This is my two daughters’ favorite treat, and reminds me very much of the Kueh Neng Ko （鸡蛋糕）that all our mothers used to make. Chinese do not use the oven much until recent years. Instead, we explore the use of steam, steaming from our breads to cakes to proteins to desserts.
My mother-in-law has a funny superstition: when she is steaming this cake, nobody is supposed to gossip about the cake, lest it falls. I wanted to tell her that if she stops opening the wok cover to peep at the cake especially during the first 15 minutes, she can gossip all she wants and still get a spongy cake.
The Kueh Neng Ko is often used as an offering to gods and ancestors. Compared to this, it is a much simpler recipe of 1:1:1 of sugar:flour:eggs (in volume). But that cake is dry and turns rough once it cools. So, the HongKongers (I believe) added fat and stabilizers to this cake, reinvented it as Ma Lai Gao, and serve it as a tim sum. I have no clue why it is called Ma Lai Gao (马来糕) meaning Malay’s cake since I doubt its origin is Malay.
I still marvel at how a cake can cook at 100ºC and be cooked in 20-25 minutes, which is much faster than those western cakes we put into the oven at 160 to 180ºC. The cake is velvety soft, fragrant and light.
ma lai gao
Ingredients:
2 Eggs
70g Caster Sugar
2 tablespoons Corn/Sunflower Oil
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Pod (seeds only)
1 tablespoon Custard Powder
120g Self-raising Flour
1 tablespoon Condensed Milk
2 tablespoon Evaporated Milk
Pinch of Cream of Tartar
Method:
- Get the steamer ready, boil the water and place 5 ramekins lined with parchment paper inside.
- Beat eggs and tartar powder till ribbon. Takes about 5 minutes on high.
- Fold in the rest of the ingredients.
- Put the mixture into the ramekins.
- Steam the cakes for 15 minutes.
- Best served hot.
