Flower-Shaped Guokui

Flower-Shaped Guokui

　　The flower-shaped guokui from Men is made with great care, using high-quality flour, clarified butter, eggs, milk, along with fragrant bean powder, Sichuan peppercorns, and more. The large, basin-sized dough is then patterned with a needle. The designs mostly feature images such as "Chang'e Flying to the Moon," "Pine, Bamboo, Plum, and Orchid," and "Immortal Peaches." No human figures other than Chang'e are depicted on the bread. Once this roughly two-inch-thick raw dough is prepared, it is placed in a small, specially designed cooking pot and baked over a straw fire. Because the pot is very small, only one piece can be baked at a time, often requiring half a month to finish baking for a single household. To create guokui with various flavors, ingredients such as pumpkin (wohulu), red yeast rice, yellow yeast rice, turmeric (all used as flavoring and coloring agents), and date paste are added, resulting in uniquely flavored guokui.