Ma Lai Gao (Chinese Dim Sum Cake)

Step 1

In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs, 50g of sugar (about half of the total) together before mixing in warm water and yeast.

Step 2

Sift flour, milk powder and sweet rice flour into the wet ingredients and stir until it's smooth. To reduce the development of gluten, stir in a circular motion a few times until the dry ingredients are roughly incorporated, and then switch to stirring in the motion of writing "Z" and "N" to eliminate the lumps.

Step 3

Cover the mixing bowl and let it sit in a warm place for 2 hours. When it's done proofing, the batter will be filled with air bubbles and will almost double in volume (see the the pictures in the post for reference).

Step 4

In a small bowl, stir baking soda with a splash of water before adding the mixture into the batter.

Step 5

Add the rest of the sugar, chicken fat, salt, vanilla extract and stir everything together with a whisk in a "Z" or "N" motion. The batter should shrink down to the original volume.

Step 6

Pour the batter into a lined cake pan. I use a 6" cake pan here but you can use any container that will fit in your steamer. (See notes for more details)

Step 7

Boil 5 cups of water in a pot that you are going to use for steaming the cake.

Step 8

When the water is boiling, place your cake pan in the steamer and set your steamer over the pot and steam for 35 minutes over medium high heat. During the steaming process, you should see a good amount of steam coming out from the the steamer. If the heat is not high enough, you will end up with a denser cake.

Step 9

When the cake is done steaming, remove the cake from the cake pan and parchment paper, let it cool down for 10 minutes before slicing. The texture of the cake will be a bit sticky when it's hot, so give it some time to cool down and allow the extra moisture to come out.