Yexie cakes of Songjiang that date back centuries
Children making Yexie cakes.
Three dim sums the region south of Huangpu River is famous for are steamed buns from Tinglin in Jinshan District, dumplings with grass extracts from Zhangze and Yexie cakes from Yexie in Songjiang District.
Among the three tasty snacks, Yexie cakes have the longest history, dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) when hustling merchant exchanges encouraged economic development and the use of different ingredients.
Over many generations, dim sum chefs in Yexie developed unique cakes with a sweet, soft taste and an appealing fragrance.
High-quality Songjiang rice is the main ingredient. The rice, after fermenting, undergoes 16 processing steps. The cakes are made through powder sifting, hole digging, adding fillings, leveling and demolding.
While some traditional dim sum techniques are on the verge of being lost forever, making Yexie cakes has been passed down from generation to generation.
The cakes were listed as Shanghai's intangible cultural heritage in 2011. In 2017, the old master Gu Huonan apprenticed Zhu Yan, a young woman who introduced the cakes to a wider range of consumers through online sales.
