Wife cake

I found wife cakes (lou phor pen) at Maxims' Cakes in Little Bourke Street, just near the corner of Russell Street. I hadn't heard of them before. They are delicious. Flaky pastry encases a filling of a wintermelon paste that is not too sweet.

Wife Cake $2.30

I was telling a friend about the wife cakes and he told me they are made with candied wintermelon. He suggested not trying to make candied wintermelon. I found this pack at Great Eastern Food Centre.

There are a few recipes around, here's one at Little Corner of Mine. There is also a recipe over at Cha Xiu Bao, but she uses Chinese measurements such as tael and catty. Over at Sunflower Food Galore there is a great post that explains the terms and converts the weights into grams. I had never heard of tael and catty and found the post very interesting.

There is a recipe on this forum but also a series of photos that show the cakes being made which seems quite good.

There is some info at Wikipedia about them too.

I'd like to try and make them one day, but for now it seems just as easy to pop down to Maxims'.

Maxims' Cakes

173 Little Bourke Street

Melbourne

Ph 9662 1980

Great Eastern Food Centre

185 Russell Street

Melbourne

Ph 9663 3716