Jingou cake making skills are a traditional skills project in the second batch of representative projects of Huai'an's municipal intangible cultural heritage. Historical origins Jingou cake, formerly known as sugar cake, is made of high-quality glutinous rice through frying, grinding, scalding, warming and other processes. It is a specialty of Jingou Town, Jinhu County, Huai'an City. Its production skills have a long history. According to legend, in the early Ming Hongwu period, the "Hongwu Dispersion" was implemented, causing a large number of wealthy gentry in Suzhou to drift to Jinhu. Jingou Town has therefore become a place where the north and south meet, and trade has gradually flourished, the market is active, and various special products have sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain. Jingou cake also appeared at this time and was presented to the court as a tribute. It has a history of more than 600 years. When the New Fourth Army's commander Luo Binghui passed through Jingou, he tasted Jingou cake and highly praised it. The local people even used Jingou cake to comfort the people's soldiers. In Jinhu County, Jingou cake is a must-have gift between relatives and friends during major festivals. The main utensils for making Jingou cake are wooden graters, water tanks, wooden hammers, stone mills, chopping boards, wiping boards (with teeth, like washboards), pots, etc. The production process mainly includes material selection, frying, grinding, annealing, measuring powder, boiling sugar, rubbing cakes, loading, scalding, opening, warming cakes, and cutting cakes. Material selection: Select local high-quality glutinous rice, wash it with warm water, and warm it up to make it crispy. Frying: First, soak the iron sand with cooked lard to make it boiling hot, then stir-fry the glutinous rice that has been warmed for a day with the iron sand until cooked, and filter out the iron sand for later use. Grinding: Grind the fried rice into powder and filter it through a fine sieve, and continue to grind the coarse grains. Generally, it takes more than a dozen sieving and grinding to be considered complete. Annealing: Rice flour is generally made in spring, and cakes are generally made in winter. The ground rice flour needs to be placed for about half a year to reduce the heat generated during frying. Measuring powder (local dialect, meaning penetration): Wash and cut carrots into strips, mix them together in a ratio of 100 kilograms of rice flour to 20 kilograms of carrot strips, and stir them regularly, 56 times a day, so that they cannot clump. After 40 days, use a sieve to take out the powder. Boil sugar: Add soft white sugar to water and a little vegetable oil to make syrup. When the syrup can be pulled into threads, pour it into a jar when it can be hung with chopsticks, stir it with rice flour for two hours, and then add cooked lard. Stir evenly and place it for one day to cool and condense for use. Rub cake: Take out the rice flour that has been placed for one day and place it on the chopping board. Rub it with a grater to make it into powder. Use a fine sieve to remove the sugar particles, and then add sesame seeds and preserved fruit cubes to make cake powder. Scalding ingredients: Put the cake powder in a container into a large pot with hot water, steam it for about 20 minutes, and take it out to cool. Opening the cake: Cut the cooled cake into rectangular cake strips. Generally, one cake strip weighs about 1.7 jin. Warming the cake: Sprinkle a little flour on the cake to prevent it from sticking together, then put it into the cake pool and cover it with cotton blankets to prevent water loss and maintain temperature. It needs to be warmed for a day and a night. Without this step, the cake will taste rough and have scum. Cutting the cake: Cut the cake into thin slices. One cake strip needs 140 cuts. The sliced cake is white and thin. It rolls up like a cigarette. It can be restored when the hand is loosened. It can be lit with a match and can be burned from beginning to end. Jingou cake is made of excellent materials and exquisitely made. It is warm and refreshing, sweet but not greasy, rich in nutrition, and suitable for all ages. And because its name is the homonym of "Da Gao", it is more auspicious, and it has become a gift and sacrifice given to each other by relatives and friends. The making skills of Jingou cake enrich the traditional handicraft skills, carry certain historical and cultural values and have certain economic value. (No pictures available, please provide them.) (No pictures available, please provide them.)