Japanese Strawberry Shortcake (草莓奶油蛋糕; Strawberry Cream Cake)

Japanese strawberry shortcake is a layered sponge cake filled and topped with whipped cream and strawberries. It is what I call a ménage à trois made in heaven, because each party brings out the best in the other two.

The red and white cake is very popular in Japan, especially for Christmas. I guess having the same colour scheme as Santa Claus wins a lot of votes during the Yuletide season.

There're a few ways to make a sponge cake. Some people make a dry cake, then spray/brush/drizzle it with a syrup. Others try to make a moist cake by using oil or butter, and water or milk.

I find the syrup option a bit tricky because it's a fine line between moist and soggy. Adding a non-fat liquid isn't ideal either because water, and milk, dilutes the fragrance of the eggs and oil/butter. It also makes the cake shrink more after cooling down.

My sponge cake has lots of oil, more than most other recipes. And there's liquid glucose, my "secret ingredient", to make it really fluffy, moist and fragrant.

Liquid glucose helps make sponge cake moist because it's hygroscopic, i.e. it absorbs and holds water. How does it make the cake soft and fluffy? By helping the cake rise. The higher the cake rises, the softer and fluffier it is. How does glucose help make the cake fragrant? By doing away with the need for any water or milk. Glucose itself is quite tasteless.

If I had a recipe for boiling water, some readers would say, "I don't have water. Can I use something else?" So someone is bound to ask if glucose may be replaced with sugar, or golden syrup, or something, or other. Here's the answer:



If you want to try my sponge cake recipe, be warned that it's quite princessy. This is a recipe you'd want to follow to a T. If you don't – or think you have but actually haven't – you may have a few problems, such as (but definitely not restricted to):

⋈ If the batter is very bubbly after oil is added, that's a very, very bad sign. Something is measured wrongly, or the eggs are underwhisked, or the flour isn't thoroughly mixed, or all of the above. The cake likely will not rise well.

⋈ If the batter is lumpy, you'll find lumps of flour sitting in the bottom of the cake. (These lumps are very evil. They group themselves together to make sure you see them and taste them.)

⋈ If there's too much egg white, the cake will look like an award-winning Shar-Pei (although this is a good thing if you're making a cake that looks like a Shar-Pei, award-winning or otherwise).

⋈ If the oven is too hot, the cake won't rise well. If the oven isn't hot enough, the cake won't rise well either. Yup, this cake is as fussy as Goldilocks.

Of course, don't let my warning scare you. At the end of the day, how difficult can baking a cake be, right?

Once you've got the sponge cake nailed, the rest is easy. If, like me, you don't know how to ice the sides of the cake nicely, then don't. The cake looks prettier anyway with the sides cut off. Icing the top is like spreading butter on toast, so that shouldn't be a problem.



My sponge cake is delicious plain but it's at its best embellished with whipped cream and strawberries. 1 + 1 + 1 = >3 and all that jazz, you know? Japanese strawberry shortcake isn't only good for Christmas. I reckon the classic is good whenever strawberries are in season. And since strawberries are never out of season nowadays, the red and white cake is good all year round.

JAPANESE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE  (草莓奶油蛋糕; STRAWBERRY CREAM CAKE) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) 10 g glucose 150 g eggs 60 g castor sugar 60 g cake flour 1/16 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 45 g corn oil 200 g fresh dairy cream, 35% fat, cold 1 tbsp castor sugar 1/3 tsp vanilla extract 100 g large strawberries hull, rinse and dry with paper towels; slice 3 mm thick 4 small strawberries with green leaves rinse and dry with paper towels; cut into 2 halves 1. Place bowl for whipping cream in fridge. Preheat oven to 185°C. Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake pan with parchment paper. 2. To make sponge cake, beat glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage. Sift flour into mixture in 3-4 batches, adding salt along with the last batch. Mix gently with whisk after each addition, stirring just top half of batter, till smooth. Drizzle with vanilla extract and oil. Mix with whisk, again stirring just top half of batter, till you don't see streaks of vanilla extract or oil. Fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop a few times. 3. Pour batter into cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Tap pan against worktop a few times. Place pan in bottom of oven. Place baking tray in top of oven. Bake till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, 15-20 minutes. Remove baking tray. Continue baking till cake is nicely browned and springs back slightly when pressed gently, another 10-15 minutes. 4. Remove cake to wire rack. Leave till pan is just cool enough to handle, 10 minutes or so. Run knife along sides of cake. Flip cake onto wood surface. Remove pan. Place cake on wire rack, right way up. Leave till completely cool. 5. To make whipped cream, place cold cream in thoroughly chilled bowl along with sugar. Whisk till cream is stiff. Add vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly. 6. To assemble, remove parchment paper from cake. Slice cake horizontally with serrated knife or cake slicer into 2 equal halves. Spread 1/3 of cream on bottom half, evenly. Arrange sliced strawberries on top of cream. Spread with half of remaining cream. Place remaining cake on cream, cut side up. Spread with remaining cream. Place cake in freezer till cream is very firm, 10-15 minutes. Level and smooth top cream layer. Trim edges with serrated knife, wiping knife after each cut. Arrange strawberry halves on cake. Chill till ready to serve, covered if keeping overnight or longer. Meanwhile, enjoy trimmings.

Honey Castella (Kasutera) Cake (蜂蜜蛋糕)

The traditional mould for baking Castella cake is a bottomless wooden box frame. You could buy one, make one, or improvise with my method. I put the pan holding the batter in a bigger pan, and there's corrugated cardboard tucked in the space between the two pans. To prevent the cardboard from catching fire in the oven and then burning down the house, I wrap it in foil.

Where to get a Castella wooden mould? You could buy one, make one, or improvise with my method. I put the pan holding the batter in a bigger pan, and there's corrugated cardboard tucked in the space between the two pans. To prevent the cardboard from catching fire in the oven and then burning down the house, I wrap it in foil.

Once you get the mould sorted, you need to pick a recipe. Which one should you go for? Mine, of course!

My Castella cake is soft and moist freshly baked. Yup, you don't have to wrap it in plastic and wait a day before eating it. Nope, I don't cheat by adding oil or that awful stuff, ovalette (aka SP). Neither do I sneak  plain or cake flour into the cake. I use only only bread flour, as I'm supposed to, but the cake eats like it's made with cake flour.

How do I make a stellar Castella cake?

I start by beating 85 g egg whites with 60 g sugar till firm peak stage, i.e. between soft and stiff. Too much egg white would make the top of the cake wrinkled after cooling down. Too little would result in a dense crumb.  Underwhisking would result in the cake collapsing. Whisking too quickly or too much would make the crumb coarse and holey.

Once the meringue is firm yet smooth and creamy, I add 60 g egg yolks. Most home recipes use an equal number of whites and yolks but I use more yolks than whites. Why? To help make the cake soft and moist, and the top flat and wrinkle-free. The yolks must be added one at a time or the meringue would deflate. And the whisking must be done at low speed, to help remove big air bubbles in the meringue.

There is, of course, honey in honey Castella cake. How much? Just 20 g, enough to flavour the cake but not make it sticky. Honey is whisked into the batter after the egg yolks.

After the honey comes 60 g bread flour. The less flour there is, the softer the cake is. Unfortunately, too little flour would result in a coarse crumb and a crumpled top, two definite no-no's for Castella cake. Too much flour would make the cake dense and hard, another hallmark of Castella cake failure. Getting a tight yet soft crumb requires great balance.

The last thing added to the batter is 20 g milk. As I fold it into the other ingredients, I bang the mixing bowl against the worktop from time to time to help remove big air bubbles.

Halfway through the mixing, I let the batter rest for a few moments. Perhaps thinking the coast is clear, some unsuspecting air bubbles rise to the surface. And that's when I nap 'em. Bang! Bang! I'm so sneaky, yah?

Transferring the batter into the cake pan gives me another chance to catch those nasty bubbles. I pour slowly, from a height, so that some of the big bubbles burst as they flow out of the bowl. What do I do before the pan goes in the oven? Yup, bang bang! It's zero tolerance for Castella cake's #1 enemy.

Which shelf in the oven do I use? Bottom, so that the bottom of the cake browns as nicely as the top.

After the cake is done baking, I drop the pan from a height to stop it from shrinking excessively as it cools down. This is the neatest trick I've ever come across in cake making!

Here's another good trick: invert the pan and let it rest on a wood chopping board for a few moments. This helps keep the top of the cake flat and smooth.

Just before serving, trim the edges of the cake. The cuts must be neat and clean or you've failed even if the cake is perfect in every other way. I hope you're the obsessive-compulsive type?

HONEY CASTELLA CAKE (蜂蜜蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake) 85 g egg whites 60 g castor sugar 60 g egg yolks 20 g honey 60 g bread flour 20 g full-fat milk Cut 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit 4 sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap tightly in aluminium foil, shiny side facing out. Line 4 sides of cake pan with cardboard. Cut parchment paper to fit bottom of 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake pan. Grease lightly with vegetable oil. Place paper in cake pan, oiled side up. Preheat oven to 160°C. Whisk egg whites till bubbles are very small. Gradually add castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm (not stiff) peak stage, reducing speed towards the end to remove big air bubbles and prevent overwhisking. Add yolks to whisked egg white in 4 batches. Whisk on low speed till evenly mixed after each addition. Add honey. Repeat whisking as before. Sift half of bread flour into batter. Mix with whisk till almost even. Sift remaining flour. Mix till just even. Drizzle milk around bowl. Whisk, skimming just top part of batter, till you don't see any milk. Scrape down and fold with spatula, banging bowl against worktop from time to time, till everything is just evenly mixed. Let batter rest 10 seconds or so midway, then bang bowl against worktop. Pour batter into lined cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high so that air bubbles burst as they flow out of bowl. Tap pan against worktop 3-4 times. Place in bigger cake pan prepared earlier. Bake in bottom of oven till cake is brown and makes a soft squishing sound when pressed lightly, about 35 minutes. (If squishing is loud, cake is still too wet. If there's no sound at all, cake is overbaked and too dry.) Remove pans from oven. Remove cardboard and outer pan. Drop smaller cake pan from about 30 cm high, 2-3 times. Wait a few moments till top of cake starts to wrinkle slightly. Invert pan onto wooden chopping board. Wait till top of cake is flat and smooth, about 30 seconds. Re-invert pan. Leave on wire rack till cool. Unmould, trim edges, cut and serve. Cake is best eaten on day it's made, especially if it's cut. If serving the next day, or if cake is overbaked, wrap in plastic whilst still warm and unmoulded, till serving time.

Fluffy Chocolate Sponge Cake (巧克力海绵蛋糕)

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet my seized chocolate cake:

Seized?

Don't worry, I haven't seized anything from anyone. It's cocoa powder that's doing the seizing, not me.

My very soft and fluffy chocolate cake is made with cocoa powder that's mixed with hot oil. The scalding helps bring out the chocolate flavour. Of course, I use high quality cocoa powder or there wouldn't be any flavour to bring out.

When the oil and cocoa combo is not too hot and not too cold, I add a little bit of milk. This is when the seizing happens, i.e. the small cocoa particles absorb the milk, become sticky, and stick to one another to form bigger particles, resulting in a thick paste. The thickness of the cocoa paste is crucial to the success of chocolate sponge cake.

If the cocoa powder isn't seized at all, it'd be suspended in a runny liquid, which will sink to the bottom of the pan during baking. The cake will be pale and bland except for the bottommost 2 mm or so. If that thin layer is stuck to the pan or parchment paper after unmoulding, then the cake doesn't taste of chocolate at all.

If the cocoa powder is "over-seized", it becomes too coarse and will look like ground black pepper in the cake. The colour of the crumb, light brown with specks of black, won't look right. There will be some chocolate flavour but it'll be weak.

When the thickness of the cocoa paste is just right, the chocolate flavour is strong and spread evenly in the cake. And the cake's colour is a nice medium-brown, not pale.

How do you control how much the cocoa powder seizes? By watching the temperature. The hotter the oil and cocoa powder mixture is when milk is added, the stronger the seizing. The right moment for adding the milk is when the bowl holding the mixture doesn't feel hot but is still quite warm.

Of the various types of cake I bake, chocolate sponge rises the most, more than even chiffon cakes. The batter more than doubles in height in the oven. After shrinking a bit whilst cooling down, the cake is twice as tall as before baking. The more the batter rises, the fluffier the cake, right?

To make the batter rise as much as possible, the bottom of the pan should have more heat than the top. Separate controls for the oven's top and bottom heating elements would be very handy. If your oven isn't so fancy, as mine isn't, just bake the cake on the bottom instead of middle shelf.

After baking comes eating. When the chocolate sponge is unadorned and still warm, the fluffiness really shows through. If you are a chocolate fiend, you could cover or sandwich the cake with ganache. Whipped cream or buttercream, whether plain or chocolate-flavoured, is quite nice too. Do you like black forest cake? A sexed up chocolate cake would be ideal for a celebration.

Compared to my vanilla sponge and pandan sponge recipes, chocolate sponge is easier. The batter is more stable because it has less egg white, so it doesn't deflate easily. With this recipe, I think even a novice baker can bake a chocolate cake that's soft, fluffy, moist and chocolatey . . . if he/she follows the instructions. That's not too difficult . . . is it?



12 December 2013 Update
Here's a video to explain why glucose helps make cakes fluffy:
 

CHOCOLATE SPONGE CAKE (巧克力海绵蛋糕) Source: adapted from FoodHouse8 (Recipe for one 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake) 25 g corn oil 10 g Dutch-processed cocoa powder 10 g milk, cold ⅛ tsp salt ½ tsp vanilla extract 10 g glucose 105 g whole eggs 15 g egg yolk 80 g castor sugar 50 g cake flour ⅛ tsp baking soda butter, softened, for greasing Measure ingredients as detailed above. Grease 20 x 12 x 5 cm cake pan with butter. Line pan with parchment paper. Generously grease paper. Preheat oven to 170°C. Heat oil till very hot, almost smoking. Add to cocoa powder. Mix thoroughly. (There should be a chocolate aroma. If there isn't, either your oil isn't hot enough or you've got crap cocoa powder, or both.) Let mixture cool down slightly, till bowl doesn't feel hot but is still quite warm. Add milk. Stir thoroughly. (You should now have a smooth or slightly grainy paste that coats sides of bowl thickly.) Add vanilla extract and salt. Stir again. Set aside to cool down completely. Whisk glucose, eggs and yolk till starting to thicken. Gradually add castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till mixture is thick and pale, reducing speed towards the end to remove big air bubbles. Add cocoa paste in 2 batches. Whisk till you don't see any streaks of cocoa after each addition. Thoroughly scrape bottom of bowl with spatula and fold till evenly mixed. Sift cake flour and baking soda into bowl in 2 batches. Mix with whisk after each addition, stirring just top part of egg mixture. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into cake pan. Tap pan against worktop 2-3 times. Bake in bottom of oven till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, about 20 minutes, rotating pan as necessary so that cake rises evenly. Transfer to middle of oven. Continue baking till skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean, 5 minutes or so. Remove cake to wire rack. Wait a few moments. When top of cake starts to wrinkle, unmould. Peel paper from sides of cake. Leave cake on wire rack to cool down. Cut with serrated knife. Remove paper from bottom of cake. Dig in.

Pandan Sponge Cupcakes (班兰海绵杯子蛋糕)

I like my pandan sponge cupcakes very much. Made with pandan juice and coconut oil, the little cakes are very fragrant and the green colour is totally natural. The crumb is soft and fluffy, and it's still moist the next day.

If you're new to the whole egg method for making sponge cakes, please refer to my post on vanilla sponge cupcakes for tips on how to mix the batter without deflating it.

If, despite your best efforts, the batter loses a lot of air after you add flour and oil, switch to plan B. Which is? I suggest pancakes. I've never tried any before but I'd imagine pandan pancakes are quite nice.

The best tool for grinding pandan leaves to make pandan juice is a food processor. A mortar and pestle works well too, and it has the added bonus of helping you burn a few calories.

If you use a blender, the leaves must have some water added, which makes the juice too diluted. You have to let it settle for a few hours or overnight, then skim the excess water that floats on top.

If your pandan leaves are frozen instead of fresh, you must also let the juice settle even if it doesn't have water added, then use just the dark green part in the bottom.

Please don't use old, dark green leaves. Pick the ones that are soft and almost white or light green. If the leaves seem dry, soak them in water for about 30 minutes. Don't leave them in the water too long or the juice would be diluted.

A potato ricer is the most efficient tool for pressing the pulp. A small tea strainer that has a metal mesh works well too if it's the right size.

The colour of the eggs affects the colour of the cakes. Bright yellow yolks would mask the pandan juice's green colour. Use eggs with pale yellow yolks, e.g. Pasar brand, if you like your cakes as green as possible.

I use old-fashioned coconut oil for my pandan sponge cupcakes. That's the fragrant type made by simply heating coconut milk. On no account use deodourized oil, a newfangled thing that's supposed to be a health food. Virgin coconut oil, whatever that is, is fine if it's fragrant. If it isn't, you might as well use vegetable oil.

My pandan sponge cupcakes are quite fussy about what they're baked in. Hokkaido cupcake moulds give the best results. The cakes baked in these square cardboard moulds are perfectly fluffy and evenly browned. If you use other types of mould, your cupcakes may not rise or brown well.

Making good pandan sponge cupcakes is quite easy. Here's my video to show it really is a piece of cake:

PANDAN SPONGE CUPCAKES (班兰海綿杯子蛋糕) (Recipe for 5 big cupcakes) 6 g glucose 100 g eggs 40 g castor sugar 40 g cake flour 30 g coconut oil 10 g pandan juice 1/16 tsp salt Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Preheat oven to 190°C. Whisk glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage, i.e. when whisk is lifted, "ribbon" falls from whisk smoothly and sits on top of mixture without sinking. Sift half of cake flour into egg mixture, moving sieve around bowl so that flour isn't clumped in one area. Gently stir just top part of eggs with whisk till you don't see any flour. Sift remaining half of flour as before. Repeat gentle mixing. Stir pandan juice and coconut oil till well mixed. Gently drizzle mixture around bowl. Mix with whisk till you don't see any oil, again stirring just top part of batter. Fold, using spatula, till just evenly mixed. Divide batter equally between 5 Hokkaido cupcake moulds, about 45 g each. Place cupcakes on baking tray spaced apart. Bake cupcakes in bottom of oven till batter domes and doesn't move when baking tray is gently shaken, about 8 minutes. Gently move tray to upper-middle shelf. Bake till golden brown and slightly springy when pressed lightly, about 5 minutes. Rotate cupcakes as necessary during baking so that batter rises and browns evenly. Remove cupcakes to wire rack. Leave to cool down completely, or serve warm.

Vanilla Sponge Cupcakes (香草海绵杯子蛋糕)

The cake is fluffy, moist and not too holey. The buttercream is velvety smooth and not too rich or too sweet. The roses look reasonably like roses, and stayed that way without air-condition.

Yup, I'm happy with my vanilla cupcakes.

My sponge cupcakes are made with whole eggs, i.e. the eggs aren't separated. This method is a bit tricky because yolks and whites whisked together deflate easily when you add flour and butter/oil. Deflated batter makes cupcakes that are dense and hard.

I make light and fluffy sponge cupcakes that are moist, not dried out like some sponge cakes tend to be. And the crumb isn't too holey. How do I do it?

I whisk the eggs, along with sugar and a bit of glucose, till the ribbon stage, i.e. when I lift the whisk, a "ribbon" falls in a steady stream and sits on top of the mixture without sinking.

The eggs are now thick, with some air bubbles visible. To prevent the cake from being too holey and rough, I have to get rid of these visible air bubbles. How do I do that? By whisking slowly for a few minutes, till the eggs are silky smooth, i.e. I don't see any air bubbles.

Once the eggs are whisked to the right thickness and smoothness, I sift cake flour into the mixture. If it goes into one spot, all in one go, the flour would sink and stick to the bottom of the bowl. I can loosen the flour with a spatula, right? Sure I can but the eggs can't stand that much agitation. By the time I'm done, the mixture would be horribly deflated. Solution: sift the flour into the bowl in two lots, and move the sieve around as I sift. Done this way, the flour doesn't sink like it's in quicksand but sits nicely on the eggs.

After adding each batch of flour, I mix it with the eggs using a whisk. The objective here is not to mix evenly yet but quickly spread out the flour in the eggs so that it doesn't clump and form lumps. I have to stir gently, without the whisk touching the bottom of the bowl at all. The bottom half of the eggs is undisturbed, so it has no chance of deflating. It acts as the support for the top half, and prevents that from deflating as it's being mixed.

Milk, oil and vanilla extract are stirred together, then gently drizzled around the bowl so that some of the mixture – the more the better – sits on the batter. Next, I mix a bit with a whisk to gently and quickly spread out the amount that hasn't sunk and disappeared from view. Again, the whisk doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl.

I now have an uneven batter, right? I switch to a spatula and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then I fold the batter, scraping the bottom of the bowl, and I keep folding till I don't see any oil or flour. I now have an evenly mixed batter that's totally billowy, not deflated.

The batter is very light and airy, so it sets very quickly in the oven. To make sure the top is nicely golden brown when the inside is done, I add a bit of glucose to the eggs before I start whisking. I also move the cakes a bit closer to the oven's top heat for the last five minutes of the baking.

What makes the cupcakes moist? It's the combination of oil, milk, glucose and sugar. Can you leave out or reduce any of these ingredients? Of course you can. Hey, you can leave out the flour, eggs, salt and vanilla extract as well and bake empty muffin pans in the oven if that suits you. Whatever floats your boat, you know? And if your boat sinks, or you have no boat to speak of, please don't ask me why.

VANILLA SPONGE CUPCAKES (香草海绵杯子蛋糕) (Recipe for 8 cupcakes) Cupcakes 100 g eggs 6 g glucose 40 g castor sugar 40 g cake flour 1/16 tsp salt 10 g full-fat milk 30 g corn oil add to milk ½ tsp vanilla extract add to milk and corn oil Buttercream (source: adapted from WendyinKK) 50 g sugar 30 g egg white 85 g unsalted butter, soft but not too soft Preheat oven to 180°C. Place paper liners in 8 muffin cups. Place muffin cups on baking tray. (Paper or cardboard moulds are good too. This recipe isn't fussy about what it's baked in.) To make cupcakes, whisk eggs, glucose and castor sugar till ribbon stage, i.e. mixture is pale and, when whisk is lifted, drips back into bowl and stays visible. Sift half of cake flour into egg mixture, moving sieve around bowl so that flour isn't clumped in one area. Gently stir just top part of eggs with whisk, till you see only a bit of flour. Sift remaining half of flour as before. Add salt. Repeat gentle mixing, this time till you don't see any flour. Stir milk, oil and vanilla extract till well mixed. Gently drizzle mixture around bowl. Mix with whisk till you don't see any oil, again stirring just top part of batter. Using spatula, scrape down thoroughly and fold till just evenly mixed. Divide batter equally between muffin cups, i.e. 27 g each. Bake 10 minutes on middle shelf till batter is risen. Transfer to upper-middle shelf. Continue baking till golden brown and slightly springy when pressed, another 5 minutes or so. Remove cakes to wire rack. Wait 5 minutes. Unmould. Serve whilst warm and top is slightly crusty. Alternatively, leave till cool and serve topped with buttercream. To make buttercream, cook egg white and sugar over low heat, whisking constantly and checking from time to time if sugar is melted by rubbing drop of mixture between fingers. When sugar is just melted, whisk on high speed mixture till thick, glossy and cold. Add half of butter. Whisk on high speed till well combined. Add remaining butter. Whisk on high speed till mixture is stiff. Pipe or spread on cupcakes as desired. Recipe makes enough for frosting 16 cupcakes, or 8 if you're a pig.