Ningbo Food---Soft Bean Candy

 

 

豆酥糖

 

 

The soft and mouth-watering candy has been a traditional snack eaten with Chinese tea in Cixi (慈溪) area in northern Ningbo and it is well-known around the world. It is said that about 100 years ago a local style snack store called Qianfeng (乾丰), in which a Ningbo cook invented the soft bean candy by experiment. But the test has achieved a great success. The taste of the candy is fragrant, sweet, fresh and crispy. The great aftertaste will be a happy memory and you would like to have more candies. Therefore, the soft bean candy made an overnight hit in Ningbo city.

Strict requirement is for choosing the ingredients. It needs best quality of soy beans that are from August and September crop without any rot. The yellow color of the bean should be pure and clean, and the size should be big enough. Fry the soy beans and remove the husks, and mill into fine bean powder, and then add sugar, black sesames and malt sugar. After long and tedious preparing process, the candies should be packed in candy papers, but not to seal to avoid moisture.

Soft bean candy is quite nutritious with considerable amount of protein, carbohydrate, calcium, iron and carotene.