The rice cake is a traditional food of the Chinese nation and belongs to the seasonal food of the Lunar New Year. New year's cakes are steamed with sticky glutinous rice or rice flour. During the Spring Festival, many areas in China pay attention to eating new year's cakes. The article "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" published during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty recorded that Beijingers at that time would "eat millet cakes on the New Year's Day of the first month and celebrate the New Year's cakes".

Rice cakes are mostly made of glutinous rice flour, and glutinous rice is a specialty of Jiangnan, and it is mostly made of sticky millet in the north. This kind of millet hulled powder, after steamed with water, is yellow, sticky and sweet, and it is a delicious food for people in the Yellow River valley to celebrate the harvest. The production method is that glutinous rice flour is sieved with silk, and then added with water and honey to form a hard dough, and dates and chestnuts are attached to the dough, and then wrapped with bamboo leaves and steamed. This kind of glutinous rice cake has the characteristics of the Central Plains.