Belly button pastry |
| Alternative names | Tōo-tsâi-piánn, navel cake, mung bean cake |
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| Type | Pastry |
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| Place of origin | Taiwan |
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| Region or state | Miaoli County |
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| Serving temperature | Cold |
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| Main ingredients | Mung bean paste, sweet potato, flour |
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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]
