What the ancients used to make moon cakes

According to the Luozhong Chronicles, Tang Xizong ate moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and felt that the taste was extremely beautiful, so he ordered the imperial dining room to wrap moon cakes in red silk and reward them to the new scholars. This is probably the earliest record of mooncakes that we can see. In the Song Dynasty, moon cakes had nicknames such as "lotus leaf", "golden flower", "hibiscus", etc., and their production methods were more exquisite.

The poet Su Dongpo praised it in a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, and there are crisps and syrup." "Crisp is puff pastry, syrup is sugar, and its taste is sweet, crispy and fragrant.

After the Song Dynasty, the production of moon cakes not only pays attention to taste, but also designs a variety of patterns related to the legend of the Moon Palace on the cake surface. At first, the pattern on the cake surface was probably drawn on paper and then pasted on the cake surface, and then simply pressed on top of the moon cake with a dough mold. The full moon-shaped mooncake also symbolizes great reunion like the full moon on the fifteenth day, and people use it as a holiday food, use it to worship the moon, and use it to give gifts to relatives and friends.

Legend has it that in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the rulers of the Yuan and Mongolian dynasties were afraid that the people would rise up and revolt, so they adopted a high-pressure policy of sending one soldier for every ten families to monitor and only one kitchen knife for the ten families. The people couldn't bear it anymore, so they took the opportunity of the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15 to give each other moon cakes, put a wax pill in the moon cake, the wax pill was wrapped in paper, the oath was written on the paper, and a piece of paper was pasted on the bottom of the cake as a hint, so as to call on each other to oppose Mongolia and restore the country. Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province calls this kind of moon cake "Sanjin", and the homonym of the local dialect is "killing tight".

This is probably the origin of the fact that a piece of paper is often pasted on the outside of mooncakes today.

The brick oven has never seen people burn ceramics, the same principle.

First of all, your question has a certain problem, in ancient times, it was too broad, when did it last in ancient times, most of the moon cakes did not need to be baked at first to fry and stew the operation, for now it can also be called pancakes, Cantonese moon cakes "originated in 1889, when there was a pastry restaurant in the west of Guangzhou, and lotus seeds were boiled into lotus paste as the filling of shortbread.

It is estimated that it is difficult to bake moon cakes with ancient admissions, especially Cantonese style.

The traditional method of handmade mooncakes is simple: prepare the required ingredients, press them with molds, and bake them in the oven. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming again, and a variety of moon cakes have begun to appear on the market, of course, there are many ways to make moon cakes, and everyone likes different tastes, and handmade moon cakes are relatively popular with consumers, not only the traditional method is very easy, for many people to get started quickly, and the taste is also very good, let me briefly introduce the traditional practice of handmade moon cakes.

First of all, prepare the ingredients needed for handmade mooncakes, such as flour, eggs, fillings, etc. The materials needed for handmade mooncakes are relatively simple, generally only flour and eggs are used, which are the simplest and most basic materials, of course, you can also choose according to your own taste, such as adding milk, adding red beans or fruits to the filling, as long as you like.

Once the ingredients are ready, it's time to start mixing the dough to make the crust, wrap the filling in the crust, press the shape with a mold, and bake it in the oven. Start by mixing the flour and eggs together, then pour in some milk to increase the flavor, add a little sugar and flour, then knead into a dough and cool for half an hour for later use; Then there is the stir-fried filling, such as the moon cake made of red bean paste, you need to fry the red beans, then add an appropriate amount of sugar, and stir the red beans and sugar thoroughly until they are semi-solid; Then wrap the moon cakes, put them on top of the mold and press them, and bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Compared with the current machine-scale production of moon cakes, the practice of handmade moon cakes is not complicated, but it adds a lot of fun to us, after all, the moon cakes made by ourselves are still relatively fragrant. Many people like to eat handmade mooncakes, especially during the Mid-Autumn Festival, they will make them by themselves, not only the method is simple, but also does not need too much packaging, relatively speaking, it is very economical, and can be shared with the family, which is also the charm of handmade mooncakes.

The preferred mooncakes are Suzhou-style mooncakes, Cantonese mooncakes, snowy skin mooncakes, chocolate mooncakes, ice cream mooncakes and the like. Let's talk about the simplest snow skin moon cakes: glutinous rice flour, sticky rice flour, corn starch, milk, powdered sugar, condensed milk, corn oil and stir together, put it in a hot water pot to steam, and then bring disposable gloves, knead the dough smoothly, knead it into a small agent, wrap it in the filling, it can be bean paste filling or custard filling or the like, and then press out the model with a mold.

It is to fry the walnuts and melon seeds and peanuts, and then prepare the syrup, alkali, oil and flour and stir together to knead the dough, cut the dough into small pieces, roll it flat with a rolling pin and wrap it into the filling, and put it in the mold, so that the moon cake is ready, and then put it in the oven to bake.

The traditional practice of handmade moon cakes is actually more complicated, first of all, there needs to be a mold for moon cakes, and then there are a lot of seasoning fillings, such as five kernels, bean paste, and egg yolk.

1. Originated from the sacrificial activities of the ancient digging emperors.

The Confucian classic "Book of Rites" of the pre-Qin and Western Han Dynasty recorded: "The Son of Heaven is the spring sun, the autumn sunset", the evening moon is the meaning of sacrificing the moon, indicating that as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, the emperor has begun to worship the moon and worship the moon.

2. Originated from agricultural production.

China is a farming nation since ancient times, and autumn is the harvest season, especially in August Mid-Autumn Festival, when various crops, fruits and vegetables are ripe one after another, people in order to celebrate the harvest, express joyful mood, on the "Mid-Autumn Festival", that is, the middle of the autumn day as the festival code fast day, so the Mid-Autumn Festival may be the custom inherited from the ancients "autumn newspaper".