This is an ordinary cake baked without fancy ingredients nor decoration. Just love the original taste and soft texture. People like to call it "古早味蛋糕" but I preferred to name it original flavour cake to reflect its taste better. My definition of "古早味蛋糕" should have a simpler and leaner ingredients without much oil. To me, this cake recipe has a relatively high oil content to give it a moist texture. I tweaked the most popular recipe I found on the web, and was happy to bake the cake without much shrinkage after cooling down 😁 Update 7 Oct 2017 I added 15g of grated parmesan cheese to the cake as topping. The aroma was excellent during baking :) Details at the end of the recipe Update 26 June 2019 I used organic coconut oil in place of rice bran oil to bake the cake. Baked one cake in a 6x3" round pan Ingredients 40g rice bran/vegetable oil 米糠油/植物油 50g top/cake flour 低筋面粉 30g fresh milk 鲜奶 3 egg yolls 蛋黄 5g golden syrup/honey 黄金糖浆/蜂蜜 3 egg whites 蛋白 Pinch of salt 盐 40g fine sugar 细砂糖 Directions 1. Line a 6" round pan with parchment paper at the base. Need not grease the side of the pan. Set aside. Place a gridiron square in a 20cm square pan for steam-baking later. Set aside. You can find the gridiron square at Daiso. 2. Heat up rice bran/vegetable oil in a rice cooker using "Keep Warm" function for about 10 to 12 minutes. You can also heat up the oil over the stove till you beginning to see some convection currents starting to form at the bottom. 3. Pour the top/cake flour into the warm oil, and mix immediately using a spatula. 🌟 To avoid the oil temperature from dropping too fast, add the flour to warm oil before transferring it out of the rice cooker 🌟 Mix till the mixture becomes a smooth paste. 4. Pour the milk in and mix well. 5. Add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and blend well. 6. Mix in the golden syrup or honey. Cover with a lid and set aside. 7. Add pinch of salt to egg whites in a dry and grease-free mixing bowl. Beat egg whites at high speed, using an electric hand mixer, till frothy. Gradually add in the sugar, and beat till almost stiff peak stage. 8. Mix about 1/4 of the meringue to the yolk batter from step (6). Return the yolk batter to mix with the meringue, till a smooth batter is achieved. 9. Pour batter to the prepared cake tin. Bang the tin to get rid of trapped air bubbles. 10. Sit the cake tin in another bigger pan, lined with a gridiron square, and pour about 1.5-cm deep of hot water to the outer pan. 11. Bake at the lower rack of a preheated oven set at 170°C with only the upper heating element turns on. Bake for about 30 minutes. When the 30th minute is up, lower the oven temperature to 150°C and turn on both the upper and lower heating elements. Bake at this temperature for about 25 minutes. End of baking. 12. Immediately after leaving the oven, drop the cake tin from a height of about 10 cm to a folded kitchen towel thrice. This helps to prevent the cake from excessive shrinking. Let the cake cool down over a wire rack for about 15 to 20 minutes, or till the cake pulls away from the wall of the cake tin. Jiggle the cake tin to loosen the cake. Invert out the cake and peel off the bottom parchment paper. Place the cake back to the wire rack, and return to the warm oven to "dry" the cake. I used the remnant oven heat to dry the cake for about 15 minutes. This step is optional. 13. After the cake has cooled down, cut and enjoy 🍰 I prefer to serve the cake warm 😋 Update 7 Oct 2017 Sprinkle 15g of grated parmesan cheese over the top of the batter just before baking. Bake the batter as usual and wait for the excellent aroma :) I also replace the golden syrup for a healthier sugar-free organic Rice Malt syrup. I bought the rice malt syrup from Fairprice Finest Organic Food section. Recipe adapted from 古早味蛋糕（枕头蛋糕） with great appreciation :)