Beijing Pastry Culture: Daoxiangcun 稻香村

I really miss afternoon snacks.  There used to be something really acceptable about eating a cookie and having a juice in the middle of the afternoon, and really humane about acknowledging that hunger strikes every three hours.  Or two hours.  In any case, in the last few weeks I have taken to stopping by Daoxiangcun on my way back from school to buy a little afternoon snack.  This is consumed with tea, instead of juice, but same concept.  What’s different is the idea of sweet, or perhaps that sweetness doesn’t just come from pure sugarcane but also other types of carbs: red beans, mung beans, jujube date pastes, pumpkin (okay, that crosses over neatly), lotus seed pastes.  Overly sweet — in other words, that unctuousness of cane sugar — isn’t valorized.  I’d guess that this idea of sweet is also expressed in drinking tea — when a tea is a bit dry, so that the residual tang feels sweet at the back of the throat, that is known as the sweet aftertaste (huigan 回甘), so instead of the numbing hit of sugar, sweetness is associated with a lingering sensation, an impression.

Recently, I had the occasion to buy a whole box of these fancy yet humble, pretty yet simply flavored, sweet but not too sweet cakes.

Daoxiangcun 稻香村 is a ‘time honored brand’ (laozihao 老字号) that was opened in the 37th year of the Qianlong emperor’s reign… ie, 1773.  Named after a scenic spot in Dream of the Red Mansions, the store, originally located in Suzhou, specialized in Suzhou-style cakes.  In the late Qing dynasty, a man brought a group of pastry makers to Beijing, where they opened a store at Wai Guanyin Temple 外观音寺, in the Qianmen area.  Nowadays Daoxiangcun is a historic shop that plays a significant role in Beijing culinary culture and history, but it has modernized its production and expanded the scope of its stores.  They still produce pastries to be eaten with tea and other seasonal treats, including yuanxiao 元宵 and special types of zongzi 粽子.  This peek into their factory is fascinating.

Apparently there are 130 different types of cakes offered by Daoxiangcun, 70 of which are offered year round, and 60 that are seasonal.  The cakes are displayed behind a glassed in counter that stretches the length of the store, with separate windows for gift boxes and regular sales.  Each of the boxes, produced in their factories, is stacked high with a different cake … making it very difficult to decide what to get!  I canvassed the website and some Beijingers before coming here to get a gift box.

Gift boxes are offered in the 4, 6, and 8 kilo sizes.  This is a great place to buy gifts without bringing the usual and obligatory alcohol.  I got the 4 kg box.  A lady in a spotlessly white uniform lines the box with a plastic bag.

They run around the store and pick up stacks of your selections.  Or give helpful suggestions.

They weigh the cakes, which range from 26-32 RMB per 500 grams.

There were two women helping me.  Then, ever so carefully, they lower the cakes into the box, while considering its aesthetic presentation and stability in transport.

Half-full!!!!  Still a ways to go….

At the end, as at all the laozihao stores, they take your money with a plate and some pincers, get the change with the tongs, and then hand your change back to you on the plate, without ever touching the money with bare hands.  Daoxiangcun moves forward with the times, so the pincers are stainless steel.

The gift box, with its carrying handle!

Clockwise, from top right:

• Jujube paste and pork lard (huangyou zaoni 黄油枣泥): filling also includes walnuts
• Coconut (xianye su 鲜椰酥): again, sweet and salty, imprinted with a little coconut tree
• “Cow-tongue” (niushe bing 牛舌饼): flaky crust, with Sichuan peppercorn, some “Taiwan spices,” sugar, and salt
• Lotus seed (xilian su 喜莲酥): white lotus seed
• Almond (xingrong su 杏蓉酥): coloring uses carrots, and there are kidney beans mixed with the almond meal inside

Clockwise, from top left:

• Jujube paste flower (zaohua su 黄油枣泥): one of my favorites, if just for the beautiful design and little pockets of jujube paste
• Fresh rose (xianmeigui su 鲜玫瑰酥): honey and rose petals, and sweet
• Rose (nanmeigui su 南玫瑰酥):  this, on the other hand, is sweet *and* salty.  The filling includes sugared roses and pumpkin seeds
• Pumpkin (nangua su 南瓜酥): fresh pumpkin that’s been cooked down
• Lotus seed (lianrong su 莲蓉酥): red lotus seed paste filling

• Pork floss roll (rousong juan 肉松卷): sponge cake with pork floss tamped down on either end
• Zhuangyuan cake (zhuangyuan su 状元酥): the crust is slightly sweetened, and the paste inside is also jujube paste.  This cake was meant to wish scholars success in the official examinations; “zhuangyuan” was a rank that one could achieve.

Cake carnage!  We tried them all.  Each cake, marked on the outside to identify their fillings, has a different crust to match the filling inside.  Most crusts are unsweetened, probably so one can experience the pure flavor of the fillings and pig lard used to make them.   Meant to be tasted alongside with tea, these pastries are also supremely delicate, concentrated in flavor, and sometimes a bit dry (my personal favorite of cakes meant to be eaten alongside Chinese tea is mung bean cake ludougao 绿豆糕, which has a crumbly, dry texture).  Interestingly enough, most of the cakes were a sophisticated blend of sweet and salty, somewhat like the salted caramel craze today.  The prime example of this is the two types of rose pastries: the ‘fresh’ with rose petals, which was described to me by the counter lady as ’sweet,’ and the ’southern’ rose cake, which was described as ’sweet-salty.’  Both were salty….. Unlike their southern counterparts, these cakes tend to use less sugar and oil, making them perhaps…  less luscious than they could be.  Nonetheless, we came away with a few favorites.

Jen liked the almond cake, and I was fascinated by the “southern” rose cake.  The almond pastry was chock full of almond fragrance and I loved the strange admixture of sweet-salty in the rose pastry.  I also liked the “Zhuangyuan” cake, not just for the cuteness of the name, but also the deliciousness of the sweetened crust.  I like sugar; I cannot help it.

A small peek into Beijing life….