Dingshi Sesame Crisp is the top grade of Tunxi sesame-maltose crisp (mahsutang), a layered confection from the Huizhou region of southern Anhui. Toasted, ground sesame is blended with sugar and a little flour into a fine crumb, then folded again and again into a cooked maltose dough so the finished bar separates into many paper-thin leaves. It crumbles at a bite, melts in the mouth, smells strongly of roasted sesame, and clings to neither the teeth nor its wrapper. Each piece is wrapped in a small square of red paper, and it is an obligatory New-Year gift and tea snack across old Huizhou.
Sesame-maltose crisp (mahsutang) is a traditional fine pastry of Huizhou, generally said to have begun under the Southern Song and to have spread with the Huizhou merchants in the Ming and Qing; the softest, finest grade of it is singled out as Dingshi su. The name 顶市 reads as the best on the market, i.e. the top-of-the-market crisp, and the candy is also known locally as the red-paper packet for its red wrapping. A Huizhou proverb runs, If you bring no sesame crisp at New Year, do not expect the host to seat you, marking its place in the New-Year gift custom. The Huizhou Dingshi su technique was listed in 2014 in Anhui Province's fourth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage.
The bar shatters the instant you bite, breaking along its folded leaves into fine flakes that dissolve almost at once on the tongue. The flavour is dominated by the deep toasted aroma of the sesame, carried by a light, clean sweetness that is never cloying. It powders rather than chews, leaves no sticky film on the teeth, and lifts cleanly off the red paper.
Cooked maltose syrup is the structural backbone: boiled to the right firmness for the season, it is pliable yet holds shape, and the repeated folding works air into it while interleaving it with dry sesame crumb. Each fold doubles the number of layers, so seven or more folds yield scores of alternating sugar-and-powder leaves that snap apart cleanly instead of forming a dense slab. Dry-toasting the sesame drives the roasted aroma and frees its oil, which coats the crumb and keeps the layers from welding shut, while the ratio of soft sugar to maltose sets how hard or melting the bar finishes.
Variations
Dingshi su is the top tier of the broader Tunxi sesame-maltose crisp family; a black-sesame version is made by adding a little salt for a darker, savoury-edged crisp. Sibling Huizhou New-Year confections from the same Tunxi tea-snack tradition include cunjin tang (a crisp filled sugar stick), jiaoqie pian (sliced sesame-and-peanut brittle), and dongmi tang (puffed-rice candy).
On the Palate
Where Dingshi Sesame Crisp sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
8 steps · 1 hour 10 min active + 20 min waiting
- 115 min
Dry-toast the white sesame in a wok over low heat until fragrant and lightly coloured, stirring constantly so it does not scorch; toast the flour separately until cooked and pale.
Watch outDry-toast the sesame over low heat, stirring nonstop, until just fragrant and lightly colored — scorched sesame turns the whole crisp bitter.
- 212 min
Grind the toasted sesame to a fine powder, then mix it with the soft sugar and toasted flour and sift the blend into a light, even crumb (the crisp crumb).
- 310 min
Boil the maltose syrup to the right firmness for the weather: in winter, until it can just be picked up by hand; in summer, a touch firmer.
Watch outBoil the maltose to the right firmness for the season — winter until just hand-liftable, summer a touch firmer; too soft and the layers won't hold.
- 45 min
Dust the worktable with crisp crumb, lay the warm maltose dough on it, and scatter more crumb over the top.
- 518 min
Roll the dough thin, fold it over with a layer of crumb trapped inside, then roll thin again; repeat the fold-and-dust at least seven times to build the layers.
Watch outFold and re-roll thin at least seven times — each fold doubles the layers, and that's what makes it snap apart cleanly instead of a dense slab.
- 64 min
Roll the layered slab into a long, slim cylinder.
- 74 min
Cut the cylinder crosswise into small bars about three centimetres long.
- 812 min
Wrap each bar in a small square of red paper and store airtight.
