Great Events in the life and Cakes: Traditional Wedding Cake DIY

        Traditional cakes play an important role in Taiwan's dietary culture, from birth, marriage, longevity, and even funeral after death. In this issue, "Gourmet Column" teaches you how to make different kinds of cakes with the theme of happy cakes, which are indispensable in life events.
         　　
        

---

        Marriage is one of the most important stages of life. In the early years of traditional agricultural society, wedding cakes were round cakes weighing up to three kilograms, so they were called "big cakes". They were also called "Hancakes" for short. With the change of the times, it is most common to eat one kilogram or twelve double cakes, and it is no longer limited to marrying and getting married. It is easy to get them in peacetime.
        
         Because of the great physical expenditure in the agricultural society and the scarcity of materials, it is both enjoyable and happy to eat fat meat, so the filling of cakes is mostly fat meat. However, modern people pay attention to health, do not love too greasy cakes, have added different fillings, giving new life to cakes, among them, mushroom, red meat, bean paste, jujube walnut, winter melon, pineapple, coconut, cashew nut, sesame egg yolk, red bean and sesame tart... Equal filling is the most common.
        
         In this issue, we will introduce two kinds of cakes with different crusts and fillings, sesame cake and dragon-phoenix cake. As long as we learn the basic knowledge, we can extend them. We can use different crusts to match the fillings we like, and bring creative ideas into play, integrating tradition and innovation.

        I. Sesame Happy Cake
         [materials]
         1. Oil-skin materials (4):88 grams of medium gluten flour, 35 grams of lard, 18 grams of fine sugar and 40 grams of water
         2. fillings:86 grams sugar, 35 grams butter, 9 grams of cheese powder, 17 grams of milk powder, 22 grams of maltose, 138 grams of broken white gourd sugar, 86 grams of pork fat, 17 grams of cooked white sesame, 9 grams of raisin, and 86 grams of steamed flour.
         3. Surface contamination:A little white sesame

        
        

        [practice]
         1. pie skin:After sieving the sugar powder, add lard, water and medium gluten flour, mix well to form a smooth surface dough, and when it relaxes, divide it into 45 grams each.
         2. fillings:Cut the sugar and raisins into pieces. First dip your hands in water or a little lard, pull the maltose apart and soften it. Then add all the ingredients, mix and stir evenly, and divide it into 120 grams each.
         3. Plastic filling:After crushing the crust into a round sheet, wrapping it in filling, slowly pushing the crust upward, kneading and closing the mouth, the flat circular crust is pushed out, the surface is covered with white sesame, and two holes are pierced. Put the side dipped in sesame seeds down in the oven, bake at 160 C/230 C above, turn over after 15 minutes, then bake for 10 minutes, until the cake body is slightly hard and the crust is light brown.
        
         2. Marriage Cake-Longfeng Happy Cake
         [materials]
         1. Pulp material (2):Converted syrup 80 grams, peanut oil 36 grams, edible alkali powder 1 gram, hot water 4 grams, salt 1 gram, low gluten flour 127 grams
         2. fillings:Oily red bean paste 700 grams, divided into 350 grams each

        
        

        [practice]
         1. pulp:The alkali powder is mixed with hot water to form alkali water. After sieving the flour, all the materials are mixed into a ball. When it relaxes, it is divided into 120 grams each.
         2. Plastic filling:Sprinkle some flour on the table and hands to prevent sticking. After pressing the crust into round slices on the table, covering the red bean paste, slowly turning the closing mouth and kneading, then patting the thin flour, the cake mould is also sprinkled with thin flour (knocking out excess flour). After the closing mouth is up, the cake mould is put into the cake mould, pressed to a level, the left and right sides of the cake mould are beaten on the cloth, the cake is demoulded and put into the baking. In the oven, bake at 230 / 200 above the fire, brush a thin layer of yolk liquid after 10 minutes, adjust the temperature at 200 / 210 below the fire, and bake for 20 minutes to make the bottom, edge and surface light brown.

        [Cake Classroom]
         1. With the evolution of etiquette and custom, the pie pattern also has different forms, patterns and shapes, representing different meanings. For example, the dragon and phoenix pattern represents pairs, the three stars of Fu Lushou represent auspicious wishes, the round symbol is perfect, the flower shape represents the blossom of wealth, the two hearts represent the heart impression or the lily of a century. And so on.
         2. There are many changes in the crust of the cake, such as oil skin, pastry skin (moon cake skin), pastry skin (pineapple crisp cake skin), and the inner filling can also be changed freely. For example, the inner filling of the sesame cake can be added with salted egg yolk and meat floss; the inner filling of the Longfeng cake can also be added with hemp dumplings.