Sunny
Taiwan Wife Cakes (Anka Flavor)(SGD 2.80)
When you see anka, it is actually not the japanese anko, sweet dark red bean or adzuki bean paste. Which would actually be very logical for a pink coloured traditional pastry, the sides coated pink to remind the bakers that these are red bean-filled, another of those old fashioned fillings.
These wife biscuits are really anka! The inside red yeast rice with maltose, the outside red yeast rice to give it a superb colour. Red yeast rice is very popular in Taiwan, they like to add it to foods to give it a red colour, besides a hype and boost in health.
We may have heard of red pink tau sar piah and/or marriage cakes; but now this is the larger version, the traditional wife biscuit, in pink, directly from Taiwan in one of the food fairs. One of the significance of the many country's food fairs found in Singapore. Getting or having your Taiwan foods without an occasion, or needing a reason.
P.S. Even if it is all the way from Taiwan, the pastry skin is still moist and supple, with tiny studs of flour on it. The filling is incredibly simple, red yeast rice and maltose, yet it tastes the same like any other wife biscuit winter melon and lotus filling, good, delectable and hearty. It has an additional fragrant bean jam taste probably evoked by such a lovely colour, and it is considered very light and not oily like a rustic bread.
