Pineapple Cake: From Election Refreshments to a NT$25 Billion 'Golden Brick'

30-second overview: Pineapple cake is the intersection of Taiwan's agriculture and baking craftsmanship. Founded by Yan Shin-Fa in Taichung in 1945, it shifted to a smooth winter melon filling in the 1970s when pineapple exports declined, then returned to public awareness via SunnyHills' "native pineapple" approach after 2009. Today, this small golden brick has an annual production value exceeding NT$25 billion and has become the most representative Taiwanese flavor in the minds of foreign visitors.

September 1945. At "Yan Hsin-Chen Trading Company" (now Yan Shin-Fa Bakery) on Chengkung Road in Taichung, second-generation heir Yan Shu-Mu was busy improving traditional wedding pastries. Running for public office, he came up with a small treat that would be convenient for entertaining campaign workers and that symbolized the auspicious "bumper harvest" omen: he miniaturized the traditional oversized "phoenix cake" and incorporated Western-style shortbread techniques learned in Japan. This was the prototype of the modern pineapple cake¹.

From "Phoenix Cake" to "Golden Brick": A Cross-Era Improvement

The birth of the pineapple cake was essentially a "hybrid" of Eastern and Western baking techniques. Yan Shu-Mu had gone to Japan to learn the craft in his youth, mastering Japanese confectionery skills, and back in Taiwan he combined Western-style flaky pastry with traditional Taiwanese pineapple filling, breaking the image of heavy traditional Chinese pastries². Beyond size reduction, the key was a texture revolution: originally coarse and fibrous pineapple filling, encased in a butter-fragrant flaky pastry, made this treat quickly spread through Taichung's pastry circles.

Yet the pineapple cake's true journey to becoming a "national sweet" was inextricably linked to the ups and downs of Taiwan's agriculture.

The Winter Melon and Pineapple Duet: The 1970s Turning Point

Before the 1970s, Taiwan had been the world's second-largest exporter of canned pineapple. The "Cayenne" variety of native pineapple cultivated at that time was highly acidic and fibrous — ideal for processing. But as international competition intensified and export orders declined sharply, large quantities of pineapple were left unsold. To absorb the surplus, traditional pastry makers began developing pineapple filling³.

"The native pineapple fiber was too coarse — eating it would 'bite your tongue.' The texture wasn't very appealing," pastry chefs found. Taiwan's farmland winter melon, grown during fallow rotations, had abundant moisture and fine fibers; adding it to pineapple could temper the acidity and create a smooth, creamy texture⁴. This "winter melon and pineapple filling" became the mainstream of Taiwanese pineapple cake for the next thirty years, and established the public's taste memory of pineapple cake as "sweetly fragrant and non-sticky."

The Revival of Native Pineapple: SunnyHills' Agricultural Revolution

In 2009, a farmhouse courtyard in Nantou's Bagua Mountain once again changed the fate of pineapple cake. SunnyHills founder Xu Ming-Ren had originally run a technology company in Taipei. To help sell his hometown's stagnant tea leaves and pineapple, he collaborated with his uncle Lan Sha-Zhong and decided to revive the market-forgotten "native pineapple"⁵.

"What we wanted to do was restore pineapple's original flavor." SunnyHills insisted on using Cayenne No. 2 and No. 3 native pineapple, without adding winter melon, preserving the distinctive fruit acidity and fiber⁶. This "counter-intuitive" strategy unexpectedly became a hit amid the wave of demand for natural and local ingredients. The native pineapple purchase price doubled from less than NT$5 per jin to NT$10 per jin, and contract farmland expanded to 270 hectares across Taiwan, successfully transforming traditional agriculture into high-value "agribusiness"⁷.

Production Value and Schools of Thought: Taiwanese Flavor Going to the World

According to 2025 statistics, Taiwan's pineapple cake industry's annual production value has exceeded NT$25 billion, firmly maintaining its position as the top Taiwanese souvenir pastry⁸. From established brands like Chia Te and Xiao Pan to SunnyHills and Jiu Zhen Nan, pineapple cake has developed into multiple schools:

As international markets expand, pineapple cake is also facing "cultural export" challenges. 2026 market trends show that consumers' demands for "production origin transparency" and "reduced-sugar formulas" are increasing⁹. This small golden brick has surpassed the position of an ordinary souvenir pastry — it carries the historical weight of Taiwan's journey from an agricultural society to a refined food culture.

Every pineapple cake contains the efforts of Taiwan's farmers and pastry chefs in every era, working to preserve that "bumper harvest" spirit.

The Pineapple Cake Culture Festival: From Local Snack to International Business Card

In 2006, the Taipei City Government held the first "Taipei Pineapple Cake Culture Festival." Through competitions, marketing, and brand packaging, it successfully pushed pineapple cake from traditional pastry into the international spotlight¹⁰. This event boosted pineapple cake's visibility, also driving development of related industries, making it a "golden brick" souvenir that tourists visiting Taiwan must buy. The success of pineapple cake inspired a trend across Taiwan of developing specialty regional souvenirs, becoming a model for local revitalization and cultural marketing.

Further Reading

• Taiwan Pastry Culture — The thousand-layer DNA of Chinese pastry craftsmanship and modern desserts; read alongside pineapple cake for Taiwan's pastry transformation
• Beef Noodle Soup — Another "grassroots diplomatic" representative defining Taiwan's flavor memories; an interior-exterior contrast with pineapple cake
• Taiwan Agricultural Modernization — From production and sales difficulties to agribusiness transformation; pineapple cake is one chapter in this long road

References