Classic Rose Pastry by Jiahua Flower Cake from Dali, Yunnan, China

And now for something that I would say, with the right setup, approaches the realm of soul food... Rose pastry. (Or Chinese rose petal cakes. 嘉华鲜花饼) Each bag came with six individually-wrapped pieces. A friend bought this back from China. It's called various names due to translation issues - flower cake, rose pie, rose pastry, rose bread, flower pastry and so on. (Update: I have since tried another brand, called Liangyi Jiabei, which had more variations. Scroll down to read the update.)

When I first saw this, I was really excited about its uniqueness. But to be honest, when I first tried it, I had a bit of trouble getting used to the rosy fragrance, which I had normally associated with body care products, filling my palate.

But by the second time, I had decided that it really was a treat - the rose petals were SO fragrant. They had this delicate crunch, somewhat like boiled vegetables like cabbage, only it wasn't savoury but sweet. And the pastry was smooth in texture, with a very mild flavour that did not get in the way of the rosy taste. A simply delightful treat.

The ingredients were pretty good too, in my opinion. The filling was pretty much pure rose petals, with some honey added in. They also didn't used margarine, although they did use pork lard, which is natural and hence fine in my opinion.

The best way to enjoy this would be on a cool day, maybe in the spring for temperate countries, or during a rainy season in tropical Singapore now, when it's cool. Preferably with flowers blooming.

Pour yourself some cool Eastern tea, like matcha, green tea, or oolong tea as I did. 

Lay everything out in nice flowery crockery.

Bring it to a verandah, preferably one facing a garden, to literally fulfill the classy notion of enjoying "pastries on the verandah". Then relax as you listen to the wind, and maybe rain, with a beautifully zen song playing in the background...

(Updated from original post on 30 Dec 2014.)

Liangyi (良艺) Jiabei Flower Cake (良艺鲜花饼) from Yunnan, Lijiang City, Guzheng District

After a long interval, I recently had flower cakes from another brand, although it is also from Yunnan. The English transliteration of this brand is Liangyi Jiabei, and they had more variations, such as a purple one and different types of pastries. It came in 1 box and the different flavours individually wrapped in a paper sleeve, but there was no label indicating what each flavour was. The paper sleeves were also not sealed, because it was purchased when freshly baked.

The first two I tried were a purple one (left) and a semioval or pocket shaped one (right).

The pocket shaped one seemed to be the standard original flavour. The rose filling had a prominent but soft vegetable crunch, and there was also a clear hint of honey. (The ingredients list below does include honey as well, similar to the Jiahua one. There were two pieces of this version in the box, and for the second one I tried (bottom 2 pictures out of the 3 below), the rose petals in the filling were very prominent, and you can even see the veins in the petals. Unlike the Jiahua version, however, the pastry was softer and more similar to oil pie crust pastry than the usual Chinese oil pastry.

The purple one seemed to have a stronger rose floral fragrance, but seemed to have some bean or root paste mixed in based on the taste. The texture also does seem to be slightly more pastey than the original pocket shaped one above. There was also less of a flower taste despite the stronger floral fragrance, and also less of the vegetable-crunch texture, resembling more of a red bean paste texture. Upon searching online for similar purple versions from Lijiang, the purple cakes were labeled as "Sweet Potato" in flavour, which makes complete sense. Purple sweet potato does have a sweet floral fragrance as well, and it would explain the earthy, root-like flavour and pastey texture that resembles red bean. 

Next, I tried this round one below. The pastry was more similar to Wife Biscuit, in that it was thinner, more delicate and slightly closer to an oil crust pie pastry, which would be the same pastry as the original pocket-shaped one. The filling was also a bit more similar to a wife biscuit filling, in that it was a bit more starchy and seemed to have a vague melon fragrance, but it had a stronger rose fragrance than the original flavour that was pocket-shaped. There was also interestingly no noticeable vegetable-like crunch from the flowers, so either it was cooked softer or chopped to smaller sizes. You can still see that there are clear flower bits in the filling from the photo below, however. From online searches, the possible flavours I can think of might either be the milk cream version or perhaps the jasmine flower version. It could be something else entirely, however.

The final one I tried was this paler version with a flakier pastry. This was probably the closest version to the Jiahua Flower Cake brand. It was the typical Chinese cake pastry instead of the oil pie crust pastry. The filling was also the standard rose one with a hint of honey. I think overall, I preferred the pocket-shaped version, as the softer and more delicate pastry for that paired well with the crunch of the cooked rose petals. 

Finally, here is the ingredients list. (Click photo to enlarge.) Like Jiahua, it also contains lard. The list, in order, reads: wheat flour, water, edible pork lard, white sugar, red roses, egg, honey. All natural ingredients with no margarine or preservatives, although I am not totally confident that it is comprehensive.

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