Wheel cake

What it is

Wheel cake is the English name for a round, drum-shaped cake sold from street stalls. Taiwanese call it 車輪餅 ('wheel cake') for its shape or 紅豆餅 ('red bean cake') for its classic filling. The skin is thin, a little crisp and a little chewy, around a generous filling. Some older people use the Taiwanese name kóng-á-kué (管仔粿).

Where it came from

The cake descends from imagawayaki (今川焼き), a Japanese sweet of the mid Edo period. It takes its name from the Imagawa Bridge in Kanda, Edo, where it was sold during the An'ei era (1772 to 1781), and its shape later earned it the names taiko-yaki and taiko manjū, 'drum cake'. It reached Taiwan under Japanese rule and changed as it settled in. Some older Taiwanese still use a clipped form of taiko manjū, picked up from the Kansai-accented Japanese of early colonial residents.

The two Chinese names now carry regional colour. A stall owner with more than 30 years in the trade, quoted by Global Views, says southerners tend to say 紅豆餅 and northerners 車輪餅. In 2026 an online post claimed 紅豆餅 was a mainland Chinese term. Replies pushed back that it is simply the southern name.

How it is made

Batter of flour, egg and sugar is brushed thinly into a cast-iron plate with rows of round hollows. Once the shells turn golden, the cook fills half of them and turns the empty ones on top as lids, so each cake is two shells joined round the filling. Japanese imagawayaki uses a thicker, softer layer of batter. The Taiwanese style keeps the skin thin and the filling heavy. Red bean paste is the base filling.

How to eat it

Wheel cakes are a street snack, eaten hot from the stall. Red bean and custard (奶油, literally 'cream') are the standards, with taro and peanut also common. Savoury fillings include dried radish (菜脯), cabbage, tuna and curry, which are not found in Japan. Some vendors add fruit or ice cream, or work matcha or cocoa into the batter. Order by naming the filling.