Stamped Cake

Stamped Cake

　　Stamped Cake

　　In the past, households across Jiaxing’s urban and rural areas commonly owned stamped cake molds. On festive occasions, weddings and funerals, birthdays of the elderly, celebrations for a baby’s first full moon, house constructions, or main beam raising ceremonies, as well as during important agricultural seasonal times, people would steam glutinous or non-glutinous rice flour and press it into molds to make sugar cakes or filled cakes featuring a variety of patterns. The molds came in diverse types and shapes—such as peaches of longevity, ingots, coiled dragons (also called panlong), double fish, ruyi (scepters), the Eight Immortals in hidden motifs, and representations of the three sacrificial animals. There were also molds combining words like “longevity,” “blessing,” “peace all year round,” or “a fortune of ten thousand gold” with matching images. For example, when celebrating an elder’s birthday, they would make birthday cakes or peach-shaped cakes; for a baby’s full moon, the maternal grandparents would visit to offer congratulations and bring coiled dragon cakes, surrounded by “blessings, fortune, longevity, and happiness” cakes, known together as “dragon and phoenix presenting auspiciousness.” All these symbolic patterns were rich in artistic charm.