🍽️ Huangzhou Dongpo Cake

Sweet crisp cake named after Su Dongpo.

Huangzhou Dongpo Cake is a traditional sweet crisp pastry of Huangzhou in Huanggang, Hubei, associated in local lore with the Northern Song literary giant Su Shi, known by his pen name Dongpo, who lived in exile in Huangzhou. Wheat dough is repeatedly rolled and folded to build flaky layers, then fried or baked into a round thin cake dusted with sugar or drizzled with honey, crisp in many layers. It is golden with distinct layers, sweet and melt-in-the-mouth without being cloying. It is both a tea-time and guest-welcoming sweet for Huangzhou people and a cultural pastry visitors enjoy when tracing Dongpo's legacy. Unlike savory crisp cakes, Dongpo cake emphasizes sweet flakiness; bitten while hot, the crust flaking off, it best conveys a literary refinement of the Jianghan plain that has circulated for centuries.