Guilin Mugwort Rice Cakes

Guilin Mugwort Rice Cakes are "herbal pastries" of spring, perfectly combining fresh mugwort's fragrance with glutinous rice's softness. The process involves blanching young mugwort leaves to remove bitterness, mashing them into a paste, kneading with glutinous rice flour and sugar to form a emerald-green dough, wrapping in red bean paste, sesame sugar, or peanut filling, and steaming on a grapefruit leaf base for 10 minutes. Steamed cakes are dark green with a smooth, shiny surface, infused with grapefruit leaf's fragrance. A bite reveals soft, chewy glutinous rice skin, with mugwort's slight bitterness balancing the filling's sweetness, leaving a refreshing herbal aftertaste. In traditional Chinese medicine, mugwort helps dispel dampness, making this pastry both delicious and a spring health tonic. Around Qingming Festival, every Guilin household makes them, with mugwort's unique aroma filling streets. Foreigners may wonder about the green color at first, but will be impressed by mugwort's natural fragrance after tasting, especially enjoying its soft texture when warm, finding it a healthy pastry full of "spring flavor."