Recipe for Chinese Sponge Cake / Chinese Cream Cake w/ Fruits!!

[tinas]

I'm looking for a recipe for chinese cream cakes. The one they use for birthdays and are sold in chinese bakeries. It is the very light cake accented with fresh fruit (with peaches, kiwi, melon & strawberries) and whipped cream. I have scoured the net and have found NO recipes that sound like the cake I want to make, and have only found postings by other people looking for the same recipe!! Our family usually goes to ChinaTown in Boston when we buy them, but I want to learn to make my own so we can save on trips to the city...In addition, the Chinese basker clain little English and don't want to share the recipe...

Do you know how to make these cakes? These are NOT the steamed sponged cakes. I REPEAT, this is NOT the steamed sponge cake. I need a recipe for this baked cake and the the cream they use...I have heard the cream is not really cream but some kind of fake substitute..But so yummy anyway!! I included a link to a picture of one below....

Please help with a full recipe!!! This pursuit has been akin to looking for the holy grail!

- TINA (Below is a pic)

[purplemama]

Hi,

Were you ever able to find a recipe? I have been looking for one myself and came across these two. I haven't tried them out yet, so I don't know how they taste. They're pretty similar in ingredients.

CHINESE SPONGE CAKE

(Gai Don Go)

1 1/2 c. cake flour, sifted

9 eggs, separated

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. water

1/4 c. oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Beat egg whites until slightly foamy. Add 1/2 teaspoon cream of

tartar. Beat again till stiff. Sift together flour, baking powder

and sugar. Add to egg yolks; add water, oil and vanilla and beat

until creamy. Pour the mixture over egg whites gently and fold

until well-blended.

If using a 9 x 13 pan, bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

If using a tube pan, bake 35-40 minutes, inverting tube pan upside

down while cooling.

Serve with fruit topping and whipped cream.

Chinese sponge cake

1 c Softasilk flour (cake flour)

1 c sugar

6 eggs, separated

1 ts vanilla

1/4 c cold water

1/2 ts salt

1/2 ts cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 325. Beat egg yolk and sugar till creamy. Stir in vanilla. Add flour and water alternately till mixed well. In a spearate bowl, beat egg white till foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar. Beat until stiff peak. Fold egg white into batter in batches. Pour into ungreased angel food cake pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Turn upside-down to cool.

Because there's no oil in the cake, it does stick to the pan. Just use a knife to careful go around the pan. It helps if you use a pan that has a removable bottom.

Hope that helps! LMK how they turn out, if you do get around to baking one.

Tiphanie

[tinas]

thanks! I never did come across a comparable recipe..I always thought the (Gai Don Go)

cake was the steamed version which is not what I was looking for..It's amazing how such a simple cake recipe has managed to be eluded! They are so popular among other asian cultures here but no one knows how they are made..If it turrns out..I will be the hi of the town..thanks again!

[Jennifer Liu]

Did you find the recipe you were looking for? How did the two posted recipes workout? I am looking for the same recipes myself.

[Smithy]

I tried the first recipe and it turned out just as it should be! Yummy! Thanks for sharing the recipes, Tiph!

[floatingmoon]

Please feel free to upload the photo next time. We cannot eat nor smell it, but we can still see it.

[klpipit]

Hi, for anyone (like me) finding this thread late, Lucy Zhang has posted on her blog a recipe with lots of pictures that turns out looking like Tina's cake - maybe it's the right one? Hopefully this helps someone!

http://lucyzhang.vox.com/library/post/the-elusive-chinese-bakery-style-birthday-cake.html

[julice]

The cake you are looking for is actually called a Chiffon Cake (chiffon means light and airy fabric like silk or rayon). The reason I had a hard time finding the recipe many years ago is because I too incorrectly named the cake. Chinese Sponge Cake is the steamed cake. American Sponge Cake is cake used in Strawberry Shortcakes and Boston Cream Cakes. Personally, I don't like the dryness of any type of sponge cake.

Because Chiffon Cake is my favorite cake (my parents are both Chinese), I did a lot of research to figure out how the Chinese bakeries make these delicious cakes.

I'm looking at the ingredients and techniques used in the recipes posted here on this thread. I've tried those techniques before and the results are okay. If you want the ultimate best tasting Chiffon Cake which resembles those sold in the best Chinese bakeries, you will find the recipe on the cookbook, "The New Best Recipes."

Some history about Chiffon Cake...

Chiffon Cake was invented in 1927 by Harry Baker, a Los Angeles insurance salesman turned caterer. When the cake became a featured attraction at the Brown Derby, then the restaurant of the stars, Baker converted a spare room into his top-secret bakery, fitted with 12 tin hot-plate ovens, and personally baking 42 cakes a day. Baker kepted his recipe a secret for 20 years, before selling it to General Mills. After a couple of minor changes to the technique, General Mills gave the cake a new name, "Chiffon Cake." The cake appeared before the American public in a 1948 pamphlet called "Betty Crocker Chiffon," containing 14 recipes and variations in addition to umpteen icings, fillings, serving ideas, and helpful hints. It was an instant hit and became one of the most popular cakes of the time.

[julice]

I should clarify. My parents came from China and I'm a Chinese American born in San Francisco. I frequented the best Chinese bakeries there due to my love for these moist, light, and airy Chiffon Cakes.

Here's a typical chiffon cake recipe...

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chiffon-cake/Detail.aspx

Here's one using lemon zest...

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Lemon-Chiffon-Cake-3

Here's one using orange zest...

http://www.joyofbaking.com/OrangeChiffonCake.html

Here's one for chocolate...

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chocolate-chiffon-cake/Detail.aspx

The results from using the technique from the cookbook, "The New Best Recipes" is just slightly different, but makes a huge difference in texture. The cake is still airy and light, but it comes out so much more moist than even some of the best Chinese bakeries as a result of adding additional egg white. The only recipe from above that uses a similar in technique to the one found in "The New Best Recipes" cookbook is found on the the "Joy of Baking" website. The chefs at "The New Best Recipes" are related to "Cooks Illustrated Magazine" and "America's Test Kitchen." They have a tendency to take recipes from other cookbooks, "The Joy of Cooking" and other cooking bibles, and make the recipes better. They are known to take a recipe and make it 30 or more times to perfect it down to a science. I'm a really picky eater, and every single recipe I've used from that cookbook comes out better than food I purchase in restaurants. So, that's the only cookbook I use now.

If you read the reviews of other chiffon cakes online, you will find that people adapt this recipe for all types of baking pans.

[julice]

I just reread my previous post for accuracy and found a correction. In The New Best Recipes Cookbook, they add 2 whole eggs to their 5 egg yolks...NOT add one additional egg white to the 5 egg whites.

[Madot]

Does anyone have a recipe for the 'mock cream' that they often use with the chiffon cakes. It's not whipped cream, but I just love it and have no idea how to make it. I think it must be something made with egg whites. It doesn't require refrigeration. Can anyone help? Mado

[LazyPanda]

There's a Bakery in Shanghai that I went to and bought a very delicious cake, but can't remember where or the what the name of the bakery was.  It was a famous bakery and I remember buying the last cake even though it was bigger then what I wanted but it was for my wife's birthday (which she loves).  It was a spongy but light cake with cream and strawberries, can't remember if there were more fruit or not.  It was kind of simple but apparently it was famous.  Was wondering if anyone knows this cake I am talking about and if so, what the name of the bakery was, I would be very grateful.  

 

I know it's vague and not much to go off of, but seeing how my wife's birthday is coming up I wanted to try (key word is try) and make an attempt at making a cake similar to it.  I am by no means a baker, so we will see how this turns out.  

[ChTTay]

Not sure what you mean by “mock cream”. When my girlfriend makes cakes she likes to put cream on them. This seems to be a very Chinese thing. She just makes her own using egg whites, lemon juice or vinegar and sugar. Whisk it up until it becomes cream. It’s pretty common to find this online if you search for “make your own cream” or “alternative to cream” etc. It seems in the West it’s used if you haven’t got any cream in! 

 

Definitely needs to be used quite soon after making and should be refrigerated though. 

[DavyJonesLocker]

That's what is meant by mock cream in uk. That is, no dairy products. Just contains icing sugar , eggs etc.

 

Easy to tell as it's on the supermarket shelves with a long life span rather than in the refrigerated section.

 

I'm just surprised that people like Chinese bakeries! I guess Shanghai would have semi decent ones but Beijing is awful standard. 

[ChTTay]

Davy, I think it’s the same stuff. I’ve had the same fluffy kind of cake with fruit here, in 3rd tier cities and even in elsewhere in SE Asia. All the same.

[DavyJonesLocker]

Some Chinese bakeries put a lot of effort into presentation of a cake. They make it elaborate, colorful and fancy. However one bite and you know it's all colouring, artificial flavours and sugar. U synthetic taste.. Not a patch on a good  patisserie in Belgium France Germany etc. 

 

I guess they just don't have the training , ingredients (dairy) or customer demand. 

[abcdefg]

19 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

Some Chinese bakeries put a lot of effort into presentation of a cake. They make it elaborate, colorful and fancy. However one bite and you know it's all colouring, artificial flavours and sugar. U synthetic taste.. Not a patch on a good  patisserie in Belgium France Germany etc. 

 

I've noticed that too. I live a few doors down from a small bakery here in Kunming and content myself with looking at their beautiful cakes that are displayed in the front window. I never buy them after a couple of disappointing attempts. 

 

On my birthday every year, my lady friend brings over a cake made with real fruit. Those taste good as well as being pleasing to the eye. She buys them at some secret bakery far away. I don't even want to know where it is for fear I might overindulge on the sly during the rest of the year. 

[ChTTay]

My girlfriend bakes cakes and often we compare the Chinese recipe with an English language one to see if they’re any differences. Sometimes the English one says there is a MUST USE ingredient and the Chinese recipe doesn’t mention it. One time we (I say “we” very loosely) made a cake and followed some Chinese recipe. It came out like a frisbee! Haha who knew you could bake rubber at home?

[roddy]

I'm giving this topic a bump, as somebody made the cake. 10 years ago, but I only just happened to see it.

[ChTTay]

I’ve since met foreigners who love this kind of fluffy creamy cake here in China. I will share this recipe!