Dali Puff Pastry Cake

Dali Puff Pastry Cake

　　Puff pastry cake evolved from the Tang Dynasty delicacy "Jianjian Xiao" (oil-bathed cake). The surface of the cake rises with fluffy bubbles, offering a fragrant taste that melts in your mouth. Its delicate shape is as exquisite as intricately crafted ice flowers.

　　　　The basic method for making Dali puff pastry cake is as follows: Boil water in a pot for the cake, add lard, pour flour into a large wok, and stir the oil and flour over low heat to form a cooked dough. Remove it from the heat and place it on a work surface to cool. Then add cold water and knead repeatedly to create a soft dough, resulting in a scalded dough. A filling is made using white sugar, osmanthus jam, shredded carrots and red dates, walnut kernels, osmanthus, peanuts, and rock sugar, along with cooked flour, to create an osmanthus and white sugar filling. The scalded dough is divided into pieces, flattened by hand, filled with the osmanthus and white sugar mixture, and shaped into cake bases. These are then set aside and fried in clean oil at the appropriate time. When frying, it's essential to control the oil temperature and time the foaming process carefully. The surface of the cake forms a layer of bubbles as thin as cicada wings and white as frost, resembling blooming flowers—seemingly vanishing in the wind, melting in the mouth, soft, moist, and richly fragrant. It gets its name because the bubbles on top resemble blooming flowers.

　　　　Puff pastry cakes may be round or tower-shaped, but one of the criteria for evaluating them is how well the "bloom" on top develops. The entire cake is golden, with a puffed, delicate crust like something woven from gauze or pinched from cicada wings. The white blooms are crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, sweet and refreshing.