Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts

Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts

　　The Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts produced by Xuzhou Taikang Hui Ethnic Food Store are renowned for their rich, golden texture and sweet, delicious taste, achieved through carefully selected ingredients and traditional craftsmanship. They have become a top-choice specialty product for visitors traveling to Xuzhou.

　　Ingredients: refined flour, sesame seeds, honey, vegetable oil, maltose, white sugar, southern osmanthus.

　　It is said that the Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts originated in Xuzhou. During the Northern Song Dynasty, when Su Dongpo served as the prefect of Xuzhou, he was very close to the hermit Zhang Shanren from Yunlong Mountain, often meeting over drinks. One day, while composing poetry and drinking at the Release Crane Pavilion, Su Dongpo, in a moment of revelry, took out a newly acquired treasured knife and tested its sharpness on the bluestone near the Drinking Crane Spring well. With three powerful cuts, he left deep marks on the large stone. Delighted by how effortlessly the blade cut, Su Dongpo was in high spirits. Just then, his attendants brought tea snacks and pastries, among which was a newly made honey-flavored confection that was particularly tasty, though it had no name yet. His friends asked Su Dongpo to name the dessert. Observing its rich golden hue and the three shallow knife marks on its surface, he spontaneously named it “Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts.”

　　Later, the “Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts,” personally named by Su Dongpo, became widely famous. Tea shops and pastry workshops across Xuzhou competed to make them. After centuries of refinement, the recipe and technique of Xuzhou’s Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts reached near perfection. Perhaps out of reverence for Su Dongpo, locals developed a special fondness for the treat. During the Qing Dynasty, when Emperor Qianlong visited Xuzhou on one of his three southern tours, he specifically ordered the Xuzhou government to have the century-old “Taikang” shop—today’s Xuzhou Taikang Hui Ethnic Food Store—make the imperial version of the Honey-Glazed Three-Cuts. Legend has it that after tasting them, the emperor was so pleased that he inscribed the words “A Xuzhou Specialty, A Royal Tribute.”