Peanut Brittle Cake (Huashenggao)

Peanut brittle cake is a famous Kaifeng sweet made chiefly from selected peanuts with white and malt sugar, worked through stages of boiling, pulling and dusting with peanut flour before being cut into shape, leaving a creamy-yellow cake with fine layers.

Long made in Kaifeng, it is a representative local tea-time treat and gift, preserving the old confectionery craft of the central plains.

Best taken slowly with tea, broken into small pieces that crumble and melt away, the peanut and caramel notes blending—sweet but never cloying, enjoyed by young and old.

It is marked by its many fine layers, melt-in-the-mouth crispness and deep roasted-peanut aroma.