Chinese Traditional dessert – wife cake
A sweetheart cake or wife cake is a traditional Chinese pastry with flaky and thin skin made with winter melon almond paste, sesame and pork lard, spiced with five spice powder. Sweetheart cake is the literal translation of Low Paw Bang 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. There are two 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 winter melon 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 recognized the pastry they were serving with the tea. They were reunited at the teahouse.
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