Cishan Banana Cake 旗山香蕉蛋糕
Cishan Banana Cake is featured among the local specialties of Taiwan.
Cishan Banana Cake (旗山香蕉蛋糕) is a banana cake sold in Cishan District (旗山區), Kaohsiung (高雄), a town known as the 'banana city' (蕉城). TAKAO, the Kaohsiung City Government's magazine, names banana cake with ice pops and sugar-railway lunch boxes as foods that, alongside Cishan Old Street (旗山老街), feed the town's nostalgia trade.
How it is made
TAKAO's 2019 profile of the Jimei (吉美) bakery on Cishan Old Street describes its banana cake as made with whole eggs and a dense crumb. The bananas all come from Cishan, and the bakers pick fresh, nearly overripe fruit, adding natural carotene to keep the banana colour. The founder, Lai Chaojin (賴朝進), started the cake as a low-oil, low-sugar recipe; an improved six-inch 'golden banana' version resembles a chiffon cake.
Flavour and texture
The same magazine describes the Jimei cake as fragrant, smooth and dense, with a concentrated banana flavour, while the chiffon-style version is lighter and fluffier.
Where it comes from
Bananas were brought to Taiwan from Fujian (福建) and Guangdong (廣東) over two hundred years ago, and Cishan's fertile alluvial plain and well-drained sandy soil made it a major growing area. In the 1950s and 1960s its output was among the highest in Taiwan and it earned the name 'banana kingdom' (香蕉王國). As export trade declined, the town turned bananas into processed goods, and TAKAO's 2026 feature lists banana cake among the banana foods visitors can now eat there.
Lai grew up as Cishan's banana boom was ending, opened his bakery about forty years before the 2019 article, and made his banana cake around ten years before it; the cake came first in an online popularity vote at a food gold-medal award. Wang Jiwei (王繼維), leader of the local band Taiqingjiao (台青蕉), also bakes banana cake at his Taiqingjiao Banana Creative Workshop (台青蕉香蕉創意工坊) on the old street.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.