-”Egg Yolk Chocolate” flavored cookies and other sweets

I’ve never really considered myself one of those Americans with a sweet tooth. Yes I enjoyed eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting once or twice a week and ate half of my sister’s delicious chocolate cupcakes in one night, but still my love of food was certainly not limited to buying ice cream and baking.

As I sit here in savory-not-sweet China my thinking is changing. You see China does not have a history of corner-shop bakeries filled with buttery pastries or local ice cream parlors where homemade flavors are scooped onto cones. My local bakery in Huaihua, named Willlong Bakery, makes disgusting pork filled buns, they’re not the good dim sum kind, but bastardized cupcakes/french rolls stuffed with nasty salty meat and sprinkled on top with beef jerky. I have to ask if everything is sweet before I buy it now. And ice cream only comes in the processed popsicle variety, with such hearty flavors as green bean and corn. Times are changing, but apparently not fast enough for me. I do find suitably sweet items though they’re different from what I’m used to and not exactly what I’m looking for. For example egg yolk flavored oreo-like cookies and tons and tons of dense Mooncakes. They literally each weigh as much as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

For some reason every evening and in-between meal time I have been craving something sweet. Now I’m this close to running out of the chunky peanut butter I bought at a French owned Carrefour in Changsha, which I have been slathering on my egg yolk flavored oreos to make them passable. Nothing seems to fill my immeasurable craving.

To add to this no one in China owns an oven. A Chinese kitchen is usually just a gas stove or hot plate that can only fit a wok, and has only one setting: jet engine heat. This is great for stir fried lotus root but is a problem when you crave a light fluffy cake with double cream frosting, yum. It doesn’t help that I can easily find recipes and pictures of the perfect cookie or cupcake on the internet, all playfully out of reach. On top of the oven problem is that fact that dairy products are all backwards here. Milk is sold warm, in single serving juice boxes or small bags, it is all heavily pasteurized with a fat ration that makes any 2% drinker cringe, it is always flavored (peanut, corn, cucumber, strawberry, etc), and butter… don’t even ask because it can’t be found. Luckily Chinese yogurt is fantastic. I buy it by the liter and mix it with raisins from Xinjiang, which I buy by the kilogram. It isn’t odd for me to eat three bowls of yogurt and raisins a day.

Seasoned expats who call the Far East their home have recommended baking cookies in dish sanitizers. For those not in the know, most Chinese homes and restaurants have dish sanitizers that keep your dishes and chopsticks germ free by heating them up. I have one that is installed in my water cooler. I will try this at some point, but the whole idea makes me less than enthused. Another idea is the rice cooker cake baker. Yes, a rice cooker can bake a cake. I found a helpful guide to doing this from someone who lived in Japan. This is on my to do list. Until then I will continue eating lots of yogurt and sampling the many types of fruits on sale in Hunan. I might even make some jam.

-Local oranges that are a little tart and make great fresh squeezed orange juice.