Ma Lai Gao (Chinese Dim Sum Cake)

5 from 2 votes

This ma lai gao is fluffy, tender, moist and satisfyingly springy. Make this delicious dim sum cake easily with this step by step guide.

Prep Time10

Cook Time35

proofing time2

Total Time2 45

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Asian

Servings: servings

Calories: 193kcal

Author: Edwina

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

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).

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

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

For the chicken fat, you can get it store bought in a jar, but I usually just render it from 2-3 pieces of chicken skin and trimmed fat since we only need 1.5 tablespoons of it. Check the recipe box of my Taiwanese chicken rice post for how to render chicken fat. If you can not get enough for 1.5 tablespoons, substitute the rest with vegetable oil.
Adding all the sugar at once will make the batter harder to proof, adding it in two batches will solve the problem.
I use a 6" cake pan for this recipe, but you can also use other size of pan you have. If you use a wider and shallower pan (like 8" or 9"), you can cut down the steaming time by 5-10 minutes. Don't use glass or any material that has low heat conductivity.
If you don't have a steamer, you can set a vegetable steamer in a wok or big pot and place the cake pan on top of it, like how I make steamed egg with minced pork.