These regional mooncakes are a bit magical. Which one have you tried？
The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, and moon cakes have become a must-have food for every household. When it comes to moon cakes, different regions have regional characteristics. In the north, there are old Beijing moon cakes, milk skin moon cakes in Inner Mongolia, and famous bridge pier moon cakes in Zhejiang and Yunnan ham moon cakes in the south. How much do you know about these local moon cakes?
Inner Mongolia milk skin moon cake
Milk skin moon cake is a unique moon cake in Inner Mongolia, with unique practices and exquisite materials. The crust is made of butter and flour, with thin crust and many fillings. The fillings are milk skins made of milk and baked. This kind of moon cake is rich in milk, sweet but not greasy, and many people who have tasted it say it tastes like the prairie.
Yunnan ham moon cake
The characteristic moon cake in Yunnan is ham moon cake, which is full of toughness and crispy skin. The filling material is Yunnan authentic Xuanwei ham, and sugar is added as auxiliary materials. The baked ham moon cake is salty, sweet and delicious, and has a unique taste.
Anhui Tu Moon Cake (Sesame)
In Shexian County, Anhui Province, there is a kind of earth moon cake baked by charcoal fire, which is very popular and also a local characteristic. This kind of moon cake belongs to the original ecological "earth moon cake", which consists of making ingredients, spreading skin by hand, filling and baking the stove.
Traditionally, the "earth moon cake" is filled with pure sesame seeds, added with white sugar and other auxiliary materials, and baked by charcoal fire. After being baked, the shell is thin and crisp, and the inside is wet, soft and crisp. Later, the local people also innovatively produced more than ten kinds of fillings such as walnuts, ginkgo and five kernels.
Beijing zilaiyong moon cake
Zilaihong is the representative of traditional Beijing-style moon cakes. According to legend, there was a plague in the ancient capital, and Chang ‘e ordered the Jade Rabbit to come down to earth to treat the people. Jade Rabbit is the famous male prostitute in Beijing. Male prostitute cured the people with red and white medicine and returned to the Moon Palace. The medicine evolved into natural white and natural red moon cakes. In terms of production technology, the dough with warm water is naturally white, and the dough with hot noodles is naturally red.
Different from the common moon cakes, the uninvited red lumps are not big, and the process of making them does not need to be pressed, and the shape is like a chubby little steamed bread. Usually matched with fillings such as walnut kernel, white melon kernel, green silk, sweet-scented osmanthus, rock sugar, etc., the brownish-red circle on the cake is only made of honey as a "magic water stamp", which has no color when poked, and a red stamp will appear after baking. The two eyes in the circle are for ventilation to prevent the cake from cracking during baking.
Zhejiang Qiaodun Moon Cake
Bridge pier moon cake is a traditional snack in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, named after its origin, Qiaopier Town, Cangnan County. Compared with moon cakes in the north, moon cakes on piers have three characteristics: first, most of them are as big as washbasins; Second, the stuffing is rich, and the main raw materials include peanuts, sesame seeds, longan, and ridged meat. Third, the oil and flour are blended, and it is made by baking at 260℃, which is oily but not greasy.
There is a saying about mooncakes on piers that "mooncakes should be shared". After the reward, the whole family sat around a table and cut it into pieces, which meant a reunion.
Beijing News reporter Liu Huan Wang Siwei Photography Zhang Mingxi
Editor Li Yan proofreads Li Ming.
Reporting/feedback