Comparisons of Chinese steamed egg cake (kai tung gou)

This is a continuation of this comparison post started in 2013. It stated Little Teochew and Bits of Taste (both links are dead links now) who both used cake flour, and a third blogger whose ingredients aren't dissimilar to my original recipe. This 2012 post also suggested a recipe from a now dead link which uses baking powder, baking soda, evaporated milk, brown sugar and beater in a 10 inch pan. Sounds more like malay cake so I'm going to ignore that.

This is my favourite egg cake that my late Kao Mo used to make. Her original recipe has been lost and even her children don't know her recipe. I used to have an old recipe but it was dense and also took very long to steam, nearly an hour!

Here are six more links and their comparisons:

1. Chinese grandma
- bamboo steamer wrapped with paper
- only baking powder, no bain marie beating
- Beater
- Cake flour and baking powder
- 8" cake tin and steam for 25 minutes
- came out spongey and thick and slightly undercooked

2. Christine's steamed egg cake - Chosen ingredients. Trialed here.
- 10" bamboo lined with paper or 8" greased tin and steamed for 30 minutes
- no leavening at all, only beater

3. Katherine Kwa's traditional steamed pandan cupcakes
- No leavening with beater
- Steam for 20 minutes

4. Katherine Kwa's traditional steamed version (Hokkien huat gou)
- 7" rattan basket steamed for 35 minutes
- isotonic drink
- Beater

5. Monica Kitchen's traditional version - Chosen method. Trailed here.
- Uses cake flour
- Uses 7Up and beater
- 6" rattan basket steamed for 30 minutes
- Sprinkle sugar over the top to create the smile

6. Quizzine's improved method (same blogger as my old recipe)
- Uses Fanta and beater
- Bamboo basket lined with "glass paper" (size not specified) steam for 60 minutes

7. My Kitchen 101 steamed egg cupcakes
- Baking powder
- Oil
- Beater, beat in bain marie (genoise method)
- Steam for 8 - 9 minutes (because these are cup cakes)
- Seems similar to Japanese steam egg cakes (mushipan)
- Chinese grandma commented that the genoise method yielded the driest result but her recipe had no oil unlike this recipe

8. Christine's baked egg cupcakes - just for comparison
- cake flour
- uses meringue method (beater)
- bake at 180 deg C for 25 minutes

From above, it looks like the two common methods underpinning the traditional Chinese egg cake either have no leavening with a lot of beating or uses carbonated soda but still has beating. Based on the above, I'm keen to try the versions with carbonated soda methods because I've already tried the no leavening with beater only method and it didn't work out. The problem is, I don't have a bamboo basket so I wonder if steaming in a cake tin means that it's not rising as it should and also why it takes so long to steam.