Caxton Pink & White Wafers: Mallow, Makers and Tea

Caxton Pink & White Wafers: the mallow wafer from Merthyr Tydfil

The filling in a Caxton pink wafer is mallow, and that is what sets it apart from a standard cream wafer, from its soft bite to its ingredient list. The wafers come from a South Wales works whose story begins in the late 1930s.

Published 26 Sep 2026 Curator-written, not crowdsourced

Caxton Pink & White Wafers: the mallow wafer from Merthyr Tydfil, in summary: Thin wafer sheets around a pink and white mallow, made by O.P. Chocolate in Merthyr Tydfil. Gelatine in the mallow rules them out for vegetarians; keep them away from the cup and finish an opened pack quickly.

Last reviewed by the teas.co.uk team in September 2026.

The filling in a Caxton pink wafer is mallow, and that is what sets it apart from a standard cream wafer, from its soft bite to its ingredient list. The wafers come from a South Wales works whose story begins in the late 1930s.

From Cardiff to Dowlais

Caxton is a brand of O.P. Chocolate, the business Oscar Peschek, an Austrian baker and confectioner, set up on a site in Cardiff in the late 1930s. After two moves it settled at Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, in 1963, and it has been part of the French Cémoi group since 1991. Today it makes chocolate and wafer biscuits with a team of around 450, and Pink 'n' Whites are one of its established lines.

Wafers have run through the business since Peschek first started making them, so the pink wafer is a specialist's product rather than a sideline. The family business it belongs to also runs its own cocoa sustainability programme, Transparence Cacao, although that matters more to the chocolate side of the works than to a wafer with no cocoa anywhere in its recipe.

Reading the ingredient list

After fortified wheat flour, the published list runs sugar, glucose syrup, invert sugar and gelatine, which is where the soft mallow comes from. Soya flour, sunflower oil, salt, soya lecithin, a raising agent, skimmed milk powder, natural vanilla flavour and cornflour make up the rest. The colourings listed are natural ones, beetroot and annatto.

Two points follow for anyone buying for a party. The list includes wheat, soya and milk, and the gelatine means these wafers are not suitable for vegetarians, so check before handing them round a mixed table. As with everything on a biscuit shelf, the current UK pack is the final word, because recipes and allergen advice can change.

Serving them before they soften

Wafer is so dry that it soaks up moisture from the kitchen air as soon as the seal goes, and once soft it cannot be revived in the oven the way a baked biscuit sometimes can. Treat an opened pack as a same-week job: fold it tight, clip it, and put it somewhere cool and away from the kettle rather than out on the side.

Do not dunk them, since the sheets collapse almost at once. For a party plate, stand them upright in a glass or tumbler instead of laying them flat, which shows off the two colours. Broken over a bowl of plain ice cream, they make a quick pudding, and a strong cup of tea with milk is the drink that cuts best through all that sugar.

The packs we stock

Caxton Pink & White Wafers, 85g (barcode 5010074534825)

What the label says

Ingredients, as published: Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin and Thiamin), Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Invert Sugar, Gelatine, Soya Flour, Natural Colour (Beetroot), Sunflower Oil, Salt, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Raising Agent (Sodium Bicarbonate), Skimmed Milk Powder, Natural Vanilla Flavour, Natural Colour (Annatto), Cornflour.

Typical values per 100g	Per 100g
Energy	356 kcal
Fat	1.7g
of which saturates	0.4g
Carbohydrate	80.2g
of which sugars	38.3g
Fibre	1.1g
Protein	5.6g
Salt	0.2g

Ingredient and nutrition data for this product: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.

What to drink with it

Yorkshire Tea Original Everyday Blend, 80 Tea Bags 250g: a strong everyday black tea with milk, with enough bite to cut straight through the sweetness of the mallow.
Twinings English Breakfast Decaffeinated, 80 Tea Bags 218g: a decaffeinated English Breakfast for the grown-ups at a late party, milky and robust enough for a sweet plate.
Dragonfly Organic Pure Rooibos, 40 Tea Bags 100g: a mellow redbush for anyone at the table who would rather not drink black tea.

Elsewhere in the Caxton range

The full range is on the Caxton brand page.

FAQ

Is the filling in pink wafers cream or mallow? In Caxton's, it is mallow: a soft pink and white filling between the wafer sheets, with gelatine on the ingredient list.

Are Caxton Pink & White Wafers suitable for vegetarians? No. The mallow is made with gelatine, and the published list also includes wheat, soya and milk.

Where are Caxton wafers made? O.P. Chocolate makes them in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, where the company has been based at Dowlais since 1963.

What makes them pink? The published ingredient list names two natural colours, beetroot and annatto. The pack itself is the final word.

Can you dunk a pink wafer? Best not. Wafer softens almost instantly in hot tea, so eat them beside the cup.

Curator's note: Stand them in a glass in the middle of the table and watch the youngest and the oldest reach first. Lee, teas.co.uk, Tunbridge Wells.

In short: Caxton Pink & White Wafers: the mallow wafer from Merthyr Tydfil

Field	Detail
Brand	Caxton
Packs we stock	85g
Category	Wafers
Dunkable	No, eat them beside the cup
Best with	A strong black tea with milk
Occasion	Children's parties and nostalgic teas