Sweetheart cake
| Sweetheart cake | |||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 老婆餅 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 老婆饼 | ||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | wife ("sweetheart") cake | ||||||||||||||
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A sweetheart cake or wife cake is a traditional Chinese pastry with flaky and thin skin made with winter melon, almond paste, and sesame, and spiced with five spice powder (Chinese spice blend of fennel seed, star anise, licorice root and cloves).[1] "Wife cake" is the literal translation of lou po beng from Cantonese dialect.
There are many classes held in Hong Kong for making sweetheart cakes. The sweetheart cake, though it has such a long history, is still popular among many in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Many people in Hong Kong, as well as professional chefs, bake also "modern" varieties of this cake.
Legendary origin
There are many legends that attempt to explain the origins of the Sweetheart cake. One tells the tale of a couple that lived a very poor life, in imperial China. They loved each other and lived in a small village.
Suddenly, a mysterious disease spread. The husband's father became very sick. The couple spent all of their money in order to treat the man's father, but he was still sick. The wife sold herself as a slave in exchange for money to buy medicine for her father-in-law.
Once the husband learned about what his wife did, he made a cake filled with sweetened wintermelon and almond. He dedicated this pastry to his wife, whom he'll never forget and sold it. His cake became so popular that he was able to earn enough money to buy his wife back.
There is another version where the man went searching for his wife after he earned enough money to buy her back. In his search, he had a cup of tea at a local teahouse, when he suddenly recognised the pastry they were serving with the tea. They were reunited at the teahouse.
Similar pastries
The traditional British Eccles cake is similar in structure and appearance to the sweetheart cake, though its filling is currants.
See also
References
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