Ji'an Thin Flaky Pastry 吉安薄酥饼

How it is made

The Ji'an city government lists the filling as pure lard, white sugar, Sichuan pepper, white sesame, five-spice powder, spring onion and salt, wrapped in a skin of refined wheat flour. The cakes go through 32 steps, including kneading the dough, wrapping in the flaky layer (包酥), rolling flat and baking.

Flavour and texture

The city names five qualities: thin, flaky, fragrant, sweet and crisp. It spells three of them out as thin but not hollow, flaky but not crumbling, and sweet but not cloying, and adds that the cake holds together rather than falling apart.

Where it comes from

The city government gives two histories side by side. One says the pastry began in the late Yuan dynasty. Tradition holds that every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the pastry cooks of Luling (庐陵) gathered at the Mi Gong Shrine (弥公祠) to honour Mi Gong, the founder of Luling pastry-making, and that Ji'an Thin Flaky Pastry was among the offerings and was also presented as tribute to the emperor. The other history describes it as one of Jiangxi's noted specialities with more than a hundred years of production.

It won a bronze award at the first China Food Expo in 1988, and the city presents it as a Mid-Autumn cake that sells both inside and outside the province.