Although Ouyang Xinyu had some concerns about using the picked osmanthus flowers to make osmanthus cakes, Mrs. Shangguan still asked her to lead the maids to pick up some and prepare some pastries for Shangguan Wan'er for her to taste. She cooked herself to make steamed osmanthus fish for her, and made osmanthus cakes for her by herself. Ouyang Xinyu was also a blessing in ancient times.

Osmanthus Cake is a pastry made from glutinous rice flour, sugar and honey osmanthus as raw materials. It has a long history, delicious and refreshing, simple and diverse methods, which meets people's various needs for taste. It also has a beautiful historical legend, which adds the historical value of osmanthus Cake.

According to modern data, Xianning Osmanthus Cake is the most famous. Xianning Osmanthus Cake is produced in Xianning, Hubei, a famous osmanthus hometown in the country. The osmanthus cake was created in the late Ming Dynasty. The cake is fine, soft and moist, with a white color. It has a rich fragrance of osmanthus, which is a scattered in the mouth, a fragrant taste, and rich nutritional value. It is suitable for both young and old women to eat it. It is a good product for gifts to relatives and friends. The characteristic of Hubei Xianning Osmanthus Cake is that its ingredients are unique, oily and not greasy, not astringent in the mouth, crispy and smooth swallowing, sweet and salty in the mouth, and cool in the fragrance, which is very popular among people.

Osmanthus cake has a history of more than 300 years. According to legend, in the late Ming Dynasty, there was a vendor named Liu Jixiang in Xindu County. He learned from the study of the top scholar Yang Sheng'an, the fragrance of osmanthus, collected fresh osmanthus, squeezed out bitter water, soaked it with honey, and mixed it with steamed rice flour, glutinous rice flour, cooked oil, sugar-elevated, and sold it in boxes. He was named Osmanthus Cake.

For more than 300 years, the candy shop that inherited the production of osmanthus cakes has been continuously improving the process. Now, refined white sugar, malt sugar, flour, glutinous rice flour, vegetable oil, honey osmanthus, etc. is used as raw materials. It is prepared in an appropriate proportion and is refined through steaming, frying, grinding, mixing, rolling, boxing, cutting and other processes. The product is as white as jade, sweet and refreshing, delicate slag, and rich cinnamon fragrance.

There is another legend in history about the origin of the osmanthus cake. According to legend, the osmanthus in Guihu was picked by Yang Sheng'an from the Moon Palace. One night, Yang Sheng'an fell asleep in the study. Kuixing fell into a dream and asked Yang Sheng'an if he wanted to win the osmanthus in the Moon Palace. Yang Sheng'an said he wanted to. So Kuixing ordered the Dragon King of the West Sea to fly to the Moon Palace to pick the osmanthus. When he arrived at the Moon Palace, Yang Sheng'an saw a palace and a very tall osmanthus tree. He tried hard to pick the osmanthus branches and returned to the study. Later, Yang Sheng'an entered Beijing to pass the top scorer.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there was a vendor named Liu Jixiang in Xianning. He got inspiration from the study of the top scholar Yang Sheng'an's fragrant osmanthus. He collected fresh osmanthus, squeezed out bitter water, invaded the stains with sugar, and mixed it with steamed rice flour, glutinous rice flour, cooked oil, sugar-flour, and sold it in boxes. He was named "Osmanthus Cake". Once the osmanthus cake was sold, it attracted people to buy it first. Later, the local "Tianshunrong" and "Wulingxuan" candy shops passed down the production of this cake, and continuously improved the quality, making the osmanthus cake a famous specialty in Xianning.

Xindu County is known as "Fragrant City". Its name is due to the beautiful artificial lake in the city. According to the county chronicles, during the Zhengde and Jiajing periods of the Ming Dynasty, the famous scholar and writer Yang Shen planted osmanthus trees on the bank of the lake where he lived and wrote the famous "Guihu Song". After that, the people of the town called it "Sheng'an Guihu". In the early years of the Republic of China, it was renamed "Guihu Park". Now it has been upgraded to a cultural relics protection unit in Sichuan Province, giving a rather difficult-to-mouthed garden name, "Yang Sheng'an Temple and Guihu".

The osmanthus cake made in traditional crafts will never add any spices. Before the 1980s, whenever the osmanthus is in full bloom, you can always see the notice of "purchasing a large amount of fresh osmanthus" on the streets of Xindu County. Cooked glutinous rice flour, fresh osmanthus, and crushed rock sugar grains are the three basic elements of osmanthus cake. They are pressed into small rectangles and put into paper boxes for sale.

When I opened the box, I saw the pink and white osmanthus cakes lying in two square arrays in order. The osmanthus as big as millets were scattered faintly among them, like the work of an artist who used dark yellow pigments to sprinkle them on a white canvas. I picked up a piece and put it in my mouth. I just realized the soft and glutinous texture of the glutinous rice flour. The tip of the tongue quickly and sensitively received sweet signals. The fragrance hidden deep in the cake flour became more and more intense at this moment. The indifference fragrance oscillated freely in the mouth, and then rushed into the nose along the "heavenly chamber", and then passed the information to the center of the brain.

After introducing so many stories about the origin and legends of osmanthus cake, how did Ouyang Xinyu make osmanthus cake in this era? Let’s take a look at how this ancient Mrs. Shangguan made osmanthus cake!

"Mom, when will you make osmanthus cake? Wan'er wants to watch you make it, okay?"

"Haha, you kid really can't grow up! When did you make osmanthus cakes in your mother, did you not watch by your mother?"

"Then, Wan'er will learn to do it with her mother this year, okay?"

"Yes, of course! In fact, the steps for making osmanthus cake are very simple, but they are a bit complicated. First of all, you have to wait a few days to make the dried osmanthus into sugar osmanthus."

"Sugar Osmanthus? Oh, Wan'er knows that just mixing the osmanthus and sugar together will make sugar osmanthus!"

"Yes, it's roughly that's it, but it's more meticulous when doing it."

"Then, mom, make sugar osmanthus quickly. Wan'er wants to see mom make sugar osmanthus!"

"Why are you suddenly interested in everything? Haven't you taught you how to make sugar osmanthus a long time ago?"

"My mother taught Wan'er how to make sugar osmanthus, but Wan'er was not as smart as her mother thought, so she didn't remember it!"

"When will you change your naughty temperament? Tang Guihua was not done by my mother himself. My mother has already handed it to Mrs. Gui to take care of her."

"Then my mother took Wan'er to see how Mrs. Gui made sugar osmanthus flowers, okay?"

"Have you been locked up in the mansion recently and I'm so bored that I want to have fun on my own?"

"Well, my mother knows Wan'er best, hehehe..." Ouyang Xinyu took the opportunity to act coquettishly at Mrs. Shangguan, leaned over her shoulder, and said in a coquettish voice, shaking her arm.

"Okay, okay, okay, since our Wan'er is bored, then this time my mother will make this candy osmanthus and let our Wan'er watch it and relieve the boredom!"
Chapter completed!