Multi-hued Sponge Cake From JW Golden Bakery, Dish #64

Is it the flag of some obscure and largely ignored nation?

Welcome to 100 Dishes to Eat Now, the tasty countdown leading up to our “Best of 2012” issue. Tune in every day (weekends, too!) for a new dish from the Fork in the Road team.

Perhaps it’s the work of a color-blind baker or an artist with an eye for color different than that of the mainstream. Either way, it’s a weird-ass series of colors to imbue cake with. Sadly, there’s no detectable difference in flavor between the three types of sponge.

Sponge cake, of course, is a Western invention (some say French, some say English, some say Viennese) long since embraced by Hong Kong bakeries and other types of Asian bakeries that emulate them. At 50 cents, sponge is among the cheapest baked goods and utterly satisfying. One assumes that the frosting between the layers is sugar-sweetened margarine, which is all the better. Someday soon, margarine will be declared healthy by nutritionists.

The sheer number of sponge cake configurations is often overwhelming at Hong Kong bakeries. Not so at JW Golden Bakery, where there is a choice of three and some excellent cheap sandwiches, too.

JW Golden Bakery
6017 Fourth Avenue
Sunset Park, Brooklyn
718-765-9199

Nice place for a light meal or a snack