Old shop, new ideas
Just last year IHWA Cake Shop was completely renovated, giving its 65-square-meter floor space a brightness and flow; on the walls hang old photographs of the store from 50 years ago, and in the back the bakers knead dough and bake goods in the kitchen.
For middle-aged residents of Fengyuan the store is home to many childhood memories; during festivals local household altars would invariably sport a mung bean cake or pineapple cake, offerings to the ancestors. As well as traditional Taiwanese confections, the store has recently become popular with visitors and locals alike for new products like their salty cakes, the brainchildren of IHWA's owner.
The process by which these salty cakes are made is not an especially complicated one. First, egg whites and yolks are separated and beaten. Then they are then stirred together again and spread into a flat baking tray and baked for 30 minutes. Then shrimp and mushrooms are fried in a pan, finely chopped bamboo shoots stirred in, and then red onion is added. This mixture is fried until the unique fragrance becomes more pronounced. Then the cake is taken from the oven and allowed to cool, after which a layer of mayonnaise is added, and then the fried mixture spread on top. Once this is done, slice the cake and you've got a delicious salty cake ready to eat. This soft, smooth cake, accompanied by a salty, but not greasy, helping of bamboo shoots, is an irresistible treat.
The healthy and delicious salty cake is the creation of Yang Tsung-cheng, second-generation owner of IHWA Cake Shop. But not many people realize that this star attraction has actually been on sale for almost 15 years now, but until recently was virtually overlooked by customers.
The 55-year-old Yang says that with modern people's aversion to fatty and sweet foods, tastes have moved from the traditional pork filling of Taiwanese "salty marriage cakes" to the crisp, high-fibre bamboo shoot, and exquisite Western cakes have given way to more sandwich-style cakes like the salty cake. At first business was tough for Yang, and when he tried to get people onto the salty cakes in his refrigerator, most couldn't get past the preconception that the only cakes stored in the fridge are the ones that are getting old, while some couldn't handle the sweet/salty flavor combination.
Nevertheless he persisted, believing that "there's always a market for delicious food." Yang started offering a "buy one, get one free" promotion and giving out samples, and after a few years, as word spread through the grapevine, even other cake shops started to try and copy them.
Once the salty cakes took off in Fengyuan, Yang began to worry that this might turn out to be another passing fad, like Portuguese egg tarts had been in Taipei, with big stores leaping onto the bandwagon and eventually saturating the market. So, he decided instead to keep things low-key as always and not make a big fuss. Fortunately Yang's worst fears were never realized, and he went from making 30 salty cakes a day and not being able to sell all of them to selling over 1000 a day. Business is particularly brisk around Mid-Autumn Festival, when sales more than triple, with crowds of customers so big the five usual staff alone can't cope, and more people need to be brought in to help out.
IHWA Cake Shop has been going for over 70 years, initially sporting a simple red-brick facade (top). In the old days the family's children worked with the store's bakers, kneading dough (above). (courtesy of IHWA Cake Shop).