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Cowhells Cake (牛筋糕）is the specialty of Longchuan County,Guangdong Province,China.It`s a kind of cake that made from glutinous rice flour and several kinds of sugar. Produced by a secret artisan craftsmanship， cowhells cake has unique taste， soft but not mushy， chewy but non-stick teeth, is a delicious Hakka cake.

cowhells cake1

Legends

As a traditional food, cowhells cake has a long history in Longchuan County, there are two main legends about it`s origin:

cowhells cake

Legend 1. The cowhells cake is traceable to Qin dynasty.

   According to legend, cowhells cake was invented in Qin dynasty. At that time,a general named Zhao Tuo ruled the Nanyue（Capital in    Guangzhou City, the territory including the most part of Guangdong and Guangxi Province, part of Fujian, Hunan,Yunnan and Guizhou Province).After the first emperor of Han dynasty Liu Bang destroyed Qin Dynasty, he sent a emissary named Lu Jia to persuade Zhao Tuo surrender to Han.On the banquet of treated the emissary, Zhao Tuo ordered his servants to present Lu Jia a special cake. After tasting the cake, Lu Jia was full of praises, asked what`s the delicious cake. Zhao Tuo replied : "It`s a special local snack of Nanyue."
   Because Lu Jia likes the cake very much， when he turned back to Han,Zhao Tuo presented  him many cakes, and said;"please bring some to Your Majesty." Reached the capital of Qin, Lu Jia presented the emperor the specialty, he was full of praises, too. He said:"delicious! al dente like chewing cowhells!" Since then the cake was named "Cowhells Cake" and became one of the tributes in Nanyue.
   

legend 2. The cowhells cake is invented by a magician.

   It is said that several hundred years ago, there was a magician could not earn his living through magic anymore, so he decided to change his profession and become a baker. With the help of his wife, he created a kind of special cake and opened a pastry shop. However, though the cake was delicious, there werw few people knew his shop, so the sales volume of his cake were very poor, he still could not make his living. Fortunately, his clever wife helped him again, she came up with a good idea: combine his two skills, attracted customers to buy the cake by his magic. The experienced magician came up with a trick to make the cake attractive.
    The next morning, when people passed his shop, they were surprised to see a cow at the door of his shop, and there was a board on the wall, above was writing: " I can pull out the cow`s tendon and make it a delicious cake directory!" People could not believe such an amazing thing, so they asked the magician to perform the skill. Unexpectedly, he really did what he said! People was amazed, then all the viewers rushed to buy his cake, found the cake was really al dente like cowhells and very delicious. After that, more and more customers the magician got, he became a rich baker finally, the cake became famous as "Cowhells Cake", too.

Both of the legends above are not believable enough, but the only thing we can certain is that the cowhells cake is a delicious Hakka specialty with a long history.

Development

    As a representative specialty of Longchuan County, cowhells cake is Lonchuan people`s important snake, present and memorize of their life. They usually buy the cake to their friends or   relatives when visiting them, especially at festivals.   
    The formula of cowhells cake is owned by the Laolong Niujingao Company, before the mechanize production popularized, they produced cowhells cake through hand-made. A pot of cake at least cost 10 works more than ten hours, including three hours for making the cake and seven hours for steaming.The cake always out of stock at some important festival like the Spring Festival. In 1990, the company introduced a series of machine to solve the problem of capacity.  
    Previously, the cowhells cake could just keep fresh for several days after produced, it limited the cake could not sells far. To keep the taste, they could not add any preservative to the cake either. So in 1990s, they hire professionals and experts to came up with a solution. After two years research and test, they successfully extended shelf life of the cake to three months, then it can sells to other far areas.
    Now the company has a 2680 square meters factory, one Fried machine, five grinding machine, three blender, four food steamer, a set of boiler, cooling equipment and packing machine. invested more than 100 thousand yuan, produce more than 35 tons cowhells cakes each year.

Tastes

Now the cowhells developed several kinds of taste towards different customers taste.

Original Taste

original taste

    Following the traditional formula, this kind of cake retains the original taste, is well liked by the regulars, they arealready used to the original taste.
    Ingredients: glutinous rice flour, maltose syrup, dried orange peel, peanut oil and glucose syrup.

Coconut Flavor

coconut flavor

    Adding some desiccated coconuts, make the cowhells cake more popular among teenagers. This taste not only remain the good mouthfeel of traditional cowhells cake,  but also add a new choice for customers.
    Ingredients:glutinous rice flour, maltose syrup, peanut oil, white sugar and desiccated coconuts.
  

Ginger Taste

    Ginger candy is a very popular snake of Hakka, too. Combine ginger and cowhells cake can also increase sales.
    Ingredients:glutinous rice flour, maltose syrup, peanut oil, white sugar and Ginger.

Tips

1.You can buy the cowhells cakes in the train station, bus stations or any supermarket of Longchuan. If you don`t want to go Longchuan, you can also buy it through the Internet, such as Taobao or T-mall.   

2.Usually it can hold in normal temperature less two a months, shorter in summer. Therefore, do not buy too many in a time,
and put them into the refrigerator if you could not eat up.

3.Make sure the production date is in recently, compute the dates you want to keep it, more fresh, more delicious.