Horse hoof cake, also known as "xiangbing", is a famous Han snack in Tong'an, Fujian, Jiangyin, Jiangsu, Fanzhi, Shanxi and other places.

Horseshoe cake is a shortbread baked by kneading flour with various materials. It was originally a palace food in the Tang Dynasty and later spread to the people. As the years go by, horseshoe cakes in various places have also evolved. Come up with different fillings, shapes and names.

Horseshoe cake is a traditional pastry in Jiangyin. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Zhenjiang pastry of the same name was imitated and improved into noodles. This product is made from fine flour and adzuki beans as raw materials, with nuts as auxiliary materials, and fermented glutinous rice. It gets its name because the finished product is thick around the edges and thin in the middle, resembling a horseshoe. Its characteristics are crisp, loose and soft, with good color, aroma and taste.

Horseshoe cake is a light food that you like to take when traveling, and it is also a gift for relatives and friends. It is a hot food, and the malt sugar is nutritious. It is fried with sesame and is a hot tonic for women during confinement.

Shanxi Fanzhi Horseshoe Cake, formerly known as "Plum Blossom Cake". In the past, the last step of production was to "throw" various pigments such as red, yellow, and green onto the surface through the holes of the Luo. Make the surface dotted with flowers, like thousands of plum blossoms blooming.

Rumor 1:

At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang usurped the throne and hunted down the descendants of Liu Xiu, while Liu Xiu fled for his life. When he fled to Fanzhi City, his pursuers followed closely. He hurriedly hid behind an old man selling "plum blossom cakes". The chasing soldiers and horses rushed past, knocking over the chopping board that the old man placed on the street, and the plum blossom cakes scattered on the ground were trampled to pieces. After the chasing soldiers passed by, the old man looked at the exhausted Liu Xiu and said: "No If it's dirty, just eat it!" Liu Xiu, who was so hungry, couldn't care less about the dirt. He picked up the plum blossom cake on the ground and devoured it. Later, Liu Xiu revived the Han Dynasty and founded the Eastern Han Dynasty. He also remembered the cakes that were trampled by horses.

Since I didn’t have time to ask more questions at the time, I decided to look for “horse hoof cake” based on the shape and taste in my memory. Later, craftsmen who made plum-blossom cakes simply used crescent knives to cut the plum-blossom cakes into small pieces shaped like horseshoes for sale, and adopted the imperial name "horseshoe cakes".

Rumor 2

Horseshoe cake was originally a palace food in the Tang Dynasty. According to legend, when the eldest grandson Queen, the first wife of King Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty, returned to her hometown of Shaanxi Province to visit relatives, she brought horseshoe cakes as a personal gift. The villagers were amazed after tasting it. With the Queen's consent, her parents' family sent a skilled person to learn the craftsmanship of making this delicacy from the accompanying royal chef, and it was later introduced to the people. The Tang Dynasty opened up the Fujian frontier, and this kind of palace beauty was introduced to southern Fujian with people who came south.

When making horseshoe cake, the cake is baked on the wall of the vertical furnace. The cake is horseshoe-shaped, so it is called. A poet from the Qing Dynasty wrote a poem in praise of horseshoe cake, "It still leaves traces on the surface, and it smells fragrant even if you don't step on flower hooves." This shows that it has a long history and is appreciated by poets and writers.

Ingredients:

Its raw materials are flour, sugar, malt, and lard; it is divided into puff pastry, stuffing and other production processes, and is kneaded and baked on the vertical furnace wall. . This kind of cake is crispy and has a sweet filling. It expands in volume after being brewed with boiling water, so it is also called "pao cake".

Raw material formula (make 200 pieces): 4.8kg white flour, 2.05kg soft white sugar, 25g yeast, 75g caramel, 10g 10g soybean oil, 1.95kg

Production method:

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1. Put the flour (1.8 kg) into the noodle pot, tear the yeast into pieces and put it in. Place the soft sugar (350g) and soybean oil (350g) on ??both sides of the flour, and pour in 500% boiling water. grams, mix and knead into oil-sugar dough. Then dissolve the sodium hydroxide (5 grams) with 25 grams of hot water and pour it in. Knead it vigorously repeatedly and cut it open for ventilation. After five or six minutes, it is still kneaded together to make about 3 kilograms of sugar-oil noodles. Dissolve sodium hydroxide (5g) with 25g of hot water and pour it into the noodle bowl, then add flour (3kg), soft sugar (1.6kg), soybean oil (1.5kg), mix, and knead well to make 6.2kg of sugar pastry. .

2. Roll the sugar-oiled noodles into long strips, pick them into 200 pieces (each weighing 15 grams), flatten them into round skins with thin sides and medium-thickness, and wrap each piece with sugar-oil pastry (31 g), pinch and close, flatten and roll into a pastry with a diameter of about 6.7 cm, then carve a horse's hoof print on the front of the pastry, dilute the caramel with 75 grams of hot water, and apply it on the surface of the pastry . When the barrel furnace is heated, apply a little water on the bottom of the pastry and stick it into the furnace (100 pieces can be pasted in each furnace), cover the mouth of the furnace with a water bowl, and bake over low heat.

After 4 minutes, take out the water bowl, sprinkle the soft white sugar (50g) into the fire, cover the water bowl (to prevent air leakage), plug the air vent of the barrel stove with a wet cloth, and simmer for about 3 minutes until the sugar smokes in the stove. When it dissipates and the heat comes out, take out the water bowl and take it out of the oven.

Product features: golden in color, soft and slightly crispy, sweet and mouth-filling, oily but not greasy.

Conclusion The charm of a city depends not only on its cultural heritage, but also on what kind of special food it has. The specialties of each place have different tastes. Some places are spicy, some are sweet... Local food can best reflect the historical and cultural connotation of a city.