🍽️ Almond Cookie

Mung-bean almond shortbread, souvenir.

The Almond Cookie is a classic pastry of Zhongshan, Guangdong, and one of the famous Cantonese souvenirs. It is made chiefly from mung-bean flour mixed with almond meal or chopped almond, sugar and oil, pressed in wooden molds into small round cakes and baked. It melts soft and crumbly on the tongue, blending bean and almond aroma, sweet but not cloying, often with a small savory-sweet almond or meat filling at the center for layers. Zhongshan (Shiqi) has long made almond cookies, its fame carried overseas by this emigrant hometown. Compact, portable and keeping well, it is a must-buy souvenir and a tea-house snack. A cookie with a sip of tea, crumbly and sweet, best represents Zhongshan as an overseas-Chinese hometown and a pastry city.