Pineapple cake (;

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...

: 王梨酥 ông-lâi-so͘) is a Taiwanese sweet traditional pastry and dessert containing butter, flour, egg, sugar, and

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

jam or slices.

History

Both pineapple cake and

pineapple tart Pineapple tart is a small, bite-size tart filled or topped with pineapple jam, commonly found throughout different parts of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia (''kue nastar''), Malaysia (Baba Malay: ''kueh tae'' or ''kuih tair'', Malay language: ' ...

likely came into fruition around the 16th century when the pineapple, a fruit native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

, was introduced by Portuguese merchants to the region. Around this time, the Portuguese established a presence in places such as Malacca,

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, which they referred to as now archaic name "Formosa" for the island. During the Japanese colonial era, the pineapple fruit became a critical component of Taiwan's economy during which Japanese industrialists imported a wide variety of pineapple cultivars and established numerous processing plants. By the late 1930s, Taiwan had become the third-largest exporter of pineapples in the world. However, when pineapple production in Taiwan shifted toward domestic sales and use of fresh pineapple, local bakeries sought to use this surplus in pastries. While pineapple cakes had historically been produced as a ceremonial food, a combination of governmental promotion and globalization popularized the pineapple cake. Pineapple cakes have become one of the top-selling souvenirs in Taiwan. Since 2005, the Taipei City Government has run an annual Taipei Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival to foster the growth the local tourism industry and promote sales of the pineapple cake. In 2013, the revenue from Taiwan's pineapple cake bakeries totaled NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion), and sales of pineapple cakes have also bolstered agricultural economies in rural parts of the country.

Symbolism

, "pineapple" () sounds similar to a phrase meaning "to come forth, prosperous and thriving" (). This phrase conveys the hope that many children will be born to the family. As a result, pineapple cakes are often given as engagement gifts, or simply as well-wishing presents in an everyday context. Today, pineapple cake is considered one of Taiwan's culinary symbols.

Varieties

Contemporary pineapple cake bakeries have created variations on the traditional pineapple cake. The filling may also incorporate preserved egg yolks or other dried fruits such as

cranberries Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...

or strawberries. Bakeries may also add

winter melon ''Benincasa hispida'', the wax gourd, also called ash gourd, white gourd, winter gourd, winter melon, tallow gourd, ash pumpkin, Chinese preserving melon is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. It is the o ...

to the pineapple jam. This practice was initially an effort to make the tart pineapple filling more palatable. However, in contemporary bakeries, adding winter melon to the filling may be seen as an indicator of lower quality. The annual Taipei Pineapple Cake Cultural Festival often features a contest in which bakeries compete to create pineapple cakes that incorporate unconventional ingredients, such as rice or Taiwanese tea.

Making

The outer skin of traditional pineapple cake is made of lard, and the filling is mostly made of pineapple mixed with winter melon. In recent years, many merchants have used pure pineapple to make fillings. Although its taste is not as dense and soft as the winter melon filling, the unique and rich fruity flavor with such sweet and sour taste of pure pineapple filling are incomparable with winter melon filling.

References

External links