Flower Cake

Yunnan flower cake is a flaky pastry that uses rose petals as a filling It is a favorite dessert in Yunnan. It is a rare delicacy that is only available for part of the year because it's made using the petals of roses, which have a limited flowering period.

There are more than a dozen varieties of pastries being offered now. Some cakes use other ingredients such as pine nuts and Yunnan's famous ham.

The shelf life of flower cake is from seven to 45 days, depending on the ingredients, which means the season of availability is short. In April in Yunnan people stand in long lines to buy fresh flower cake. April and May are the best times to pick roses. After they are picked they are frozen and taken in refrigerated trucks to factories for processing.

The creation of a rose cake begins with making the filling. It's done by crushing the rose petals into a kind of mud and adding honey and sugar to cut the bitterness of the rose petal. Flaky pastry is created using traditional methods, and the pastry couches the filling.

Yunnan flower cake was first created by a cake maker during the Qing Dynasty more than 300 years ago. Flower cake became a favorite of the Qianlong Emperor himself.

Rose cakes are made using Rosa rugosa, a species of rose native to eastern Asia. The best quality of Rosa rugosa is grown in Yunnan.  With its mild, spring-like weather year round, Yunnan is an ideal environment for plants in general, and roses in particular.

Besides their great beauty and pleasant aroma, roses are highly nutritious. The Compendium of Materia Medica Nutrition lists rose as good medicine for promoting blood circulation, regulating qi, calming liver and detoxification. It's good for liver, spleen and stomach, and promotes beauty.

But apart from its health benefits, roses make flower cake, a rare and delicious dessert.