The fruit of his labors

Liu Jitong began studying at Wang's side in 2014.

"I've made pastry for over a decade, but after learning from Wang, I realized the heights that Chinese pastry can reach," he says. "I had heard about peach-shaped pastries for birthdays, but his mianguo are remarkably close to real fruit."

Liu started learning by making the apple dough, and Wang told him to go and buy one and just observe it.

"He said I must see through the apple, so I started to study its shape, color - - every detail."

With Wang's direction, Liu figured out how to make an apple mianguo, before creating a strawberry and a jujube.

Wang is now leading Liu and his team in developing mianguo for vegetables, and they have already created eggplants, bell peppers, mushrooms and cabbages.

"To make vegetables is much harder," Liu explains. "It is not only that the shape of the vegetable is more complicated to reproduce, but Wang wants us to make the flavor the same as the vegetable as well.

Unlike sweet, fruit-shaped mianguo, the vegetable ones are savory. The bell pepper mianguo uses green pepper with pork filling, while the cabbage uses the popular Chinese dish, spicy cabbage, inside.

"The cabbage is particularly difficult because it has so many layers. We need to make it layer by layer, but at the same time fill it so that people don't notice it is there," says Liu, who is currently learning how to make mianguo in the form of bitter gourd, which has an uneven, pustulous skin.

"Wang has made pastry for his whole career, and he now wants to pass his skills on to the next generation with the hope that traditional Chinese pastry can be revived," Liu explains.

To be a traditional Chinese pastry chef, the first thing one has to master is five wrappers - those for dumplings, steamed stuffed buns, shaomai, wontons and spring rolls.

Wang began learning his trade in 1964 when he was just 16 years old. He worked for Qianmen Hotel (now named Jianguo Hotel, Qianmen Beijing) until he turned 60, and now he is a consultant for Yulin Kaoya restaurant.

"For over five decades, I've only done one job - a pastry chef. It's an interesting thing, and I never thought of changing careers," says Wang.

Wang recalls that when he first started on his pastry-laden path, his masters wouldn't teach him too much, so he had to just observe, "stealing" learnable skills.