Toad Spits Honey

Toad Spits Honey

　　Bean Paste Pastry, also known as "Spits Honey," is a common Beijing snack. It gets its name from the red bean paste filling. During baking, the pastry naturally cracks open at the edges, causing the filling to spill out and cling to the sides — which is why people vividly call it "Spits Honey."

　　Historical records suggest that pastries were introduced to China during the Han Dynasty through Ban Chao’s missions to the Western Regions. The Book of the Later Han states: “Emperor Ling loved Hu cakes.” Hu cakes were the earliest form of pastries and became popular in the Tang Dynasty. The Zizhi Tongjian, under the section on Emperor Xuanzong, records that during the An Lushan Rebellion, when Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei fled to Jixian Palace in Xianyang and had nothing to eat, Yang Guozhong, who was then the prime minister, went to the market and bought Hu cakes to offer them. At that time, the most famous Hu sesame cakes in Chang’an were made by a shop called Fuxing Fang. The poet Bai Juyi even wrote a poem about it: “The Hu sesame cake is modeled after the capital’s style, its crust crisp and fragrant with fresh oil. I send this to Envoy Yang, who must be hungry — does it taste as good as Fuxing’s?” He was referring to whether the cakes bought in Xianyang resembled those from Fuxing Fang in Chang’an. The method for making Hu sesame cakes involved using refined flour, sesame, five-spice salt, flour, clear oil, alkaline flour, sugar, and other ingredients. The dough was fermented, mixed with fat for flavor, divided into pieces, shaped, brushed with sugar syrup, coated with sesame seeds, and then baked in the oven — hence Bai Juyi’s description of the “crisp crust and fragrant oil.”

　　This method is quite similar to how modern pastries are made. The Qingyi Lu, a book by Tao Gu of the Song Dynasty, records: “When Emperor Xizong fled to Shu, one of the palace ladies took out a square cloth containing about a liter of flour. A villager offered a jug of wine, and they used the wine to soak the flour, spreading it onto a pancake which was then served to him. The imperial concubines wept and said: ‘This is a Disaster-Relieving Cake.’ They begged him to at least eat half.” It describes an incident in August 880, when the Huang Chao peasant rebellion pressed close to Chang’an and Emperor Xizong fled in haste with no food available. A palace maid used a small amount of flour brought from the palace and some wine given by a villager to make dough. She first cooked it in a pan, then baked it in an oven, and served it to him, calling it a Disaster-Relieving Cake. Emperor Xizong reluctantly ate half. This method of pan-frying followed by baking is the same as today’s. The “Disaster-Relieving Cake” did not use sesame, and it is probably similar to what is now known as Huoshao (baked flatbread).