The Eight Pieces of Beijing Palace Confectionery

All kinds of exquisite pastries, even if you do not love sweets, look also feel comfortable, and review the history of Chinese confectionery, can be traced back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, rumor has it that the generals at that time to treat the soldiers, is to issue some cakes, to show "a little bit of heart", and through the development of a long period of time, today's Chinese confectionery is divided into three schools of Beijing style, Canton style and Su style, "Beijing eight pieces" is the important representative of Beijing style confectionery. The three schools of thought are Beijing-style, Cantonese-style and Suzhou-style, "Beijing eight pieces" is an important representative of Beijing-style pastries, so let food culture for you to introduce, originating from the capital of the palace confectionery - Beijing eight pieces.

"Beijing eight pieces" is the peak level of the palace confectionery, the earliest only provided to the Qing dynasty royalty, and only the imperial chef of the Imperial Household Restaurant to understand the production of the mystery. With the passing of the dynasty, the secret recipe of the palace confectionery was spread to the people, and nowadays the old Beijingers should have eaten "Peking Eight Pieces" when they were children, and "Peking Eight Pieces" is also a good choice of gift for the guests of the family at the Chinese New Year.

Beijing eight pieces, as the name suggests, contains eight kinds of different shapes and flavors of Beijing pastries. They symbolize: fortune, wealth, longevity, happiness, prosperity, culture, auspiciousness, and auspiciousness, which elegantly and figuratively show the "eight" happy events in people's lives at that time. In the old days, the eight pieces of Beijing is the royal family in the major festivals and ceremonies to be placed on the table snacks, but also between them to give each other essential gifts.

Today's common "Beijing eight pieces", the most common is the "pastry eight pieces", but in fact this is the "Beijing eight pieces" in the category of the most low-grade. The traditional "big eight pieces" **** divided into the following eight kinds:

1, symbolizing the word of happiness, fortune cookies.

2, symbolizing the high officialdom and wealth of the master of the cake.

3. Shou Peach Cake which symbolizes longevity.

4, the square-shaped cakes with double "happy" characters.

5. There are silver ingot cakes, symbolizing wealth, which are filled with pretzel salt and salted pastry.

6. There is a roll cake that looks like a book, which is also filled with salt and pepper.

7. There is a chicken fat cake, which symbolizes "good fortune".

8. There are also jujube cakes, which may signify an early birth for young couples, and a male and female flower pairing.

"Small eight pieces" is made into a variety of fruit shapes, there are small peach, commonly known as longevity peach, small apricot, harmonic "lucky, happy", small pomegranate, pomegranate, "many children". Small apples, "peace and security", small walnuts, "and beautiful", small persimmons, "everything is as it should be", small oranges, jujube squares, etc. also have their own symbolism.

The "small eight pieces" are smaller and lighter than the "big eight pieces", and there are also wine skin "fine eight pieces", which are made of more delicate materials and are more finely crafted.

The big eight is 8 for a catty, square and round, square is not called square, called "Begonia pattern" (square for the square in the round, the corners are rounded corners of the corner of the corner of the corner is called the Begonia pattern), meaning "Jade Hall"; the small eight is carved out of a mold, 8 for half a catty, carved on the top of the wine skin "fine eight". 8 for half a catty, engraved with baskets, peaches, begonias, gourds, fish, silver ingots and other auspicious motifs

"Fine eight pieces" 8 is a catty, are created in three-dimensional modeling, such as cinnamon shape is "noble in the reunion", and pears must be paired with oranges, the combination out that "the reunion", the combination out that "the reunion".

The general characteristics of Beijing eight pieces are: white color (if you use soybean oil, vegetable oil and noodles, the skin color is slightly yellow), fluffy and soft texture, taste pure sweet, salty, in addition, respectively, there are wine, milk, jujube, soybean, as well as ZiNian incense and natural flowers, and so on.

Nowadays, the shape of the eight pieces has eight shapes, such as flat round, Ruyi, peach, apricot, cashew, jujube flower, lotus leaf, ovoid, etc., and the filling has eight kinds of roses, bananas, green plums, sugar, date paste, bean paste, bean paste, pepper and salt. This is a new layer of meaning of Beijing eight pieces.