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June 23, 2016

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Traditional Chinese pastries

CHINESE pastries come in all shapes, colors, sizes and tastes, and it’s not an easy task to categorize the regional sweets or savory treats the same way Western cuisine does.

Original Chinese bakery houses like Daoxiangcun, Xinghualou or Kee Wah Bakery are now considered a time-honored “heritage” of Chinese culinary traditions.

Some bakeries not only sell the well-known biscuits, cakes and tarts, but also deli items like cooked meats or dishes like wontons, dumplings and steamed buns. To see how popular these treats are, just stop by the Xinghualou store on Fuzhou Road on a weekend morning and see how long the lines are.

Pastries are an indispensable part of the Chinese lifestyle. The Chinese cuisine has evolved significantly over the course of history and so have the traditional pastries.

Among the classic bakery labels that still thrive today is Daoxiangcun, the “emperor” of the Chinese pastry kingdom.

There are two Daoxiangcun trademarks in China: the 121-year-old Beijing Daoxiangcun and the 244-year-old Suzhou Daoxiangcun. The two companies are currently involved in court battle after one consumer mistakenly purchased the Suzhou company’s products in Beijing this March. Both companies have filed lawsuits for the sole ownership of the name.

But the name Daoxiangcun, which translates into “village with rice fragrance,” is also the name of the residence of Li Wan, the elder sister-in-law of Jia Baoyu in Cao Xueqin’s novel “Dream of the Red Chamber.”

The Suzhou Daoxiangcun originated in 1773 and now specializes in Suzhou-style pastries like mooncakes, victory cakes and sesame cakes with pine nuts and jujube filling. The company sells more than 100 types of traditional food including deli items like smoked fish.

The Beijing Daoxiangcun founded by Guo Yusheng in 1895 sells a wide variety of traditional Chinese pastries and deli food. They are especially known for the “ox tongue” pastry, which is a very flaky cake with sweet and salty sesame paste filling as well as the popular jujube flower pastry and mung bean tart.

In 1970s, both the Suzhou and Beijing Daoxiangcun were struggling and didn’t take notice of one another, until Beijing Daoxiangcun applied for the text trademark for dumplings in 1996, which started the controversies.

The fight for the Daoxiangcun trademark continued for over a decade as many consumers cannot tell the difference between the two brands.

The sweet treats

The fillings of Chinese pastries are thicker and denser while Western pastries often incorporate more cream-like fillings.

The most common filling is the red bean paste, which is red beans cooked with sugar until the water evaporates, leaving a dry paste that can be used in buns and cakes. The same method is applied to mung bean, which has a cooler taste.

The various bean pastes can also be used to make the exterior part of the pastries by wrapping other fillings like lily seed paste and then pressing it into molds.

Nuts are another main ingredient in making pastry fillings. The five nuts mooncake with walnuts, peanuts, pine nuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or almonds are very heavy and sweet.

Sesame paste has a strong and distinct aroma and is more common as pastry fillings in the northern provinces. Coconut paste is often used in cakes or breads, and is made of egg yolk, shredded coconut, butter and sugar.

The popular pineapple pastry tart is actually made with white gourd paste and pineapple.

Fruit jams like hawthorn can be used as fillings as well.

In general, Chinese people tend to favor sweet treats that are not actually sweet, although traditional Chinese pastries are scoring very high on the “sugar meter” because sugar is used in the filling as well as for the batter or dough.

One traditional dessert that originated in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province is called mi san dao, a true sugary nightmare made by mixing the same amount of flour and malt syrup, cutting the dough in cubes and frying it in oil before glazing it with honey. Another similar snack from Beijing is honey fried dough twists, also called “honey ears” for its shape.

Shaqima is a common pastry found across China. It’s similar to the Western cuisine’s fritter and is made by twisting fluffy fried batter strands together with sugar syrup. The old-fashioned Shaqima is very sweet and quite sticky.

The classic pastries with jujube or bean fillings are moderately sweet, but those with fruit fillings and honey glaze are much sweeter.

Modern chefs are finding different ways to reduce the amount of sugar in the pastries, and some replace regular sugar with sugar alcohols like sorbitol and xylitol.

Symbolic desserts

Pastries are not only food to eat but also serve certain social functions.

Like the “longevity peach buns,” a pink, peach-shaped steamed bun with red bean paste filling, is a pastry used to wish someone a long life.

Many of the Chinese pastries, especially those for celebratory purposes, have engraved or inked patterns on top. For example, mooncakes often have characters representing good fortune and prosperity.

In southern provinces, the Lunar New Year celebration features fish-shaped glutinous rice cakes as fish (yu) in Chinese shares the same pronunciation as the word meaning surplus.

Xi bing is the traditional pastry at wedding ceremonies and comes with the character representing double happiness inked or graved on top. They come in different types and fillings, and often the newlyweds would offer it as a gift to family, coworkers and friends.

Pastries are also used in rituals that worship ancestors or Buddha. In temples, all the pastry tributes are vegetarian.




 

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