10 Lana-Style Chocolate Fudge Cakes, Ranked From Worst To Best
UNDERCOVER TASTE TEST: The list includes a Lana cake, of course.
It’s been the chocolate cake of choice for generations of Singaporeans since the 1970s. Even a boring birthday party was a decent party if it came with a Lana cake (those who were kids during the ’70s to early ’90s will know what we mean). Distinguished by its incredibly light and moist chocolate chiffon cloaked in a gooey pudding-like dark chocolate frosting, Lana’s chocolate cake has been widely imitated and spawned bakeries selling similar cakes over the decades.
Lana Cake Shop founder Mrs Violet Kwan, 91, first learnt to make her signature cake from her sister-in-law Lani in 1964, when the latter visited from Honolulu where she lived. Lani got the recipe for the unique, now-famous fudge cake while working in a bakery in Hawaii. Mrs Kwan’s friends loved it so much that she eventually began selling the cake from her Hillcrest Park home. She opened Lana Cake Shop — named after Lani — in 1975 at Greenwood Avenue near her home, where it continues to operate.