Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Pineapple Cake
A buttery shortbread pastry enclosing a chewy, tangy pineapple jam, Taiwan's most popular edible souvenir.
Taiwanese · medium · serves 12
prep 40 min · cook 30 min
~279 cal · 3g protein · 40g carbs · 13g fat · 2g fiber · 21g sugars · 8g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Pineapple cake, fenglisu, is Taiwan's signature confection and its most popular edible gift, boxed and carried home by travellers the world over. A small rectangular pastry, it balances a rich crust against a sweet-tart fruit centre.
A tender, crumbly shortbread made rich with butter and often a little milk powder encloses a dense filling of pineapple jam, cooked down until thick, chewy, and slightly caramelised. The pineapple's tang cuts the buttery pastry, and the fruit also carries symbolic weight, as its name in Taiwanese sounds like a wish for prosperity and good fortune. Neat and golden, it is the island's signature edible gift.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 12
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cold butter, cubed (plus a knob for the jam)
1 egg
1/4 cup milk powder
4 cups fresh ripe pineapple, finely diced (for jam)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
Instructions
1
Dice the pineapple fine, drain it in a sieve for 15 minutes, then cook it with the sugar and salt over medium heat until the liquid has gone completely and the fruit is sticky, and stir a knob of butter through at the end. Cool it fully in the fridge.
✎ Chef’s note
Judge it by the pan, not the clock: it looks reduced long before it is, and it is only ready when the fruit clings to itself and a spoon leaves a clean trail across the bottom. Underdone filling weeps into the crust as it bakes. The butter at the end gives it gloss.
2
Cut the cold cubed butter into the flour, sugar, milk powder and baking powder until it looks like rough sand, bind it with the egg, bring it together without kneading, and chill 30 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
Treat it like pie dough, not cookie dough: keep the butter cold, work fast, and do not knead, or the gluten develops and the crust bakes dense instead of crumbling. If the kitchen is warm, put the dough back in the fridge between rolling and shaping.
3
Wrap pieces of dough around cubes of pineapple jam and press into small rectangles, ideally in a mould.
4
Bake at 350F (180C) for about 20 minutes, until the top is matte and the base is light gold, and cool before serving.
✎ Chef’s note
Pineapple is ong lai in Hokkien, which sounds like luck arriving, and that is a large part of why these are given as gifts at Lunar New Year. It is also worth knowing what you are avoiding by making them: most commercial pineapple cakes cut the fruit with winter melon, which is cheaper and blander, and then add flavouring and colour to compensate.
Taiwanese confectionery tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Taipei. The beef noodle soup Taipei argues about was not born in Taipei. It is traced to Air Force military dependents' villages at Gangshan in Kaohsiung in the 1950s, where mainland veterans built a Sichuan-style braise on a local hot bean paste, at a time when most Taiwanese did not eat beef at all.
🗺️
Taiwan. Fifty years of Japanese rule, from 1895 to 1945, left marks that outlasted it. The staple rice was switched from long-grain indica to Japanese short-grain japonica, which is still what Taiwan grows; miso, Japanese soy sauce and MSG entered the pantry; and the word for a cuisine, liaoli, is itself a Japanese borrowing.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Taiwan
Taiwanese Beef Noodle SoupChewy wheat noodles in a dark, star-anise beef broth with melting shank and pickled mustard greens.
Dan BingA soft, chewy egg crepe rolled up and sliced, Taiwan's favorite hot breakfast off the griddle.
Gua Bao (Pork Belly Buns)Taiwan’s famous night-market bun: a pillowy folded steamed bun cradling red-braised pork belly, tangy pickled mustard greens, cilantro, and sweet peanut powder.
Browse all Taiwan recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven, Mould or tin.
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Pineapple Cake?
A buttery shortbread pastry enclosing a chewy, tangy pineapple jam, Taiwan's most popular edible souvenir.
Where does Pineapple Cake come from?
Pineapple Cake is a Taiwanese dish from Taipei, Taiwan.
Can Pineapple Cake be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Pineapple Cake recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Pineapple Cake safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Pineapple Cake take to make?
About 70 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking), serving 12.
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