Nanchang Sugar-Coated Rice Cake

Sugar-coated rice cake is made by grinding soaked glutinous rice to flour, kneading it with boiling water, rolling the dough into thin ropes and bending them into rings, frying them golden, then rolling them in castor sugar—snow-white, crisp outside and chewy within, clean and sweet.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties sugar-coated rice cake has been the essential teatime sweet of Nanchang, named among Jiangxi's five great traditional sweets and Nanchang's ten signature snacks, one of the city's best-loved folk sweets, classically paired with jar soup in the Shengjin Pagoda quarter.

Fried to order and best eaten hot, the sugar crust is crisp while the centre is soft and bouncy, taken as a teatime snack or street bite, often alongside a jar of soup or a cup of tea.

Its jade-white look, the crisp-then-chewy bite, the sweet scent of the sugar coat and the ring shape are what set Nanchang sugar-coated rice cake apart.