan Noodles, Zhajiang Noodles, noodles with gravy, etc. Noodle soup, such as clear noodle soup, colorful noodle soup, etc. Fried noodles, such as vegetarian fried noodles, yifu noodles, etc.; Other varieties include cold noodles, braised noodles and Huimian Noodles. Fried dough sticks and rice noodles crossing the bridge in Yunnan also belong to strip products.

9. Rice

Rice is the staple food of our people, especially southerners. It can be divided into ordinary rice and fancy rice. Ordinary rice can be divided into steamed rice and braised rice, while fancy rice can be divided into fried rice, mixed rice, vegetable rice and eight-treasure rice.

11. porridge

porridge is also one of the staple foods of the broad masses of people in China, and it can be divided into ordinary porridge and fancy porridge. Ordinary porridge is divided into boiled porridge and braised porridge. Fancy porridge can be divided into sweet porridge, such as mung bean porridge and Laba porridge. Salty porridge, such as fish porridge, preserved egg porridge, etc.

11. Frozen products

Frozen products are seasonal varieties in summer, with sweets as the main ingredients, such as watermelon jelly and almond tofu.

12. Other categories

In addition to the pastry forms mentioned above, there are also some common varieties such as steamed bread, twisted dough, zongzi and Shaomai, which are also popular among people.

II. Appearance characteristics of pastry

There are many kinds of pastry shapes in China, and different varieties have different shapes. Even if the same variety, different regions and different flavor schools are ever-changing, the shapes are realistic. But on the whole, the appearance of pastry has certain characteristics, which can be summarized as follows.

1. What form

Geometric form is the basis of plastic arts. Geometric shape is widely used in pastry modeling, which is made by imitating various geometric shapes in life. Geometry can be divided into single geometry and combined geometry. The geometric shape of the monomer is like the round shape of glutinous rice balls and lotus root starch dumplings; The triangle and trapezoid of zongzi; The square of the square cake; The rectangle of the pot cake; The diamond shape of Melaleuca oil cake, etc. The three-dimensional decorated cake is composed of several geometric bodies of different sizes, and combined with various decorated shapes to form a beautiful three-dimensional shape. Generally speaking, this kind of cake belongs to combined geometry.

2. Pictographs

Pictographs can be divided into plant-like shapes and animal-like shapes.

(1). Imitation of plant shape

This is a common shape in pastry making, especially some fancy pastry, which pays attention to shape and often imitates plants in nature, such as flowers, such as Chinese rose and peony flowers in boat spots; Lotus crisp, lily crisp and begonia crisp in crispy products; Orchid dumplings, plum dumplings, etc. in water-mixed products also imitate fruits, such as pomegranate buns, peach buns, gourd buns, etc. in leavened noodles, while there are more in boat dishes: persimmons, Sydney, grapes, oranges, apples, etc. Imitating vegetables are: green pepper, radish, broad bean, peanut and so on.

(2). Animal-like shape

Animal-like shape is also a relatively extensive shape, such as hedgehog bag, goldfish bag, bat clip, butterfly clip, etc. Dragonfly dumplings, swallow dumplings, cicada dumplings, pigeon dumplings, etc. There are even more boat spots, such as goldfish, rabbit, chick, bluebird, goose and white pig. These are all animal-like noodles.

3. Natural form

The natural form is an irregular form formed by ripening dim sum with simple modelling technique, such as flowering steamed bread, which naturally "blooms" after steaming. Others, such as smiling, palace peach crisp, honeycomb yolk horn, hibiscus pearl cake, etc., are also naturally formed in the mature process.

3. Requirements for the shape of pastry

In China, there are three kinds of pastry forming methods: manual forming, impression forming and machine forming, but in reality, it is still mainly manual forming, and it is molded into various shapes by the skillful hands of pastry chefs.

a series of operation skills and technological processes in pastry modeling should focus on the purpose of eating and stimulating appetite. First, it is delicious, and then it is beautiful, which can not only satisfy people's desire for food, but also make people feel beautiful. However, the pastry, which is mainly delicious, also has specific forms as its support. Therefore, the requirements of pastry shape are mainly manifested in the following aspects.

1. Try to be simple and natural in modeling

When we make pastry, we should try to be simple and lively, and develop towards abstraction. On the one hand, because the primary purpose of making pasta is to eat, not to watch; On the other hand, it pays too much attention to realism, costs a lot of money and labor, and food is easily contaminated, which does not meet the needs of modern fast-paced life. Concise, lively and natural, which can not only satisfy the appetite, but also be hygienic, is the pursuit direction, and the tedious decoration and deliberate realism should be resolutely abandoned.

2. Pay attention to vivid images

The shape of Chinese pastry is mainly expressed in dough and crust. Pastry chefs have always been good at making flowers, birds, animals, fish, insects, melons and fruits with different shapes, which has increased the appeal and edible value of pastry. Pasta with good taste and shape can not only give people artistic enjoyment, but also create better economic benefits.

The selection of theme for pastry modeling should be combined with time factors and environmental awareness, and it is better to use objects that people like and have simple images. Such as goldfish, white rabbits, jade geese, butterflies, mandarin ducks and so on. We should be good at grasping the main characteristics of objects and extracting artistic modeling suitable for pastry modeling characteristics from life. By using ellipsis, exaggeration, deformation, addition and geometry, we can not only create vivid noodles, but also be concise and quick. For example, the rose used for decoration in the cake is often omitted to a few petals, but it still does not lose the characteristics of the rose; "Goldfish Dumpling" focuses on exaggerating goldfish eyes and fish tails, which is more vivid. "Butterfly Roll" deals with the complex patterns on butterflies into symmetrical geometric shapes, which is vivid and simple.