In view of the formation of harmful products of Maillard reaction in baked foods, different recipes of steamed cakes (sugar type, oil type, cake acidity regulator and the ratio between egg white and yolk) were selected to analyze the changes of glyoxal (GO), methylglyoxal (MGO) and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in cakes, and the inhibitory effects of natural flavonoids (geneistein and luteolin) were investigated. The results showed that fructose (hexacarbohydrate) produced the highest MGO, xylose (pentose) produced the highest GO, GO and MGO contents were the lowest in cakes produced by xylitol; The influence of oil on the production of GO/MGO and AGEs from high to low was corn oil, soybean oil, palm oil, and margarine; The contents of GO/MGO and AGEs decreased with the increase of acidity regulator and the decrease of pH value (8.5～5.4) of cake system; When yolk was added less than 40%, the amount of harmful products can significantly be reduced with the decrease of yolk content. The flavonoids can inhibit the harmful products of GO/MGO and AEGs, and the inhibitory effect of luteolin was higher than that of genistein.