Gold Cake (Hawthorn Jelly)
A traditional dessert of the Manchu Han Imperial Feast, simmered from hawthorn berries and sugar to a golden hue; sweet and tart in flavor.
Ingredients
Hawthorn berries (washed, boiled for 10 minutes, then pressed through a fine sieve to remove skin and seeds)
500 g
White sugar
350 g
Osmanthus sauce
5 g
Alum
7.5 g
Instructions
1
Hawthorn Preparation
Wash the hawthorn berries thoroughly with clean water and place them in a copper pot. Add clean water and bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Lift out the hawthorn berries and press them through a fine mesh sieve to remove the skins and seeds. Combine the sieved pulp with the osmanthus sauce in a bowl and set aside.
2
Sugar Syrup and Alum
Pour 150 g of clean water into a copper pot, add the white sugar, bring to a boil over high heat, and simmer for 15 minutes. At the same time, place the alum into a separate copper pot, add 50 g of clean water, and bring to a boil until the alum is fully dissolved.
3
Mixing and Setting
Pour the hot sugar syrup over the hawthorn mixture in the bowl and stir rapidly in one direction while still hot. Pour in the dissolved alum water and stir again until evenly combined. Transfer the mixture into a rectangular iron mold filled to about 7/10 of its height, smooth the surface flat, and cover with a sheet of thin oiled paper. Let cool completely at room temperature, then cut into approximately 2 cm cubes and arrange on a serving plate.
