Street Eats: These Pretty Wheat Cakes Hit the Right Note of Sweet and Healthy
Sometimes, we think that people in Beijing just like to queue. We submit HeyTea, “dirty buns,” once popular cheesy toast, and crowd-drawing pig trotters as evidence. Lately, it’s been wheat cake (仙豆糕 xiān dòu gāo) that has caused otherwise right-minded Beijing adults to stand outside in the cold for inordinate amounts of time. Yet wheat cake is not a new creation, but a traditional pastry that dates back to Ming dynasty.
We admit to being skeptical when we first heard that people were queueing up for an hour just to have a taste of the cakes. Honestly, who would actually do that on a freezing cold, -5 degrees Celsius Monday afternoon? Yet when we arrived at the store's Nanluogu Xiang location, we saw that this craze was not a joke. It would take at least 40 mins to get an order, we learned, during which time we would probably freeze to death. Thankfully, it was at that moment that we spotted brightly-clad delivery guys rushing in and out of the shop, and decided to order online instead (thanks, Baidu Waimai).
Before long, a sampler box of 16 cakes (RMB 68) arrived at our warm and cozy office. The cakes come in four different flavors – original, purple sweet potato, red bean with dates, and purple sweet potato with cheese. The cake's soft exterior is made of wheat flour, oil, and egg white, while the filling is a basic mixture of red and mung beans, black soybeans, and a dense peanut paste, which makes the cakes quite heavy and filling.
The winner in terms of flavor, the red bean flavor cake, is packed with coarsely ground beans, a whole date, and is sweeter than the other flavors. A warning: the date still had its pit, so be careful if you stick the whole thing in your mouth. The cheese-lovers that we are, we were also naturally intrigued by the purple sweet potato with cheese variety. It wasn't bad, with slightly creamy cheese (melted in the heat), providing more flavor to cover up the flavorless potato inside.
The original flavor (above right) and the purple sweet potato (left) were mediocre. The former has a smooth texture, reminding us of a warm version of wandouhuang (豌豆黄, mung bean paste); the latter was not at all sweet, relying on the bright color alone to attract our attention.
Regardless of the hit-and-miss flavors, these little cakes are good hot or cold, and best of all, because they aren't overloaded with sugar, they actually taste pretty healthy. Given that they've just opened up a new branch in Sanlitun Soho, we bet they're going to be around for a long while yet.
Wheat Cake
Daily 11am-8pm. 246 Gulou Dongdajie, Dongcheng District (5240 0389)
栗记麦香坊： 东城区鼓楼东大街246号
Daily 9am-10pm. 1-112, Sanlitun Soho, Gongti Bei Lu, Chaoyang District (157 4180 8264)
朝阳区工人体育场北路三里屯Soho1-112号
Are you up to date on all of Sanlitun Soho's F&B offerings? Check them out, right here.
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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos: Tracy Wang, Dianping
