The queue for the Taiwanese Sponge Cake is ridiculously long and I saw many many posts of the cake online, so I baked my own. It’s quite close to the taste of the original in my opinion and I really like how soft and tender the texture is. I’ve baked it quite a number of times in the original flavour, with cheese and even pandan flavour. Worked really well, but the only advice is not to fill the cake tin too high or the cake will like crack. Taste wise, it’ll still be nice.

Here’s the recipe.

(Makes a 8 inch cake)

Ingredients

  • 90g cake flour
  • 73g caster sugar
  • 1g  salt
  • 1g cream of tartar
  • 75g canola oil
  • 60g milk
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 6 egg white

Method

  1. Preheat the oven at 150 degrees and line the bottom of the cake tin.
  2. Sift the flour and the salt together and set aside.
  3. Heat the oil in a saucepan till 70 degrees.
  4. Remove the oil from heat and pour in the flour, use a hand whisk to combine.
  5. Add the oil and whisk to combine.
  6. Add the milk and yolks, whisking to combine and set aside.
  7. Using an electric hand whisk or an electric mixer fitted with a balloon whisk, beat the egg white till foamy and add the cream of tartar.
  8. Beat till soft peak and add the sugar gradually and beat till firm peaks.
  9. Adding a third of the meringue to the batter, whisk into the batter. You do not need to be too gentle at this point because the idea is to allow the remaining meringue to mix more easily with the batter.
  10. Pour the batter into the remaining meringue gently and fold the meringue into the batter, being careful not to allow too much air escape.
  11. Pour the batter into prepared cake tins and place the tin in a tray of boiling water filled to about half of the cake tin.
  12. Place this in the preheated oven and bake for about 60 minutes or till cooked. You can test if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the cake and if it comes out clean, it is cooked.
  13. Let the cake rest for a while and the sides of the cake should pull away from the sides naturally and you can unmould the cake immediately, otherwise you can cool the cake inverted. Sometimes, I will have problems unmoulding the cake and I assist it by using a spatula to loosen the cake a little. Usually this works, but be careful to be gentle with the cake, so that the cake does not deflate too much.

This recipe is definitely a keeper.