Bamboo Charcoal Cake (竹碳蛋糕)

Black is mysterious. Black is sophisticated. Black is . . . sexy.

What makes my cake black? It's bamboo charcoal that's been pulverized into a very, very fine powder.

You can see what my charcoal cake looks like but you can't taste it. Let me taste it for you.

Chomp, chomp, chomp . . . .

Hey, charcoal cake tastes like regular cake! It's just like vanilla cake except for the colour.

Chomp, chomp . . . zzzzz . . . .

Did you know charcoal powder makes you sleepy?

I didn't the first time I ate charcoal cake. I had a (small) piece late in the afternoon, then another (small) piece after dinner. That night, I struggled to stay awake after 10 pm and had to crawl into bed an hour later. I don't usually retire till well after midnight.

Besides treating insomnia, charcoal powder is a good antidote. It inactivates poisons by binding with the toxins.

Did you hear about the woman who, after taking some poison to kill herself, decided to eat some charcoal cake?

Said woman figured she could eat all the cake she wanted since she was about to die. So she ate and ate and ate . . . not realizing she was eating an antidote to the poison.

Guess what? Yup, she didn't die because she ate too much cake. The moral of the story is: Good things happen to those who eat lots of cake.

OK, I just totally made that up. If you were poisoned, you'd need loads of charcoal powder, loads more than there would be in a cake or two.

Treating a gassy stomach, OTOH, doesn't need much. Inhale a big slice of charcoal cake and the excess gas in your tummy would be gone. Isn't that nice? You can still eat cake when your tummy feels bloated!

If you've just had a French manicure, remember to wear gloves when you're handling charcoal powder. OTOH, if your black varnish is peeling around the edges, you could rub some charcoal powder on your nails.

Run out of eyeliner? Hey, what do you think Cleopatra used? Maybe not bamboo charcoal but it was definitely charcoal of some sort around her eyes, on her brows, and as a teeth whitener.

Charcoal powder has so many uses. Isn't it wonderful?

Baking good charcoal cake is easy when you have my tried and tested recipe. Frosting the cake isn't difficult either. Remember less is more or the cake's unusual colour wouldn't stand out. A few blackberries or black raspberries would add a nice accent. Anything else would spoil the minimalist look . . . .

Hey, I just had a brainwave! I'm gonna serve charcoal cake at my funeral . . . well, I won't be there . . . I mean I will be there but . . . . I guess I'll have to leave instructions. There must be a cake for every important occasion, right?


 

BAMBOO CHARCOAL CAKE (竹碳蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) 1 tsp bamboo charcoal powder 45 g full-fat milk add to charcoal powder; stir thoroughly 10 g castor sugar 45 g egg yolks 35 g corn oil, plus extra for greasing 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 45 g cake flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/16 tsp salt 105 g egg whites 1/16 tsp cream of tartar 35 g castor sugar 150 g whipped cream Trim 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap each piece of cardboard in aluminium foil, shining side facing out.  Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. Lightly grease top layer with oil. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Whisk 10 g castor sugar with egg yolks till dissolved. Add corn oil. Whisk till just combined. Add charcoal milk and vanilla extract. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. Sift cake flour and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add 35 g castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm peak stage. Thoroughly whisk yolk mixture, scraping bottom of bowl. Add half of egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Add remaining egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Jiggle pan and tap lightly against worktop till batter is level. Place in bigger cake pan. Tuck cardboard between 2 pans. Bake in bottom of oven till cake doesn't make squishing sound when gently pressed around the middle, 50-55 minutes. Remove pans from oven. Set aside outer pan and cardboard. Drop pan holding cake from about 30 cm high, twice. Invert pan onto wire rack. Leave till just cool. As soon as cake is cool, slide knife along sides of pan. Unmould cake. Remove parchment paper. To frost cake, slice cake horizontally into 3 equal pieces. Invert what was top of cake so that cut side faces up. Spread evenly with whipped cream, about 2 mm thick. Top with what was middle of cake. Spread whipped cream as before. Place what was bottom of cake on cream, cut side down. Spread whipped cream as before. Chill till cream is firm. Trim 1 cm from edges. (Trimmings are, of course, perfectly edible.) Refrigerate till ready to serve.

Matcha Cake

Green tea powder, aka matcha and maccha, is the soul of green tea cake. If you want to make good green tea cake, you have to use good quality green tea powder.

GTP has three enemies: heat, light and oxygen. The colour and flavour deteriorate very quickly unless the tea is kept in the cold, in the dark, away from oxygen.

Good matcha is sold in an airtight and  lightproof metal container, and it comes with an oxygen absorber. It should be used as soon and as quickly as possible. And it should be refrigerated, even when it's still sealed.

Lousy matcha, OTOH, sits in a see-through plastic container that's sealed but not really airtight. It's essentially hay with artificial colouring and flavouring. It's good if you're baking a cake for your pet rabbit.

To make green tea cake, just take whatever cake recipe you like and substitute a bit of the flour with matcha. Right?

Yes, of course you can do that. In fact, a lot of people do. But matcha and wheat flour are two entirely different things. The former consists of leaves/fibre; the latter consists of protein and starch. Compared to flour, ground up leaves absorb more water but less fat. Unless you adjust the recipe, a cake made with green tea powder would be less fluffy and more oily than one made without.

Besides the absorbancy, there're two more differences between matcha and flour.

Does matcha taste like flour? Of course it doesn't. Green tea powder is slightly bitter but flour isn't. It makes the cake less sweet.

Does matcha brown like flour? Nope, it doesn't. Wet leaves don't brown, so green tea powder makes the cake brown slower unless you add more sugar or increase the oven temperature.

Most cake recipes need a wee bit of salt. You shouldn't be able to taste the salt at all. It's there to round off the sweetness. Green tea cake, however, doesn't need any salt because matcha does the "rounding off". If there's salt, you'd be able to taste it.

The flavour of green tea powder is very delicate. If there's baking soda/powder in the recipe, the delicate flavour would be compromised. Hence, green tea cake should be made without any baking soda/powder.

I don't like green tea cake that's dense, salty, oily, not sweet, not brown and not "matcha-ish". Do you?

My green tea cake is made with a recipe that's dedicated to making green tea cake that's soft, fluffy, and subtly fragrant with the scent of green tea powder. It's not some vanilla cake with the vanilla yanked out and matcha bunged in.

If you want to try my recipe, be warned that the cake cracks even with cardboard insulation to help it rise evenly. The cracks close up nicely as the cake cools down but you'd still see a few lines. Here's what the cake looks like hot from the oven and after cooling down:
After baking my way through four bottles of GTP, I'm now happy with my recipe. I hope you like it too.

GREEN TEA (MATCHA) CAKE (抹茶蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) Cake 10 g castor sugar 60 g egg yolks 30 g corn oil 5 g green tea powder add 20 g boiling water; mix till smooth; add 30 g room temperature water; mix thoroughly; set aside to cool down 40 g cake flour 105 g egg whites 1/16 tsp cream of tartar 45 g castor sugar Whipped cream 200 g dairy cream, ≈35% fat, thoroughly chilled 1 tsp green tea powder 1. To make cake, trim 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap each piece of cardboard in aluminium foil, shining side facing out. Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. 2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure ingredients for cake and prepare green tea as detailed above. 3. Whisk 10 g castor sugar with egg yolks till dissolved. Add corn oil. Whisk till just combined. Add green tea. Whisk will just thoroughly mixed. Sift cake flour into mixture. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed but small lumps are still visible.  4. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add 45 g castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm peak stage. 5. Thoroughly whisk yolk mixture, which should be smooth now. Add half of egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Add remaining egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. 6. Pour batter into 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Jiggle pan till batter is level. 7. Place cake pan holding batter in 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Tuck cardboard between 2 pans. Bake till middle of cake doesn't make squishing sound when pressed gently, about 55 minutes. 8. Remove pans from oven. Remove cardboard and outer pan. Drop pan holding cake from about 30 cm high, 2-3 times. Invert pan onto wire rack. Leave till just cool. 9. As soon as cake is cool, slide knife along sides of pan. Unmould cake. Discard both layers of parchment paper. 10. To make whipped cream, whisk cream till just thick enough to hold its shape. Add green tea powder. Whisk till evenly mixed and cream is dead stiff. 11. To assemble, cut cake horizontally with serrated knife or cake slicer into 2 equal halves. Set aside bottom half of cake. Invert top half so that cut side faces up. Spread with half of whipped cream. Top with remaining half of cake, cut side down. Spread with remaining whipped cream. Smooth top. Trim about 1 cm from 4 edges. 12. Transfer cake to serving plate. Refrigerate till ready to serve. Enjoy trimmings whilst waiting.

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.

Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake (日式芝士蛋糕)

Soufflé cheesecake is the Japanese take on cheesecake. It's much lighter than the American or German version and not at all cheesy – the ideal cheesecake for cheesecake haters.  The recipe I'm sharing is adapted from Diana's Desserts. I've made four changes to the original recipe:

⋈ The amount of cream cheese is reduced by about 30% to make the cake really light.

⋈ The oven is preheated to 180°C, then reduced to 170°C when the baking starts. The original recipe uses 160°C instead.

Despite the higher temperature and lesser cream cheese, my baking time is about the same as Diana's.

⋈ The cake is baked in the bottom instead of the middle of the oven so that the top doesn't brown too quickly.

⋈ The egg whites are whisked without cream of tartar. I find the cake too sour with the original recipe's ¼ tsp, and the acid isn't necessary for stopping the cake from collapsing.

Besides the above changes, I've added a couple of steps to make the cake as smooth as possible: sieving the cream cheese mixture; and removing big air bubbles in the batter by banging the mixing bowl hard, and by pouring slowly when the batter is transferred into the cake pan.

The inside of a good soufflé cheesecake should have lots of tiny holes, like a chiffon cake, to make it light. Big holes would be unsightly; no holes at all would mean the cake is heavy and dense like a regular cheesecake

Here's my video to help you make a very light, very non-cheesy cheesecake:

JAPANESE SOUFFLÉ CHEESECAKE (日式芝士蛋糕) Source: adapted from Diana's Desserts ((Recipe for one 18 cm cake) 80 ml milk 40 g butter, at (tropical) room temperature, cut into small pieces 140 g full-fat cream cheese block, at (tropical) room temperature, cut into small pieces 50 g cake flour, sifted 15 g cornstarch, sifted ⅛ tsp salt mix evenly with sifted cake flour and cornstarch 75 g egg yolks 2 tsp lemon juice 180 g egg whites 90 g caster sugar Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Preheat oven to 180°C (355°F). Put kettle on. Line 18 x 6 cm round cake pan, with parchment paper extending above top of pan by 2-3 cm. Heat milk till hand-hot. Add to butter and cream cheese. Mix evenly. Add egg yolks and lemon juice. Mix evenly. Sieve, twice so that mixture is silky smooth. Add cake flour, cornstarch and salt. Mix till just even. Whisk egg whites till big bubbles become small. Continue whisking whilst adding sugar gradually. Keep on whisking till egg whites form soft peaks. Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix till half even after each of first 2 additions, then till just fully even after third addition. Bang mixing bowl against worktop 3-4 times, hard, to remove big air bubbles. Pour batter into cake pan, slowly so that big air bubbles burst as batter flows out of mixing bowl. Reboil water in kettle. Put cake pan in a bigger pan. Fill outer pan with boiling water to about half-way up sides of inner cake pan. Reduce oven temperature to 170°C (340°F). Bake in bottom of oven till top of cake is golden brown and inserted skewer comes out with some crumbs attached, about 1¼ hours. Remove cake from oven. Leave on wire rack to cool down completely. Unmould by inverting onto a plate. Discard parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so that cake is right way up. Cut with serrated knife by moving blade either forward or backward, i.e. do not saw.