How to Make Hong Kong Egg Cakes (鷄蛋仔)
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Hong Kong egg cakes are a popular street food in Hong Kong. I first came across these little egg cake as a child growing up in New York City’s Chinatown. From a tiny red stall on Mosco Street, Cecilia Tam churned out pan after pan of these perfectly fluffy and heavenly eggettes for over a decade. This recipe is as satisfying for me as the Cecilia Tam original.
(Also known as Hong Kong egg waffles, Hong Kong egg puffs, or Hong Kong eggettes.)
I’ve been reminiscing about my childhood in New York’s Chinatown where I attended Chinese school every weekend. After class, mom or dad would walk me over to Mosco Street, where Cecilia Tam (aka the Egg Cake Lady) labored in a tiny red corner stall, to buy a bag or two of her legendary Chinese egg puffs (aka eggettes) or 鷄蛋仔 – “gai daan jai” in Cantonese.
Her stall became so popular over the years that there were often more tourists than regulars waiting in line at this “hidden gem”, clutching their cameras and tour books. On weekends, the line would snake around the corner and the wait could be 10-20 minutes or longer.
Here little stall barely fit one person but on busy weekends she would squeeze in a helper to bag and man the extra burners.
Her egg cake mold was a simple metal contraption shaped like two identical tennis rackets and functioned like a square waffle maker but the indentations were egg shaped. And the batter contained eggs – hence why they are called egg waffles.
The egg waffle batter was a glorious golden color and she kept large jugs of it by her feet. She would brush each egg cake mold with oil, pour batter onto one mold, put the matching mold over the batter-filled one and quickly flip the pair so that the batter would fill the other mold and start expanding into perfect little round morsels.
I remember her easing the cakes out of the mold with a fork onto a round and scratched up stainless steel pan and how she would jab at the eggettes with steel tongs to separate them and place them into wax-paper bags. She had everything down to timing and order.
Weekends she was always slammed. Weekdays the wait would be nil or only 1-2 people. On slow days, she would have a few waxy bags of egg cakes already filled. They are best eaten hot off the stove so I always asked, and patiently waited, for fresh ones and she always obliged.
With her increasing popularity, and inflation, the price of her egg cakes kept going up throughout the years. So we enjoyed them in less quantities, but we still enjoyed them as often.
At first, her Chinese eggettes were $1 for 20 egg puffs, then $1 for 18, then $1 for 15. Even when imitators popped up around Chinatown selling them at $1 for 20 when Cecilia had further reduced her offerings to $1 for 12, the impostors were not worth paying for the extra portions.
Once, pressed for time, we bought some Chinese egg cakes off a street vendor on Canal Street. They were so bland, so disappointing, I vowed I would never buy them from anyone again but from Cecilia, the one and only Egg Cake Lady.
As a kid, I had a special way of eating them. I would first bite off the crispy, crunchy perimeter of each puff and then pop the soft rounds into my mouth. They were perfect in every way – not too sweet, so light, so fluffy, and so worth every dollar.
She closed up shop more than a two decades ago but I have never stopped thinking about her egg cakes when I pass by her little corner where Mott Street meets Mosco.
Williams-Sonoma sold a Nordic Ware Egg Waffle Pan for a while and I was probably one of the first to buy it.
The store no longer stocks the pan but you can find a similar one on Amazon US here or search on Amazon UK here.
How to Make Hong Kong Egg Cakes
First, make the batter. Then preheat your egg waffle pan.
It took some practice to get consistently crispy edges on my electric stovetop. Here’s what works for me:
- Pre-heat the pans for 5 minutes using heat level 4 (my stovetop has heat settings 0 to 6). So I used two burners to preheat both halves at the same time.
- Pour 2/3 cups batter into one of the egg waffle pans, swirl it around to fill some of the empty holes and then secure the other pan on top. Flip immediately.
- Reduce heat to level 3 immediately after pouring the batter and cook two minutes.
- Flip the egg waffle pan after two minutes
- Remove from heat and ease the eggettes off the pan using a wooden fork or silicone utensil (be careful as a plastic utensil will melt and a metal one will scracth the non-stick surface of the egg waffle pan).
Just before I pour the batter into the Nordic Ware egg waffle pan, I apply a thin layer of vegetable oil with a pastry brush.
UPDATE 5/25/2020: I now use cooking spray like PAM and lightly spray each side before pouring the batter. I had avoided doing this in the past because I read that cooking sprays cause oil build-up on non-stick surfaces that are impossible to wash off. After owning my pan for 15+ years, I was ready to test that theory out. For the last 5 batches, I have been using cooking spray and afterwards immediately soaking the pans in hot soapy water and washing them. The pan is easy to clean and no sticky residue. So far, so good!
But be sure to test out a small section of your pan first – I don’t want you to ruin yours!
So it would seem that for my oven, heating it at a higher temperature helped create the crispy crunchy edges that I love and then reducing the temperature down a notch prevented burning. You’ll have to experiment with your gas or electric oven to find the equivalent settings.
You can hear from my video below how crunchy these are on the edges. My kids and I cannot stop eating them:
The texture is perfect – crunchy around the edges and I love nibbling all the crispy bits that surround each puff before moving on to the soft middle – and with each bite, I am transported back in time, smiling at nostalgic memories.
I’m sure time erodes taste memories, but I really do feel that this recipe resembles what I remember from my childhood days.
If you own one of these pans, be sure to wash it when it’s submerged under water so that you don’t end up a soaking mess like I did and a soft-bristle brush like this Oxo one works great for getting out all the dried-up batter from the crevices.
If you enjoyed making this recipe, then also check out my tutorials for making Ramen Noodles (the no-knead easy way), Chinese egg noodles, and for making silky-smooth slurp-worthy Udon Noodles (using a non-traditional ingredient).
How to Make Your Chinese Egg Cakes Even Better!
Soon after buying the Nordic Ware egg waffle pan, I started experimenting with the batter. Initially, I made a batch of Chinese eggettes using fresh custard (made from milk and eggs). But the taste and consistency wasn’t right.
Now I use custard powder and just throw everything into my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, turn it on and voila! Batter done. No need to heat up milk nor temper eggs to make custard, etc., etc.
A few weeks back, I whipped up a couple batches to experiment with altering the ingredients and found that using either tapioca starch, potato starch, corn starch or custard powder worked just fine. However, using custard powder did give the eggettes a richer vanilla taste since custard powder is essentially vanilla-flavored corn starch.
For those experiments that didn’t use custard powder, I doubled the amount of vanilla extract (or essence) from one teaspoon to two teaspoons.
I think an essential ingredient for the batter to taste right is evaporated milk. I had never used evaporated milk before and I was curious to try the different brands. I decided to try a few of them…just for fun. And was glad that I did.
The best tasting batch I found was made using Rainbow “Gold.” I think it gave the eggettes a richer, fuller flavor. Even the label reads: “Richer and Creamier.” Unfortunately, Rainbow Gold is no longer available.
I tried omitting vegetable oil from the batter but that wasn’t a huge success as the final product came out too dry. So be sure not to leave out the oil.
I also made batches pitting vanilla extract versus vanilla essence. Perhaps it was all in my mind or I’m just biased in thinking that anything with alcohol tastes better because I thought the batch with vanilla extract tasted better than the one with vanilla essence. (Click here for alcohol-free vanilla extract.)
However, vanilla extract is not available in the UAE as it contains alcohol. I have a precious stash of two bottles that I hope will last me until the next out-of-town visitor arrives to replenish it.
I hope you found this post useful and that the future brings you lot of yummy little morsels of Hong Kong Egg Cakes!
Also check out my tutorials for making Ramen Noodles (the no-knead easy way), Chinese egg noodles, and for making silky-smooth slurp-worthy Udon Noodles (using a non-traditional ingredient).
Hong Kong Egg Cakes (Gai Daan Jai – 鷄蛋仔)
Ingredients
Method
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, tapioca or corn starch, and optional custard powder with a spoon or fork. You can also sieve these dry ingredients but I didn’t bother.
- Add the eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract/essence. Give it a whirl with an electric mixer (start at low speed so the flour doesn't erupt out of the bowl and increase to medium speed) or spatula. Alternatively, mix by hand with a wire whisk.
- Pour in the evaporated milk and water. Mix thoroughly.
- It may be slightly lumpy and this point and I found that letting it stand for an hour (whether in room temperature or fridge) helped dissolve the lumps.
- Set a wire rack on a baking sheet or large plate.
- Pre-heat each half of the Nordic Ware Egg Waffle Pan on separate burners over medium-high heat until hot. I pre-heated mine for 5 minutes.
- Lightly brush or spritz each pan with vegetable oil. Lower heat to medium.
- Pour ¾ cup of the batter into the middle of the egg waffle pan (if you pour too much, it will either leak out the side or prevent the waffle pan from closing tightly) and give the pan a quick swirl to distribute some of the batter to the outer holes.
- Immediately place the other side of the pan on top, flip the pan over and cook for 2 to 2.5 minutes.
- Flip again and cook for a further 2 to 2.5 minutes. Exact timing will depend on your stove and heat output.
- Open the pan and invert the eggettes onto the wire rack and let cool for a minute or so. I used a plastic fork to help loosen the egg cakes from the mold.
- Repeat with the remaining batter. Enjoy!
Notes
.-Makes 2 cups of batter and 3 batches of eggettes.
This post was originally posted on Jan. 22, 2012 and last updated on May 28, 2020.
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Oh I am so going to try this now! I grew up going to NYC and Chinatown a lot and these cakes were always a highlight of my trips and really one of the main reasons I enjoyed the Chinatown trips.
Hello! I happened to find your website/blog while searching for egg waffle recipes online and I just wanted to thank you for your recipe. I tried making the egg waffles using your instructions and they turned out delicious! I hope you don’t mind me sharing this page with my friends! =) Thanks again!
Thank you for trying my recipe and the positive feedback. Feel free to share away 🙂
Happy New Year!
Thanks for your response. I did try a couple of variations and methods. My husband saw my attempts and tried as well. I think we have had lots of these since Christmas. Good thing my kids love it as well. They make great guinea pigs. I’m still trying but I think my husband has a good method that makes it sort of round. We will still work on it. I wonder if it is that we use a gas stove so don’t get even heating.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve loved these as a kid and wanted to try to make my own since I haven’t gotten it in a long time. I even got the WS pan as a Christmas present. I tried the recipe from Christine but for some reason it was a little denser than the one that you posted. So in the next round of trials, I followed your instructions but ran into a little problem. It has great flavor but I was unable to get the egg to be completely round. One side was flat but the other side looked perfect (as I remember it should look). Any thoughts as to why this happened?
Hi Lam!
Thanks for trying my recipe and leaving a comment.
You mentioned that one side of your egg cakes were flat – did you flip the pan after you poured the batter and placed the other lid on top? This is what I do: Pour the batter in to the pan, put the lid on and immediately flip. Wait 2 minutes or so, then flip again and let it cook for another 2 minutes. slowly open the pan too release the eggettes. Of course, timing depends on the heat output of your stove.
If you did as I wrote above and still get flat results, it could be that you haven’t poured enough batter into the pan. try pouring more (but there is a fine line between just enough and too much so be careful not to have the batter spill over the side of the pan onto your stove. I generally try to pour so that all the holes except for the outer ones are full).
Another reason may be not enough thickening agent – are you using custard powder, tapioca starch, or corn starch? Try refrigerating the batter for a few hours and this will thicken it up.
Good luck and let me know how it goes!
wife just sent this article to me. god, i miss that stand on mosco. thanks for posting this. do you remember Mei Lai Wah on bayard?…care to take a crack at their beef rice noodle roll, dan tat, or big bun?
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.
I’m afraid I don’t recall Mei Lai Wah – I’ll have to ask my mom to see if she can jog my memory.
You can make your own Vanilla Extract. It tastes much better than the typical commercial vanilla extract: Take a small jar, put a few vanilla beans in it, fill with a nice vodka, let it soak a few days or more. That’s it.
There are different kinds of vanilla beans (if you search around a little), each has a slightly different vanilla flavor – not all vanilla is exactly the same. Try different kinds beans and let us know what you think!
I haven’t tackled making my own vanilla extract yet – maybe one day… At the moment, happy to have friends and family smuggle me a few bottles each time they visit :).
Thanks so much for the recipe. I bought the waffle plan from WS this week as a birthday present to myself and I had to try out your recipe this weekend. It was great. It had just the right amount of sweetness. It has a nice spongy texture. It’s the first time I’m using the waffle pan but hopefully I’ll achieve that outer crispiness without burning it some day. I actually doubled your recipe and made batch after batch for breakfast. My 4.5 yr old loved it. It was great sharing something from my childhood with my son. I made quite a mess on my stove, but it was well worth it. This might be a new weekend favorite. 🙂 thanks again.
Hi Melissa – Thank you so much for your feedback. I made a mess myself the first few times but luckily I have a glass stove so cleanup was fairly easy.
Glad you and your family liked the recipe 🙂
What a wonderful story. I too am from NYC and remember getting Cecilia’s Tam’s egg cakes as a teen. I have been trying for years to try to replicate her recipe to no avail. I think the big difference was the shape of her pain–> the individual cakes were not round but more octagon shaped and each cake was significantly larger than the competition. I have never found a replica of her pans. This likely added to the softness and Egginess that I remember that was on the inside of her cake. I have tried your recipe with a pan that I had gotten from HK and its good but not what i exactly remember from Cecilia Tam. Great Base recipe though and gives something to tinker with. Love the pictures!
Thanks so much for sharing your story and for the feedback!
This was wonderful! Thanks so much for the recipe… went out and bought the pan on Friday – experimented that day & Saturday went to my SIL and made it for her CNY Party! Everyone loved them. I used coconut oil instead of regular vegetable oil & the smell of the coconut oil just made the kitchen smell wonderful – just like a chinese bakery. Thanks again! Your recipe was a very special treat for us all! Brings back memories of NYC! And upon request … an american twist I sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Thank you so much for trying my recipe and leaving me feedback!
I am so happy that you and the family were able to enjoy the egg cakes – I must try using coconut oil one of these days just to smell the aroma of it cooking 🙂
It look amazing! And I am so happy to find a UAE blogger!
Yum yum! this is one of my favourite!!
I too love the WS waffle iron. I have been using it for about a year and my kids absolutely love the egg waffles. However, I am curious as to way you didn't use the included receipe which is a simple waffle batter with the exception that the eggs are seperated with the whites whipped ans added seperately as with a souffle. It has worked exceptionally well for me but I don't have the background to know what they are supposed to taste like. Nor does my wife who is of Taiwanese rather than Cantonese extraction.
FYI, I use a simple spray cooking oil like PAM and I have virtually no sticking or clean up. I also use a low protein winter wheat flour typically used for southern biscuits. Cake flour would be fine. Mine come out light and fluffy on the inside and just a bit crunchy along the edges.
Hi Trevor,
Thanks so much for your feedback!
I read on the WS reviews and other blogs that the included recipe is nothing like the true flavor of Hong Kong egg cakes which was the whole purpose of me buying the pan which is why I didn't use the recipe.
I did use PAM at one point (tried both Butter PAM and Olive Oil PAM and Olive Oil seems to be better taste and texture wise; I would have used Canola PAM but I didn't have any) but the directions on the pan packaging say not to use aerosol sprays so I've been brushing the oil on instead. I've noticed that the residue is harder to clean off with PAM versus brushing with veg oil. But that could be all in my head as I have previously ruined a nonstick griddle pan by using too much PAM.
I have thought about use bread flour in the near future to see if there is a difference in texture…
I love the way you write. You could work for America's Test Kitchen. Your attention to detail, and your persistence are remarkable, and I can't wait to try your new version. I suspect that Cecilia used simple ingredients. Your pictures of the egg cakes are wonderful … and your beautiful toddler with them make them look even more sweet and inviting If you run out of vanilla, let me know and I will mail you some. Thanks again for sharing your "labor of love".
Hi Julie – thank you so much for all the lovely comments!
Oh my gosh! These are my favourite!!! I'll have to get a pan from William Sonoma now!!! Thanks for the recipe!
These are beautiful! Having never had an eggette, I'm curious, do you think that you could use the same batter in a standard waffle iron? Obviously it wouldn't be the same thing, but I wonder if it might just make really tasty waffles.
I've always wondered the same thing! I don't know anyone with a waffle iron to try it out on but if you get the chance, please let me know how it goes 🙂
I thoroughly enjoy “mini eggs” as we call them in Toronto Chinatown! They are so addictive, I could spent all day eating them! Ps over here, I don’t find them too sweet 🙂
I'm so glad I found your post on foodgawker!! The only time I've been able to find these is when I'm in Toronto, visiting my grandmother. I'm definitely going to have to purchase an egg waffle pan in the near future. Just hope I can find rainbow evaporated milk…
You can get the egg waffle pan at Williams-Sonoma – most stores will stock them so you don't have to order online. If you can't find Rainbow Gold then use any other evaporated milk you can find – it will still come out tasting great! And let me know how it goes 🙂
OMG LOL…Your son is so cute! I adore the pict of him, head to head with the little morsel LOL… Simply adorable! I haven’t tasted this versions of Egg Puffs before… Kind of resembles the goldfish or flower egg based cakes available locally in my hometown. It’s soft inside but crunchy on the outside that forms a ‘shell’ to maintain the shape moulded.
So, can this Nordic Egg Pan usuable on vitroceramic stove?
Before I forgot, Gong Hei Fatt Choi to you and family !
I think my stove is vitro ceramic – it looks like a single sheet of black glass – and seems to work fine with the WS Nordic pan.
Hi thanks for dropping by my site! So those morsels are called egg cakes, eh? When I was in Hong Kong I always passed by this dimsum stall that also sells these things but I never asked what they were. I always went for the dim sum! hahaha too bad we don't have the proper equipment to cook the egg cakes in. These look really good, just like the ones in Hong Kong! 😀
Yes, these eggettes originated from Hong Kong but I’ve never been so have only had the ones in NYC’s Chinatown. I can’t wait to visit HK one day to sample all the street food.
Wee Scotch is adorable!!
Those egg cakes look absolutely amazing, although I’ve never had them before. But, I can already suspect they taste great, haha. I wonder if you can add in a filling…?
I read an article where in Hong Kong and London, egg cake street vendors compete for business by adding in fillings like chocolate chips and fruit.
They looks so cute and a fun snack for kids! Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family 🙂
Thank you! Wee Scotch loves them but sometimes I feel guilty feeding it to him because of all the sugar.
KUNG HEI FAT CHOY! I love these waffles but don't have an egg waffle pan. Does anyone know where I can find one?
I bought mine from Williams-Sonoma for $50 when I was back home in the States
Happy Chinese New Year! Those look delicious and thanks for the links… I'm happy to learn more about your traditions! 🙂
They are sooo delicious if I do say so myself 🙂
Naturally, Wee Scotch is adorable 🙂
Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family 🙂
Thanks Dee!
They look so nice, round and perfect! 😮
Sometimes I can't obtain a perfectly crispy batch but no matter, they all taste great!
WEE SCOTCH IS SO ADORABLE!!! he's a charming little lad 🙂 Happy Chinese New year!!!
Happy Lunar New Year to you too!