Hefei's Four Great Sweets

Hefei's four great sweets are sesame cake, baked cake, cunjin and baiqie: the sesame cake is thickly coated with sesame over a sweet filling; the baked cake is light and crumbly; cunjin is a long crisp toffee, golden and fragrant; baiqie sets sesame in a brittle sugar block—four flavours that together stand for Luzhou pastry craft.

The four sweets grow from Luzhou's traditional pastry craft, their fame carried far by century-old houses such as Zhang Shunxing; a folk rhyme runs "sweet and fragrant on the tongue, for pastries find the Zhang family," and they remain an indispensable gift at Hefei weddings and festivals.

Most often taken as a teatime treat and festival gift, best savoured slowly with tea; cunjin and baiqie are broken into pieces to accompany a cup, while sesame and baked cakes serve as breakfast or hospitality.

Four distinct textures—flaky, chewy, crisp and fragrant—gathered into a complete spectrum of Luzhou pastry is what makes the four great sweets so distinctive.