Duck-Oil Sesame Cake

Duck-oil sesame cake is a traditional Luzhou pastry in which duck fat is worked into the dough to create flaky layers, the surface thickly strewn with sesame; once baked it is crisp outside and soft within, with a rich duck-fat fragrance that never turns greasy.

The cake grows out of the Luzhou snack tradition: Hefei sits amid a dense network of waters where duck-raising and duck-eating have long flourished, and cooks worked the fat rendered from ducks into pastry dough, turning what was once waste into a classic street breakfast.

Baked to order and best eaten hot, the crust flakes and crumbles while the inside stays soft and fragrant, taken as a breakfast or teatime snack alongside a bowl of spicy soup or soy milk.

The mellow fragrance of duck fat, the toasted aroma of sesame and the many flaky layers are what make this cake so appealing.