A Cake by Any Other Name

Ahhh...cake.  There's Asian cake...and then there's...well, everything else...

You know what I'm talking about!  Asian cake, sponge cake!  It has a different feel...taste...texture...compared with all the other cakes out there!  You can always tell when you're eating cake from an Asian bakery!  It has that light, airy, unsweetened, "I can eat the whole cake by myself" quality to it.  I have been trying to figure out Asian cakes for a really, really long time now.  But to my misfortune, it has always eluded me :(

WELL, not anymore Asian "sponge" cake!! You see, therein lies the problem.  I have always known this type of cake to be a "sponge" cake.  And why not...it certainly has the qualities of what a "spongey" cake should be:..well, spongey!  Besides, the sign at the Asian bakeries clearly calls it a "sponge cake."  So, why is it that every single "sponge" cake recipe I've tried to make turned out dense??  They certainly tasted nothing like that airy "sponge" cake from the bakery...(???)

Hrmph...that's because this Asian "sponge" cake is actually....(drum rolls, please!...)... a Chiffon cake!!! Really, are you sure, you might ask?  (I know, I know..I thought the same thing!)...I mean, I didn't realize these Asian bakeries were so sophisticated!  A chiffon cake indeed!

It wasn't until I was flipping through my holy grail of cake books (The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum) and happened to chance upon a chiffon recipe, that I realize: this recipe has an uncanny resemblance to my mom's story about her trip to her friend's bakery.  It involved a bunch of eggs being divided up and mixed separately and then put back together.  Of course I didn't pay too much attention to her back then because, frankly, it seemed like a pain to make (and I couldn't understand half of what she was telling me!) But it's a good thing I remembered those eggs, because now I can make Asian "sponge" cake at home!

I decided to use some fresh blackberries I had on hand.  You will usually never see blackberries on an Asian cake from the bakery (it's usually strawberries), but since this is from Linda's bakery, blackberries are welcomed :) In case you are wondering, they taste delicious!  Well..after all this time of trying to replicate it at home, I, for one, found it beyond delicious...my husband, on the other hand, found it a bit too eggy.  Hmm...well, nothing a second batch can't fix! :)





Mmm mmm...blackberries!

Of course, I can't leave the strawberries out!..They were made for whipped cream and sponge..ahem, I mean, chiffon cake!  

Enjoy!