Wife Cake

Brand: Dong Wang Yang (Looking East)

Cost: £1.60

Found at: Oaka Supercity

I went searching for moon cakes in Scotland in February and unsurprisingly met with very little success. I’ve been missing them lately but had forgotten that, even though there are many Chinese grocery stores in Glasgow, they are unlikely to stock a specialty pastry for a festival that happens in October. It’s basically the Chinese equivalent of looking for a pumpkin spice latte in May.

But I looked anyway because I had an hour to kill before class and nothing better to do with my time.

In the end, the closest I could find were these wife cakes (alternately translated as sweetheart cakes or “old lady cakes”), which did the job pretty nicely. They are made with a filling of winter melon, sesame paste, and coconut mash wrapped in a flakey shortening pastry. They have the right doughy consistency and light sweetness that I had been missing, without the danger of finding a preserved egg-yolk inside (always my least favorite part of any mooncake).

Best of all, I can use the packaging to send passive-aggressive messages to my boyfriend about the fact that we are not engaged. After all: #ringbyspring.

And just in case my mother is reading: that’s a joke, Amy. Please don’t call me.