Before the Qing Dynasty, there was no oven in China, so how did you make cakes like Taosu Kousu?

There are many ways to make traditional Chinese cakes, and steaming and baking are the most commonly used methods.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Ma Teng, the secretariat of Xiliang, gave Cao Cao a box of shortbread. Cao Cao casually wrote the words "one crisp" on the box and put it on the desk. Yang Xiu came in and saw it, so he shared it with everyone. Cao Cao came back and asked why? Yang Xiu replied: "Premier, your box clearly says' One person is crisp'. How dare we disobey your orders? " Cao Cao and everyone laughed, but he hated Yang Xiu in his heart.

How did you make these soft pastry without a modern oven?

According to historical records, during the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were professional bakers and workshops in Chang 'an at that time, using baking methods and tools such as "pot", which is what we often call "hanging pot baking".

By the Song Dynasty, cakes with different tastes and tastes had been made by using techniques such as cake layering and caramel coloring.

Su Dongpo wrote in a poem that "small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crisp and stuffing".

This is how mooncakes or pastry are baked.

Besides using "cakes", there were ovens in ancient China, and the earliest ovens can be traced back to a long time ago.

Make a stove out of barrels or mounds, and put charcoal into it to make an oven. Open hearth furnaces and closed hearth furnaces are older, but they are generally only available in shops and large families.

For example, the Ceng Houyi bronze ice guide is a cultural relic unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi.

This kind of ice guide is used for important ceremonies or banquets of important guests. The bronze ice guide is a square bronze ice guide with a curved hook at the bottom, which is just inserted into the foot of the ice guide to keep it stable. There is a big gap between housing construction and Fang Zun. In summer, you can put ice cubes in it to cool the food, and in winter, you can put charcoal to heat the food. It is not only the earliest "refrigerator" but also the earliest "oven".

Needless to say, Osmanthus Jelly, mung bean cake, chestnut cake and water chestnut cake are soft and fragrant, crystal clear, chewed carefully, smooth and oily, soft and waxy, sweet but not greasy, and fragrant and delicious. Rice fragrance and oil fragrance are wrapped in the fragrance of various ingredients, which are delicious and layered, and glutinous rice fragrance is accompanied by coolness.

Most traditional cakes are not only delicious, but also have health-preserving effects. For example, yam cake can strengthen the spleen and tonify the kidney, mung bean cake can clear heat and detoxify, and egg yolk cake can clear lung heat, yin beauty. ...

Shi Tian's former residence, the ancestral home of Zhang Tianshi, is located in Longhu Mountain, Yingtan, Jiangxi Province with beautiful scenery and rich products. Every year after beginning of autumn, chefs in Shi Tian will choose the best glutinous rice, wheat, buckwheat and water from sacred springs at home, add honey planted in Longhu Mountain area, make cakes with auspicious Taoist patterns, put them in an iron pot, and slowly bake the stove with wet pine silk swept from the mountain, and check them repeatedly until the outside is burnt and the inside is tender. This is a healthy cake that Shi Tian used to entertain guests.

Qing dynasty woodcarving bagua cake mold

Shi Tian did not hesitate to spread the practice of shortbread. In Shangqing Town, Longhu Mountain, a small town with Taoist cultural characteristics in China, almost every household will make good health shortcakes.

Nowadays, although the Reading Crispy family has chosen modern baking equipment, the skill and ingenuity of baking healthy cakes with crispy outside and crisp inside have never changed.