🍽️ Lunjiao Steamed Cake

Fermented rice cake, lightly sweet and springy.

Lunjiao Steamed Cake is a classic fermented rice cake from Lunjiao Town in Shunde, Foshan, long a fixture of Cantonese tea houses. Indica rice is soaked and ground into batter, mixed with a starter (usually old cake batter or wine yeast) and left to ferment until it turns faintly sour and fills with fine bubbles, then poured into shallow dishes and steamed over high heat. The surface shows even, fine air holes; the color is milky and translucent; the texture springy, soft and smooth, with a natural sweetness balanced by a gentle tang and a faint wine-like finish. Good Lunjiao cake depends on just the right fermentation for that returning sweetness. It appears in Cantonese morning-tea steamers, and can also be pan-fried until lightly crisp with butter. Locally it is both a tea-house dim sum and a familiar breakfast or afternoon snack, carrying on the old craft of Lingnan rice fermentation.