Swich Cafe – love the Durian Mud Pie, Cempedak Cake, Carrot Cake, Fruit Cake and Hummingbird Cake!

** UPDATE: Swich’s intriguing Mangosteen Cake, rich Burnt Sugar Cake and everyone’s favourite cake – the Red Velvet!

For those who find HP Towers on Jalan Gelanggang a challenge to get to on weekdays (like me) the Swich outlet in  Publika is due to open pretty soon.

The better news than that? Swich cakes are already available for your consumption pleasure, with a small stall right in front of Sushi Q in Publika starting 2 Mondays ago.

If you have been following my blog, you’ll probably notice that I’m not quick to praise outlets or the food unless it’s really really good. But of course, my “good” doesn’t necessarily equate to yours. However, I’m pretty certain Swich cakes would please just about anyone, cos frankly, they are wonderful! :DD

My previous visit was to their HP Towers outlet and I was already loving the cakes then. Landing from Singapore that very morning, I head over to Publika that evening for a food review and stumbled upon Swich’s little home in front of Sushi Q.

This time round, I bought 2 that I haven’t tried before; the Carrot Cranberry Cake and the Hummingbird.
CC, owner and baker of Swich threw in a piece of fruit cake for me to try.

Hummingbird Cake (RM10). For those who are unfamiliar with Hummingbird cakes, Hummingbird cake is a banana pineapple cake usually frosted with cream cheese.

It is however not a popularly available cake here in KL and the few places that I have tried was from The Daily Grind in Bangsar and The Hummingbird Cafe (now gone temporarily). But I must say this is the best version of the Hummingbird cake I had so far!
It was very moist, fresh and compact with ingredients. Sometimes cakes are moist because it’s very oily from the butter/margarine (god help those bakers who uses margarine!) but Swich’s cakes are generally not overly oily or sweet but yet they retain a very pleasant moist texture.
The cream cheese frosting was just the right balance of creaminess and sweetness too. The use of toasted desiccated coconut and coconut cream frosting altered the taste of just ordinary cheese frosting to something uniquely different.

Next it was the Carrot and Cranberry cake (RM10). Thankfully it wasn’t too strong on the cinnamon and similarly moist and densely packed with carrots, walnuts, cranberries. If it is possible I think there were more ingredients than cake batter itself!
I even detected some orange peel in between bites which added a mild but interesting zest to the cake.

With Christmas coming up, Swich’s fruit cake (RM7 per slice) made its debut not too long ago. I’ll be upfront with you, I hate fruit cakes. Fruit cakes are sticky, sickly sweet and taste so darn “artificial”; probably due to the use of preserved mix fruits.
But happily for me, Swich’s version is superbly fresh!

I think CC is fond of cranberries as even the fruit cake has cranberries in them.
Not that I’m complaining as since I’m a fan of cranberries too. Besides, cranberries aren’t cheap and this makes the cake really worth its price. Other unusually addition includes chocolate chips, pineapples and mangoes.
So yes, if you’re seeking for strictly the original version of fruit cake, this may not be for you though I would still strongly urge you to give it a try. Who knows, you might end up liking this more than the traditional ones! 😀

Going back to my 1st visit, I’ll like to share some of the other delectable cakes I have tried from Swich. These were bought at their HP Towers outlet on one fine day when I miraculously had time to drive all the way and back. I think the picture of the Durian Mud Pie – RM12.90 that I saw earlier that morning on Swich FB must have been the catalyst. 🙂

Fabulously stinky, creamy and luscious, this is one heavenly dessert for those who loves their durians.

Consisting of a thick layer of creamy Musang King durian filling topped with a chocolate ganache over a crumbly cocoa crust, I had no trouble polishing off one on my own. 🙂

Cempedak Cake – RM9.90. This was one of the best cakes I sampled this year!
While the soft pungent cempedak sponge is good enough on its own, CC made it even better with the unlikely combinations of  lime frosting, mangoes and toasted coconut. To finish off, I was supposed to drizzle it with lime sauce, all of which was packed separately for me.
But I took a bite without all that embellishments and it was so good that I didn’t bother with the mangoes, toasted coconut and lime sauce. However, I’ll be sure to have it the way its meant to be the next round!

Swich’s Swiss Bliss Brownies. You can go wrong with chocolate, especially good chocolate! CC swears by Valhorna.

These are another of CC’s novel creations – Chocolate Truffles (RM3.50) .

I sampled the Cempedak Truffle with Toasted Coconut as well as the Cempedak with Valrhona Chocolate Truffle. All I can say is, if you love cempedak you’ll love this and if you don’t, you might just be a convert after a bite!

Swich Café,
Mezzanine floor, HP Towers,
12 Jalan Gelenggang, Bukit Damansara, KL
(018 5995 152/www.swichcafe.com).
Open Mon – Fri, 8am – 5.30pm.

OR

Level UG – Near Eat Village, front of Sushi Q.

So there, now you know where one of KL’s best cakes can be found! Do try and let me know what you think! :DD