Taichung Sun Cake

The sun cake is a Chinese-style pastry of layered flaky dough wrapped around a malt-sugar filling and baked, flat and round and golden, named for its likeness to the sun, and the best-known souvenir pastry of Taichung.

The sun cake descends from a malt-sugar pastry popular in Taichung's Beitun area, refined by the baker Wei Qing-hai, known as Master A-ming; after the Taiyangtang bakery opened on Zihyou Road in 1954 and made it famous, four or more sun-cake shops gathered on the same street, known as "Sun Cake Street."

Sun cakes are enjoyed as a teatime or breakfast treat; old Taichung hands dip them briefly into hot tea or hot milk so the flaky skin soaks up the drink and the malt filling warms and runs, deepening the flavour, or simply break them apart to savour the crisp, layered pastry.

The gossamer-thin golden layers, the warm sweet malt-sugar centre, and the legend of the Taiyangtang shop and Sun Cake Street are what define the sun cake.