Ice Flower Balls

Ice Flower Balls

　　    A Beijing specialty — Ice Flower Balls, a unique Beijing-style fried snack. These snacks are spherical in shape and named for their surface coated with white sugar, resembling ice flowers. They have a crispy, sweet taste with a fragrant osmanthus aroma.

　　      Specialty production: Mix maltose, oil, baking soda, and water in a basin until well blended, then add flour to form a dough of suitable softness. Shape the dough into pieces, roll them into 2 cm diameter strips, cut them into 2 cm lengths, then roll the pieces in dry flour to form small round dough balls. Boil sugar, maltose, and osmanthus into a syrup. Remove the dry flour from the dough balls, deep-fry them until cooked, then remove and drain the oil. Coat them with the syrup and sprinkle with sugar to finish.

　　     Specialty benefits: Flour is rich in protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. It helps nourish the heart and kidneys, strengthen the spleen and intestines, clear heat, and relieve thirst. It is used to treat conditions such as emotional distress, feverish restlessness, thirst, diarrhea, abscesses, external bleeding, and scalds. Additionally, vegetables contain abundant vitamins and are highly nutritious. Osmanthus is warm in nature and pungent in flavor, entering the lung and large intestine meridians. When decocted, brewed as tea, or soaked in alcohol for oral intake, it helps warm the middle, dispel cold, soothe the stomach, relieve pain, resolve phlegm, disperse blood stasis, and is effective for poor appetite, phlegm-related cough and wheezing, hemorrhoids, dysentery, amenorrhea with abdominal pain, among other conditions.