🍽️ Lunjiao Rice Cake

Fermented rice cake, light sweetness.

Lunjiao Rice Cake is a traditional steamed rice cake from Lunjiao town in Shunde, Foshan. Indica rice is ground into milk, left to ferment naturally, sweetened with sugar and steamed. The finished cake is snow white all over, its cross-section full of fine air holes; the bite is springy, slightly chewy and resilient, lightly sweet without being cloying, with a subtle fermented tang that returns as a clean aftertaste. It is a classic small pastry of Cantonese morning tea and traditional dim sum, eaten warm or cold: warm it is soft and sweet, cold it is springier. Shunde households judge Lunjiao cake by fermentation time and steaming heat, since too much fermentation turns it sour and too little leaves it dense. Authentic versions are still found in Foshan teahouses and old-street pastry shops, and it is a sweet introduction to Lingnan rice-fermentation skill.