Basin cake (Rice and white kidney bean cake with jujube) is a famous delicacy of Beijing. It is steamed with a special earthen jar which has a hole at the bottom. Basin cake contains clear layers. It is made of white flour and red jujube, tastes glutinous, soft, chewy and sweet, and carries strong scent of jujube. In the late winter, the twelfth month of the lunar year, a piece of Basin cake fresh from the steamer not only keeps the cold away, but also fills the stomach and strengthens the body. 

In the past, Basin cake peddlers made the ingredients ready at home, that is to have jujube steamed and kidney beans boiled, then brought wet rice flour (it’s better to use wet rice flour ground from saturated sticky rice or glutinous millet), lighted a coal stove, and then went to the market with a trolley. In preparation, cover the earthen jar with a layer of jujube first, then a layer of wet rice flour followed by a layer of kidney beans, then another layer of wet flour, and some sweet osmanthus on the top. Pour water in the pot, set it on the coal stove, then put the jar in the pot, and steam the pot with high-temperature fire. When it is done, turn the jar upside down, empty the contents, then halve the cake, stack one half on top of the other, then cover it with a wet cloth, and press it for a little while, and now it is ready for sale. Like Qie Gao (a kind of cake made of glutinous rice, sold in sliced pieces), Basin cake is also sold extempore in sliced pieces. Basin cake contains clear layers. It is made of white flour and red jujube, tastes glutinous, soft, chewy and sweet, and carries strong scent of jujube.