Jingjiang Six-Point Baked Buns 京江脐
Jingjiang Six-Point Baked Buns is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
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Jingjiang Six-Point Baked Buns (京江脐) are small oven-baked buns that originated in Zhenjiang (镇江), Jiangsu, with six pointed ridges rising from the top and a browned, crisp crust.
How it is made
In Zhenjiang the baker mixes flour with oil, salt and alkali the afternoon before and leaves the dough to ferment overnight. The next day the dough is rolled into small bun-shaped rounds, cut with a knife into a six-cornered shape and slapped onto the wall of the oven, where it bakes for about 15 minutes. Because they are shaped by hand without a mould, the six points often spread wide apart.
Straight from the oven the buns have sharp ridges, like a three-dimensional snowflake, and taste fragrant, crisp and soft. The buns are made by the traditional old-dough (laomian, 老面) fermentation method; the surface is crisp without being hard, the bun is slightly firm, and there is a faint alkaline aroma.
How it is eaten
There are savoury and sweet versions. The savoury one tastes more like a solid flatbread; it can be soaked in soy milk or congee, and in Yancheng (盐城) people tear it up into beef or mutton soup. The sweet one is brushed with sugar syrup as it comes out of the oven. In Yangzhou and Zhenjiang, sweet buns are also eaten soaked in jingguo fen (京果粉). The buns were once standard dry rations for spring and autumn outings.
Zhenjiang and Yangzhou have a custom of eating the buns at the Qingming festival: by tradition they were made so that no fire had to be lit on the Cold Food day (寒食), which in both cities now falls together with Qingming. A local saying warns that whoever skips the buns and fried dough twists (sanzi, 馓子) at Qingming will come back as a cat or a dog.
Names across the region
The bun spread through Jiangsu and Shanghai and has a different name almost everywhere. Around the Jianghuai (江淮) region it is usually jingangqi (金刚脐), in Yancheng jingangqi written with a different last character (金刚麒), and in Zhenjiang and Yangzhou jingjiangqi or simply jiangqizi (江脐子). One story says the name compares the bun to the navel of a clay guardian statue; another says it comes from Jingjiang (京江), an old name for Zhenjiang. In Suzhou and Shanghai the spread points reminded people of a tiger's claws, and there it is called the tiger's paw (老虎脚爪).
Questions before you order
Why do Jingjiang Six-Point Baked Buns have six points?
In Zhenjiang the dough round is cut with a knife into a six-cornered shape before baking, and because the buns are shaped by hand without a mould the points often spread wide.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.