Chinese Egg Cakes

Soft, fluffy sponge cakes that consist of eggs, sugar, cake flour, melted butter. A simple Chinese cake recipe that is the perfect dessert for Lunary New year.

These cakes need only 4 ingredients but it does require a little technique to make it fluffy and delicious. They are traditional Chinese cakes that are so simple but so good! They are extremely light and serves well with a little dusting of icing sugar, fresh fruit and some whipped cream. I personally love dunking them in my coffee – not traditional but very effective.

What ingredients and equipment do you need to make these Chinese Egg Cakes?

To make the cakes we need eggs (they HAVE to be at room temperature), castor sugar, cake flour and melted butter. If you don’t have access to melted butter you can use regular flour or make your own cake flour at home. This cake doesn’t have any vanilla or flavoring but you can use vanilla extract or lemon zest if you like. I have used a little lemon zest in the batter.

Homemade Cake flour –

55gm flour, 5gm cornflour, 5 gm baking powder – I sift the ingredients together and stir them around until evenly combined.

I made this recipe using my electric hand beater but you can use a stand mixer as well to make them. If you were to make this manually you will need a balloon whisk to beat the eggs and sugar together. We also need a rubber spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the eggs. I baked the cakes in a cupcake tin. Ideally an ice cream scoop helps to divide the batter evenly but you can use tablespoons.

How to make this Chinese Egg Cakes?

This recipe is made by beating the eggs and sugar together until pale and creamy. It should be done gradually as we don’t want to create large air bubbles, we should create smaller air bubbles, this will ensure the batter doesn’t deflate while folding the dry ingredients and during baking. Once the eggs and sugar have gotten thick, pale and tripled in volume – it should be at ribbon consistency (when you lift the beater the batter should fall on itself in a ribbon and hold its shape for a few seconds). Add the dry ingredients into a sieve and sift them into the egg mixture. Add the flavoring of your choice and fold. To fold means to cut through the batter gently, by lifting the rubber spatula and creating the alphabet J while doing it. Once it is almost done add the melted butter into the batter and fold until combined. Do not over mix. Divide the batter into 9 cupcakes and bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ for 15-18 mins until the top is golden and when you press them they spring back up.

How to serve and store these Chinese Egg Cakes?

I love serving them with a dusting of icing sugar and fresh fruit but you could also serve them with whipped cream or serve them at tea with a little coffee and jam. Once they are baked and cooled, store them in air tight containers at room temperature for a couple of days and in the fridge for 5 days. I wouldn’t store them any longer as they will dry out. You could use them in trifles or any other layered desserts.

Now that we have covered how to make Chinese Egg Cakes, you can have a look at the recipe video on my socials but let’s get to it. Don’t forget to follow along for more healthy recipe inspiration.

If you try this recipe out, don’t forget to share it with me on instagram so I can see how it turned out. I’d love nothing more than to chat with you on your cooking/baking.