Sugar Rice Cake

Sugar Rice Cake

　　When it comes to Sugar Rice Cake, everyone in Huangmei knows about it. It is made by kneading pure white premium glutinous rice puffs with high-quality maltose, then cutting the mixture into blocks. It tastes sweet and crispy, leaves your mouth watering, and has an unforgettable aftertaste. It was a delicious treat during our New Year celebrations back in those days, and also one of the real reasons for our endless anticipation of the holiday when we were kids.

　　Sugar Rice Cake is delicious, but making it requires some skill. First, you select high-quality wheat and premium glutinous rice in a ratio of roughly one pound of rice to one liang (50 grams) of wheat. Wash the wheat and let it rest in a bamboo tray for about ten days to sprout, ensuring that you sprinkle water on it three or four times a day. The glutinous rice is cooked in a soup pot over a wood-fired stove. Once the wheat has sprouted, dry the sprouts in the sun and mix them evenly with the cooked glutinous rice. Alternatively, you can directly pour the freshly cooked glutinous rice along with the sprouts into a large pot, add water (note: the water should generally cover the mixture to about the depth of a palm), stir well, and heat gently over low heat to maintain a temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius. This allows the wheat sprouts and glutinous rice to ferment and form a liquid. Since this process takes over ten hours and the heat cannot be turned off midway, dried cow dung or rice husks were traditionally used as fuel, packed into the stove to burn slowly on their own. After a night, everything is just right. The mixture is then scooped out and drained using gauze or thin cloth—the residue is discarded. The drained liquid is returned to a clean large pot, brought to a boil over high heat, and then simmered over low heat for about ten hours until maltose, also called syrup, is formed. Back then, my siblings and I would eagerly gather around the pot, occasionally smacking our lips in anticipation. Just before the syrup was ready, my father would shout: “The syrup is coming, the syrup is coming!” We would cheer with excitement. After simmering a while longer, my father would scoop a few spoonfuls of the syrup for us to eat. I remember loving the syrup that formed around the edges of the pot the most—because the syrup near the edges, with the constant heat from the bottom of the pot, would solidify into maltose blocks. I would always scoop them up, pinch them with my fingers, show them off, and enjoy them with satisfaction, my little heart brimming with happiness.

　　Rice puffs are one of the key ingredients in making Sugar Rice Cake. They are made from premium glutinous rice, which is washed and steamed in a wooden steamer, then spread out to dry in a bamboo basket and sun-dried for about seven days until they become rice grains. Finally, these grains are placed in a pot and stir-fried with clean sand at the bottom to ensure even heating, resulting in plump, white glutinous rice puffs.

　　The rice puffs are poured into a pot and kneaded together with the maltose syrup—this is the tricky part. If not done properly, the mixture will fall apart. Then, the mixture is scooped onto a wooden tray or drawer, covered with a clean, soft cloth, and adults walk barefoot on it repeatedly. I remember my father stepping on the Sugar Rice Cake mixture with such joy—his nimble movements made it seem like he was performing an elegant dance. I would stand by, mesmerized, until it was firm enough. Then, my father would carefully flip the compacted mixture onto a clean wooden board and carry the board, with the cake on top, over to two long benches placed side by side for the final step—cutting the Sugar Rice Cake. When cutting, my father would apply a bit of cooking oil to the knife blade, telling me it would prevent sticking. I watched as he sliced the cake piece by piece. His knife skills were something I greatly admired—each piece was evenly sized and neatly shaped. And just like that, small blocks of Sugar Rice Cake appeared before me. With that, the making of Sugar Rice Cake was complete. As kids, we looked forward to this moment the most. Watching the white Sugar Rice Cake pieces fall into the tray, we couldn’t wait to grab a few with our little hands and run off to the side to munch on them playfully. That scene remains unforgettable to this day.

　　Nowadays, people’s material lives have improved, and making Sugar Rice Cake during the New Year is no longer such a laborious task—you can simply buy it at the market. There are also many variations with different flavors, such as those with added sesame or made from millet. But I believe this ancient method of making it should be recorded and passed down, so that the joy of family togetherness woven into the process doesn’t disappear.