Taiwanese Old Style Cake 古早味蛋糕

Not sure since when this traditional Taiwanese sponge cake took the world (both the real world and the virtual world!) by storm, but I knew exactly when it started in Kuching. On 21 August 2017, a stall opened at Yes Cafe at 4.5 mile Kuching. It is called Hao Da Taiwan Old Style Cake 号大古早味现烤蛋糕 ... the cakes were baked on site and packed beautifully in a bright red box. I heard that there was a long wait for the cake when it first opened, and on that very first day it sold, I saw people carrying the bright red box even when I was waiting to see the doctor at the hospital. I remembered feeling amused at the time.

Cake + cuppa = happy 

Very soon, there were others that started selling - even my colleague J made her own version of the cake for sale.

This one was made by J, her 7 x 7 inch cake sold for RM33.00

This one with parmesan cheese was RM15.00 from Green Road 

Recently, a small stall opened at the shops (not sure what's the name of the shop .... this one packed the cake in yellow boxes and sold them at a higher price - the version with cheese was RM20) at Kenyalang - just opposite the Shell station - and Mom was fascinated. She said she'd dropped by once in a while to look at the crew baking the cake. Mom wasn't interested to buy, she was interested to bake. Even when we were at Yes Cafe recently, Mom was glued to the stall. Again, she was more interested in recreating the cake at home than buying it.

My colleague ME, who's an avid baker, shared that this was an easy cake to bake. And she told us the steps and gave us some tips offhand. I thought it sounded easy and it piqued my interest to bake as well. Back at home, I searched for a few recipes online .... Mom and I did exactly that. Bake.

We used Aunty Young's recipe exactly. Read the recipe here. In actual fact, the cake WAS really easy to make. It took us just a short while to mix the batter. I measured everything, broke and separated the eggs. Next, I mixed the flour with warm vegetable oil, milk and the egg yolks till smooth. Mom beat the egg whites and sugar till stiff and then combined everything together .... and in it went into the oven to bake for 50 minutes.

Ready to bake

Baked over water for 50 minutes 

So beautifully risen! Checking to see that it's cooked ....  

Ready to eat :)) 

Mom and I are both happy to with the results - the cake was so light, so fluffy, so egg-y and not sweet at all ... almost like chiffon cake, very pleasant to eat. Since our first try, we've made the cake a second time ... and Mom expressed her intention to try it again - next time she'd incorporate other flavours into the cake. Did I hear her say Nutella? Hmn .... Nutella sponge cake?