Lao Po Bing
My colleague at work brought these in after Chinese new year. They were gifted to his family from some an overseas family member from China.
This cake is quite savoury, super flaky, with a slight taste of pineapple. My colleague advised it would normally be enjoyed with a cup of tea as a morning or afternoon snack.
Traditionally, this cake is known as a sweetheart cake or wife cake made with traditional Cantonese pastry (using lard not butter) with a filling of winter melon, almond paste and sesame, seasoned with five spice.
Here is a video that shows Lao Po Bing being made.
There are a few stories about how this cake came about (copied from Wikipedia).
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 could never forget, and sold it in the street. 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.
Another story tells of a dimsum chef's wife creating a pastry with wintermelon paste influenced by a recipe from her mother's family. The new pastry was found to taste better than the dimsums that were being sold in teahouses and the chef proudly told everyone it was made by his wife, hence it was named "Wife Cake"