Dingsheng Cake

Dingsheng cake layers fragrant- and glutinous-rice flour around a bean-paste filling, lightly sweetened with sugar and osmanthus, tinted rosy and shaped like a flared ingot.

Tradition says Southern Song Hangzhou residents made the cake for the general Yue Fei's departing troops, wishing them victory—hence "dingsheng," assured triumph—and it has endured for centuries.

Often eaten as a festive or celebratory sweet, soft and gently sweet with osmanthus fragrance.

Fine even flour, a rosy molded form and a touch of osmanthus distinguish it.