Sugar-scallion thin pancake is a Chaoshan street snack: a brittle, snow-white block of aerated candy called 'sugar scallion' — boiled from maltose and white sugar, then pulled again and again until it sets riddled with parallel hollow tubes that look like a bundle of scallion stalks — snapped into sticks and rolled inside a very thin soft crepe. The candy gives a dry, airy crackle that shatters into clean sweetness; the wrapper is pale and pliable. It is usually finished with crushed peanut, sesame and a little coriander. Long sold from street trays, especially in spring, it is a nostalgic 'tea companion' of the Chaoshan towns.
Sugar-scallion thin pancake is a traditional Chaoshan snack, by repute four centuries old; it is often said to date to the Ming, and the white, light, residue-free local 'scallion sugar' was already praised in a Ming prefect's account of Chaozhou. The candy is closely tied to Shantou, with the village of Futan (popularly 'Yatan') in Chaonan named as a home of the craft, so that local sugar-scallion is also called 'Yatan sugar-scallion'; the technique has been listed as intangible cultural heritage at the municipal level in Jieyang and the district level in Chaonan. Its season is spring: in Chaoshan the Qingming custom of eating thin pancakes is held to descend from the old Cold Food festival, and vendors once walked the lanes through the season calling it out. It is eaten as a sweet 'tea companion,' the candy's clean sweetness offset by the plain wrapper and savory garnishes.
The candy is the moment: a snow-white stick that snaps dry and brittle, honeycombed with fine hollow tubes that crush to a light, airy crackle and dissolve into a clean, pure sweetness with no stickiness. Around it the crepe is thin, pale and soft, faintly chewy, barely sweet, and the crushed peanut and sesame add a dry nutty crunch with a green lift from the coriander. The whole bite is dry and crisp rather than gooey — brittle sugar, soft skin, nutty grit. It must be eaten soon after rolling: the candy is hygroscopic and will draw damp and soften, and the wrapper stiffens as it cools.
The honeycomb is air folded into hot sugar. Maltose and white sugar are boiled together — the maltose syrup giving the cooked sugar its pull and keeping it from crystallizing brittle too soon — until it reaches the hard-crack stage, then cooled until just workable. The mass is repeatedly pulled and folded over a stick like a loop of dough: each pull stretches it and traps thin sheets of air, and folding back lays those air pockets down in parallel, so that over many passes the candy fills with long, parallel hollow channels and turns from clear to opaque snowy white as the countless air interfaces scatter light. Worked into a long bar, it sets with the tube structure of a scallion bundle — by tradition a proper sugar-scallion shows sixteen large bores, each ringed by smaller ones. It must be kept warm and turned over the fire while pulling so it stays plastic and does not snap; once cool it is brittle and stable. The wrapper is a thin water-flour crepe, swiped onto a hot griddle like a spring-roll skin, kept soft and pliable to wrap the candy.
Variations
The standard fillings around the candy are crushed peanut, toasted sesame and a sprig of coriander; some add shredded coconut, and the proportions shift by stall and town. The candy alone is sold as 'scallion sugar.' Beyond Shantou and Chaonan the craft is named in Puning and Jieyang, where it carries heritage status, and Chaoshan emigrants kept it alive overseas as a taste of home. The two things that define a good one are the candy's honeycomb — it must be dry, light and audibly brittle, not dense or sticky — and a wrapper rolled thin enough to stay soft. Eaten fresh, before the hygroscopic sugar can soften, it is dry, crisp and clean rather than cloying.
On the Palate
Where Sugar-Scallion Thin Pancake sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 50 min active + 20 min waiting
- 112 min
Boil maltose and white sugar together (with a splash of water) over low heat, stirring, until the syrup reaches the hard-crack stage.
Watch outBoil the sugar to the hard-crack stage — the maltose keeps it from crystallizing brittle too soon, but stop short of hard-crack and it won't hold the aerated tubes.
- 28 min
Pour the molten sugar out to cool over a stick or hook until it is firm enough to handle but still warm and plastic.
- 312 min
Pull and fold the sugar repeatedly over the stick, returning it to the heat now and then so it stays pliable, until it turns opaque white and fills with parallel hollow tubes.
Watch outPull and fold repeatedly until it turns opaque snowy white — each pull traps air into parallel hollow channels; that's the honeycomb.
- 46 min
Draw the aerated candy into a long bar with the scallion-tube structure set inside, then let it cool until brittle and snap it into short sticks.
- 58 min
Make the wrapper: mix wheat flour and water into a loose batter and swipe a thin crepe onto a hot griddle, cooking it soft and pliable.
- 62 min
Lay a crepe flat, set a stick or two of sugar-scallion on it, and scatter over crushed peanut, sesame and a little coriander.
- 71 min
Roll the crepe up snugly around the filling and eat at once, before the candy can soften.
Watch outRoll and eat at once before the candy softens — the aerated sugar goes sticky fast, so this is a race against the clock.
