Today let’s take a look at a side job that’s growing n popularity: making egg yolk pastries! A car dealer in Changhua’s Fuxing Township has a side business making the delicious pastries each fall. The whole company takes to the kitchen to join the pastry production line. They donate many of the pastries or profits to charity, but still make a profit. Meanwhile, a pizza chef in Changhua also has an egg yolk sideline. He’s adapted the recipe used by his grandpa in the kitchen of Chiang Kai-shek. The traditional treat is a side job for many professionals looking to fill their spare time constructively.

Piping-hot egg yolk pastries come out of the oven. Slice one open for a whiff of its delicious filling.

Chen Yung-tsung
Car dealership owner
The salted egg yolk is a red clay duck egg. It smells wonderful and I guarantee it tastes delicious.

Chen Yung-tsung sits down with his team every fall to make these egg yolk pastries for Mid-Autumn Festival. Chen’s a deft hand at wrapping the pastries. But he’s not a chef by trade. His business is actually a second-hand car dealership.

Showing customers around the showroom is his real job, but business was very slow during the pandemic. So he learned how to make egg yolk pastries as a sideline. The first year of pastry-making, they donated all their pastries to charity to benefit disadvantaged groups. Gradually they made a name for themselves, and the project got bigger and bigger.

Chen Yung-tsung
Car dealership owner
God has opened a window for me, because my real job has been really bad the last few years, but everyone likes my egg yolk pastries, they’re healthy, we can earn money, and we can give to charity.

Chen loves to sell pastries in aid of charity. Meanwhile, a pizza chef in Changhua has a similar egg yolk pastry project. Mr. Lin’s grandfather was a pastry chef for none other than Chiang Kai-shek. He felt nostalgic for his grandpa’s baking, and didn’t want to let the skills die out, so he developed this new, healthy version of the traditional recipe. It’s a hit.

Mr. Lin
Chef
When I came back here and opened my pizza truck, I thought I’d try making Grandma and Grandpa’s pastries, so everyone could see what kind of pastries they had in Chiang Kai-shek’s time. And then I kept on tweaking and improving them, until I ended up with the pastries we make now, which capture the same flavor of my grandpa’s time.

Mr. Lin’s pizza and egg yolk pastries are a favorite for Changhua locals, and he’s happy to pass down the traditional family skills alongside his main work.

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