Wuzhen Gusa Cake

Wuzhen Gusa Cake

　　　　Product Name: Wuzhen Gusa Cake

　　　　Place of Origin: Wuzhen

　　　　Category: Pastry

　　　　Ingredients: Gusa Cake is rich in protein and various essential trace elements required by the human body.

　　　　Benefits: It helps to strengthen the spleen and stomach, and promotes bowel movements

　　　　Features: Gusa Cake has a rich, oily texture with a sesame aroma, is crisp, flaky, soft, and chewy upon eating, with a balanced sweet and salty flavor—neither greasy nor bland—offering a rustic taste without being coarse.

　　　　Product Introduction: The shape of Gusa Cake resembles that of chess-piece pastry, but is slightly larger. Its ingredients are similar to those of sugar crisp pastry—flour, white sugar, sesame seeds, lard, etc.—but it tastes even better than regular crisp sweets. The production of Gusa Cake in Wuzhen has a history of at least several hundred years. According to the “Annals of Wuching Town,” Volume 20, “Local Products” section, revised during the Qing Dynasty under Emperor Qianlong by Dong Shining and continued by Lu Xuepu: “Made from extremely fine wheat flour mixed with sugar and sesame, stamped into round cakes, available in pepper-salt or white sugar flavors, sweet and moist, widely renowned.”

　　　　Product Story: As the name suggests, “Gusa Cake” is related to the relationship between a sister-in-law and her younger sister. Legend has it that during the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, there was a family workshop in town that specialized in making a type of small crisp pastry. Due to its unique recipe and meticulous preparation, the taste was extraordinarily good, winning great favor among locals, and the business flourished. To maintain exclusivity, the owner established a family rule that only daughters-in-law could inherit the key techniques—not daughters. Over time, the daughter grew unhappy and increasingly jealous of her sister-in-law. One day, when the sister-in-law wasn’t looking, the younger sister secretly sprinkled a handful of salt into the ingredients, hoping to embarrass her. Unexpectedly, the added salt turned out to be just right—the resulting crisp pastry had a delightful sweet-and-salty taste, and sold even faster than before. Hence, the pastry came to be called “Gusa Cake.”