Chronicles of a cake craze

• Source: Global Times
• [10:56 December 27 2010]
• Comments

By Linda Kennedy

The first time I went into Weiduomei was to buy a couple of wife cakes, a dainty snack to munch whilst walking down the road. It was harder than I thought - the task, not the initial bite. The assistant looked at my desired purchase and was not happy.

"More," she said.

A satisfactory quantity was evident within a sentence. 

"I have to order the cakes in 15s?" I sought clarification.

"Fifteen, yes," she nodded, flashing her hand three times.

"Even though I only want two?" But she was off to count extra cakes, leaving me with an unhappy queue. Those waiting had pie-laden trays which were a challenge to the supporting bicep. I guessed their carbohydrates were for sharing. Or this was portion distortion, Western style. And if it were, it's not the only Western aspect of cake-eating culture Beijing bakers should worry about.

Women generally don't go in for wars. But there is a battle raging to win the hearts and stomachs of Beijing's femalekind. It's wife cake v cupcake. East v West. Nothing less than carbohydrate imperialism.

Let's introduce the competing cake powers. (And there are no baddies and goodies here. Everything is a goodie - it's the axis of yum yum v allied deliciousness.)

In the eastern oven are wife cakes - small, encased in pastry, and in appearance a little like teeny-tiny steak pies. But they place their strength in the beauty of their story. "It's imperial China, right? Man and wife live in village, man's father gets ill, wife sells herself as a slave to pay for medicine for father-in-law, husband learns of this and bakes cake dedicated to his wife which becomes so popular he can afford to buy her back." It's a love story in carbs. Edible Mills and Boon. Swoon.

From the West, cupcakes. Fondant show-offs. Trim golden bases, big icing swirls, sitting pretty in their pleated baking cases. One might say they're tarty, except they're not.

There are already an increasing number of cupcake emporia in Beijing. I know them well. There's CC Sweets. My introduction to their mini-cupcakes was at a Hatsune afterparty, where I was an undignified "cake stand Johnny" loitering too long, wondering how many vanilla minis I could take before a bouncer would move me away (three).

Colibri Cupcakes is a recent addition to the city cake tin, and initially a little hard to find. At the time the Frank Gehry exhibition had also just opened. Lost on my way to the Village North, I decided Mr Gehry, famed for his landmark architecture, should receive a commission for a cupcake-shaped building design.

At stake, ultimately, are more than wife cakes. Chinese baking chains are already opening Western-style cafes (where, who knows, you may be able to sit down with fewer than 15 cakes). With the cupcake will come other sweet jet-setters such as Danish pastries and muffins, gradually edging out home-baked Chinese pastries. Who will win? It's swoon v swirl. A cake-stand stand-off.