Belly button pastry
 | |
| Alternative names | Tōo-tsâi-piánn, navel cake, mung bean cake |
|---|---|
| Type | Pastry |
| Place of origin | Taiwan |
| Region or state | Miaoli County |
| Serving temperature | Cold |
| Main ingredients | Mung bean paste, sweet potato, flour |
| Belly button pastry | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 肚臍餅 | ||||||||||
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Belly button pastry (Chinese: 肚臍餅; Tongyong Pinyin: Dùcíbǐng; Tâi-lô: Tōo-tsâi-piánn) is a traditional pastry associated with the Hakka communities of Miaoli County, Taiwan.[1][2] Occasionally, it is called moonlight cake (月光餅), nipple cake (奶頭餅), pacifier cake (奶嘴餅), mung bean cake (綠豆餅), and mung bean puff (綠豆凸).[1]
There are contradictory accounts of how it originated. In one account, when Taiwan under Japanese rule, the Hakka served the pastry to important visitors by relying on local ingredients. In a second story, during that same era, the Miaoli Sugar Factory's workers relied on locally sourced ingredients to create an imitation of Japanese sweets. A third account held that the pastry's shape took inspiration from sweet potato that had been molded into an infant's pacifier. A fourth account said that it came from a mung bean puff that in which the crust ruptured and was breached by the filling.[1]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 和菓子 (2025). 臺灣甜：那些滋潤心靈的傳統節日糕點：那些滋潤心靈的傳統節日糕點 [Taiwanese Sweets: Stories of Heritage, Memory, and the Sweet Taste of Home] (in Chinese). Taipei: Locus Publishing 大塊文化出版. ISBN 978-626-433-056-5. Retrieved 2026-07-06 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Sung, Pei-yao 宋佩遙; Fan, Hsiu-yu 范修語 (2024-09-05). "可愛爆擊！「小肚臍一口凸」 傳承40年的好滋味" [An explosion of cuteness! "Little Belly Button", a delicious treat with a 40-year legacy]. HakkaNews 客新聞 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2026-07-06. Retrieved 2026-07-06.
