🍽️ Taigu Cake

One of Shanxi's four famous cakes, sweet and crisp.

Taigu Cake is a traditional famous cake of Jinzhong in Shanxi, ranking with others as one of Shanxi's four great cakes. It is made from white flour, sugar and peanut (or flax) oil, rolled into rounds, topped with sesame and baked slowly over low heat. The result is golden, slightly crisp outside and soft within, sweet without being cloying, and stays tender for days. Its strengths are pleasant sweetness, softness and long shelf life; Shanxi merchants of old carried it as dry provisions on long journeys. Today it remains a specialty souvenir of the Taigu area, suitable for all ages. Shanxi households set out a plate of Taigu cake for tea and guests, a rare sweet-soft treat among Shanxi's savory wheat foods. At old bakeries in Taigu, fresh-baked cake still carries the old flour aroma of the merchants' hometown.