Bozhou Thick Baked Flatbread 亳州锅盔
Bozhou Thick Baked Flatbread is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
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Bozhou Thick Baked Flatbread (亳州锅盔) is a very large, thick round of sesame-topped bread from Bozhou (亳州), Anhui. A Bozhou News Network feature on the city's street food lists guokui among its characteristic snacks alongside beef-filled pan bread (牛肉馍), and a Bozhou Evening News essay describes it as the bread that Bozhou mutton-soup restaurants serve with their soup, where soup houses elsewhere serve shaobing (烧饼) flatbread, steamed cakes or buns.
How it is made
The dough is a mix of unleavened and leavened dough in a set ratio, kneaded into one big mass and worked into a round about 50 centimetres across and 3 to 4 centimetres thick. It is dry-baked in a flat pan without oil. The baker keeps turning the bread by hand to judge its heat and doneness, then sprinkles on a little water, adds a layer of sesame seeds and keeps baking. Three iron rings are often set between the bread and the pan so it heats evenly and neither scorches nor stays raw inside.
After about 20 minutes the guokui comes out weighing roughly eight jin (about 4 kilograms), covered in sesame, crisp outside and soft within. Making it is not complicated, but it is very laborious.
How it is eaten
In mutton-soup restaurants, guokui is dipped in chilli oil (油辣子) or fermented soybean paste (酱豆), or soaked in the soup, which the bread soaks up readily. Guokui is also sold on the street, and vendors call out "guokui, selling guokui" as they go.
Where it comes from
A local story links the bread to Cao Cao (曹操): short of equipment on campaign, his soldiers are said to have turned their helmets upside down, spread dough inside and baked it over fire. Bread baked this way holds little water, keeps for a long time without spoiling and is easy to carry.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.