All products featured on Epicurious are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Whether it was a wedding, birthday, or graduation, every celebration of my childhood had one thing in common: a tender chiffon cake frosted in soft whipped cream and decorated with a garish assortment of fruit. Thin slices of kiwi, perfect spheres of mango, halved strawberries—sometimes blueberries or honeydew melon—were neatly arranged atop the cake, looped by a border of piped whipped cream.
For many Chinese families, this cake is a staple at parties and get-togethers. And like my colleague MacKenzie Chung Fegan, I totally wrote these cakes off, yearning instead for rich, fudgy brownies or banana splits drizzled in chocolate sauce.
Fast-forward several years and I’ve developed a renewed appreciation for whipped cream cakes. Sure, there are days when I’d love to partake in a baking project like brioche morning buns, or make a fancy-feeling chocolate soufflé. Most of the time, though, I really just want some seasonal fruit, whipped cream, and a soft sponge to soak it all up. In other words: a Chinese bakery–style cake.
Traditionally, the dessert is made with chiffon cake, a fluffy and ethereally light sponge that gets its loft from whipped egg whites that must be gently folded into a batter of yolks, vegetable oil, flour, sugar, and, and salt. But since chiffon cake involves separating eggs (and all of the pitfalls that can go along with separating eggs), I decided to create a sponge that’s just as tender without the added stress. After much trial and error, I landed on a variation of hot milk sponge.
Typically, you make hot milk cake by whipping whole eggs with sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until pale and voluminous, pouring in hot milk and butter, and, finally, whisking in dry ingredients. The fat in the dairy minimizes gluten formation by coating flour particles, and results in a soft, delicate cake. I opted for half-and-half (a creamier, higher fat dairy product) and vegetable oil. Because butter is solid when chilled and oil remains fluid even when refrigerated, using oil means the cake remains soft even when cold.
Once the cake is in the oven, you’ll whip heavy cream with powdered sugar. It’s the perfect cake to make on a whim: There’s no need to paddle butter and sugar together or bring your ingredients to room temperature. While most bakeries decorate their cakes with ruffles and ribbons of whipped cream, the cake can be as elegant or unfussy as you want it to be.
Sometimes I’ll bring out my piping bag and tips to create fanciful swirls and patterns, fan out thin kiwi and strawberry slices, and use my melon baller to create mango orbs. But for casual evenings in, a simple coat of whipped cream and a side of sliced fruit will suffice. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfectly iced or as whimsical-looking as the cake from my memory; if I close my eyes, it tastes just as celebratory as the kitschy bakery versions of my childhood. I realize now that it is, indeed, the right cake for just about any occasion.
