Amazing Cakes
Amazing Cakes, founded by Lei Chen in 2015, is a bakery that specializes in the art of baking and health. At Amazing Cakes, we are committed to presenting you with a perfect blend of deliciousness and creativity. As a bakery that loves the art of baking, we not only provide desserts but also take you on a cultural baking journey. We combine Eastern and Western baking traditions with modern cuisine to create a unique pastry experience. Some of our signature creations include Awakening Lion Pastry, Piped Flower Cakes, and Black Grain Toast. Our clientele consists of high net worth individuals, and we also provide customized pastry services for major national and international events.
Whether you have a need for healthy desserts or a pursuit of creativity, Amazing Cakes can satisfy your taste buds. Our bakers have rich experience and unique skills, carefully crafting each pastry to let you feel the love and dedication to the art of baking.
In addition to our carefully crafted pastries, we also offer customized pastry services to help you achieve a perfect balance of health and deliciousness. Whether you are celebrating special occasions or simply enjoying delicious treats, Amazing Cakes is your indispensable choice.
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Awakening Lion Pastry
Culinary Journey: Exploring the Cultural Threads of Awakening Lion Pastries
The inspiration for Awakening Lion Pastry comes from the movie 'Once Upon a Time in China III,' starring Jet Li as Wong Fei-hung.
From Lion Dance to Awakening Lion, this folk activity has had a profound impact on the societal level. In the southern regions of China, Lion Dance, or 'Xing Shi,' not only refers to the dan ce itself but has also become a symbol of ethnic self-improvement. By the 1990s, when director Tsui Hark filmed 'Once Upon a Time in China III,' he had the character Wong Fei-hung utter the line at the end: 'We don't just practice martial arts to defend against external enemies. Most importantly, we need to enlighten the people, harmonizing wisdom and martial arts. That is the path to national prosperity and strength.' The symbolic imagery of national self-improvement through Awakening Lion has unexpectedly dominated the discourse for a century.
Film is the art of storytelling, reflecting the logic of industrialization, while Awakening Lion is the art of freehand brushwork, carrying the ambiance of traditional China. In reality, there were no lions native to China; lions lived on the grasslands, neither climbing nor descending mountains. The lion dance, expressing auspiciousness, has become a tradition that complements festive occasions, gradually shaping the folk customs of Awakening Lion in the Lingnan region.
Wong Fei-hung
Wong Fei-hung, a renowned figure in modern Chinese history, was not only a martial artist but also a physician and social activist. He hailed from a family with a strong martial arts background and received rigorous training in various martial arts styles from a young age, mastering Southern and Northern Fist styles among others. His legendary exploits and remarkable achievements are celebrated not only in China but also worldwide. His story has been adapted into numerous movies, TV dramas, and literary works, profoundly influencing the sense of national pride and patriotism among the Chinese people.
Wong Fei-hung dedicated himself to the exploration, organization, and rigorous training of the folk traditional art of lion dancing. Building upon the foundation of the existing Southern-style lion dance techniques, he incorporated elements of martial arts lion dancing. This fusion involved the integration of techniques from high pole lion dancing, traditional folk martial arts plum blossom stakes, and Southern-style lion dance routines, infused with local folk style characteristics. The resulting lion dance style was characterized by its high level of difficulty, clever choreography, and integration of dance, martial arts, acrobatics, strength, and aesthetics, thus giving rise to a new school of lion dancing.
Lion Dance in the Lingnan region
The Lingnan region is a historically rich and culturally prosperous area in southern China, encompassing provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Hainan. In the Lingnan region, the Li Family Lion Dance is another unique expression of lion dance culture. Originating from folk traditions in the Lingnan area, the Li Family Lion Dance has evolved over generations to become an important cultural heritage of the region. The performances of the Li Family Lion Dance are diverse and exquisite in technique, often showcased at villages, markets, and temple fairs, attracting numerous spectators. This form of lion dance is not only a performing art but also a significant means of inheriting and promoting folk culture in the Lingnan region.
Making Awakening Lion Pastry
The process of making Awakening Lion Pastry is extremely complex and time-consuming. Despite the small size, only about the size of a palm, making a single Awakening Lion Pastry requires significant effort—a half pound of dough can only produce one pastry. Even for experienced pastry chefs, it takes about 3 hours to make one. Making Awakening Lion Pastry requires extensive experience in laminating dough and precise knife skills to achieve its lifelike appearance.
Awakening Lion Pastry starts with the pastry dough, where each lion typically consists of four layers: two square-shaped straight layers and two circular layers rolled up in layers. The red pastry is used for shaping the head, while the white or yellow pastry is used for shaping the eyebrows and beard. The layers alternating between white and black are used for the eyes, and the layers alternating between red and yellow symbolize the auspicious bells during the lion dance.
1. Kneading Water Dough:
The dough made from water, oil, and flour needs to be kneaded to a thin and even consistency without breaking, referred to as "kneading water dough." This dough is then layered with oil dough made from only oil and flour to create laminated layers when fried.
2. Lamination:
Lamination is a crucial step where the water dough is wrapped around the oil dough, creating layers that are folded repeatedly to achieve a thickness of 72 layers from one pound of dough. The quality of lamination determines the success of the final product, as only tightly layered dough can create the desired crispy texture when fried.
3. Making Component Parts:
After lamination, the dough is frozen in a freezer at around minus twenty degrees Celsius until it hardens. The hardened dough is then cut into various parts for the lion's features, such as eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. More than 160 cuts are made on the dough with a knife to shape these features. When making the fur for the mouth, each cut must not exceed one millimeter, which requires extremely precise knife skills.
4. Assembly:
Assembling the pastry parts is the most time-consuming step. A thin layer of egg white is brushed on the assembly positions to act as glue. Careful attention is required during this step to ensure proper adhesion of the small pastry components.
5. Frying:
Finally, the assembled awakening lion pastries are fried in oil at 140°C for about three minutes until crispy, resulting in the birth of a lively awakening lion pastry.
