Japanese sponge cake "Castella": recipe. Japanese cotton sponge cake - just melts in your mouth How to cook Japanese sponge cake

Japanese cotton sponge cake is a very unusual baked product. We're sure you've never made a biscuit like this before. It tastes somewhat like bird's milk, just as tender, moist and porous. The biscuit turns out so delicious that not a crumb remains of it. Preparing a biscuit is simple, the main thing is to maintain the correct temperature when baking.

Required Products

• 110 grams wheat flour
• 50 milliliters vegetable oil
• 80 milliliters milk
• 5 yolks
• 1 chicken egg
• 5 proteins
• half a teaspoon of lemon juice
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 90 grams of sugar

Cooking process

1. Heat the vegetable oil until warm and pour into a bowl. And then sift the wheat flour into it.
2. Pour warm milk into the resulting mass and mix until smooth.
3. Then add the yolks and chicken egg to the dough and mix again.
4. In another bowl, beat the whites with a pinch of salt, vanilla sugar and lemon juice. Add sugar there too. And we continue to beat the whites for another 5-6 minutes until stable peaks appear.
5. We combine the protein and yolk mass, doing this carefully with a spatula.
6. Take a baking pan, line it with parchment paper and pour the dough into it. Place the mold on a baking sheet into which we pour warm water.
7. Bake the prepared biscuit in an oven preheated to 170 degrees for 20 minutes. Important! Do not open the oven during baking.
8. After the allotted time, reduce the baking temperature to 150 degrees. And continue baking the biscuit for another 50-60 minutes.
9. When the biscuit is already cooked, turn off the oven. But we don’t take it out, but leave it there until it cools almost completely (15-20 minutes.)
10. Remove the finished and slightly cooled sponge cake from the mold, cool completely, then cut and serve.

You can serve this sponge cake with delicious chocolate coffee. You can prepare it according to the recipe from our website.

It turns out that biscuits are baked even in Japan. A simple pastry made from beaten eggs has circled the earth. What a surprise.

And this is how it all started. Once upon a time, the Portuguese, at the dawn of their achievements and strength, sailed to the shores of Japan, straight to Kyushu (or Nagasaki, different sources say differently). They soon established successful trade relations with the population and also began to conduct missionary activities. Thanks to this, the Japanese discovered many useful things: guns for war, gourds for food, tobacco for false pleasure and Kasutera biscuit for real pleasure. Over hundreds of years, Kastella has changed and turned into a Japanese dessert.

Today, the sponge cake is prepared with sugar and honey or syrup (for example, corn syrup). This is why it comes out moist with a dark brown top and sides, which distinguishes it from its Western relatives.

Most often, Kasutera is served with whipped cream or frosting.

Making Japanese sponge cake.

Your first task in the kitchen is to prepare the mold. Do you know that in Japan Kasutera is made in a special square wooden mold? Of course, it’s difficult to find such a mold here, but we can replace it with a regular square one for cupcakes. I used non-stick coating.

Before pouring the dough, line the mold with parchment. To do this, measure out the required piece, and then make cuts on four sides (see photo below). Before placing the parchment in the mold, spray it with a little oil.

First, sift the flour (200 g) so that it is in sight. Then combine honey (5 tbsp) and warm water (2 ½) and, of course, mix well.

To check if the eggs are beaten enough, you need to run the tip of a knife across the surface. If the mark stays and doesn't disappear quickly, it's whipped as you need it to be.

Next, add honey and water to the eggs and mix with a mixer at minimum speed for 30 seconds.

And finally, pour in the flour in three approaches, each time mixing with the mixer also at low speed.

Place the dough in the mold and draw zigzags by dipping a wooden stick into the dough. Then throw a little shape of 3-4 cm in height. All this must be done to allow excess air to escape.

Bake the honey biscuit at 160 - 180 C until ready.

When you are finished baking, remove the Kasutera from the oven. Mix 1 tbsp. l. honey with ½ tbsp. l., and then grease the top of the sponge cake with this solution. When it has cooled, wrap it in cling film and leave it overnight. During this time it will become more moist and fragrant.

Note:

If your baking dish is small, you can divide all the ingredients in half and make a smaller portion of dough.

Ingredients

• Honey: 6 tbsp. l.
• Flour: 200 g
• Sugar: 218 g
• Eggs: 6 pieces
• Warm water 3 tbsp. l.

To prepare a real biscuit originally from distant Japan, you need only 5 ingredients.

Cooking technology:

1. Sift the flour 3 times. This is one of the key requirements, do not ignore it.
2. Dissolve honey in milk.
3. Beat the eggs into a bowl, add sugar, place in a water bath and start beating with a mixer until the temperature reaches 60°. Measure the temperature with a kitchen thermometer. This will take approximately 15 minutes.
4. Remove the eggs from the water bath and continue to run the mixer until they cool.
5. With the mixer running, pour in the milk and honey.
6. Add sifted flour in small portions. Mix the dough with a rubber or silicone spatula.
7. Cover the bottom of the mold with parchment. Pour over the dough. Tap the mold well on the table once. This will remove excess air. You cannot tap several times, otherwise the biscuit will not fit.
8. Bake the cake at 180° until done, about 50 minutes.

Immediately remove the finished biscuit from the mold, place it in a plastic bag and tie it tightly. Keep it in the bag for 2 hours.

How do Japanese sponge cakes differ from European ones?

The classic sponge cake, which is baked in Europe, is very light and airy; it is also called “sponge cake”, that is, a sponge cake, due to its special texture. But in Japan, biscuits, on the contrary, are very dense and moist. Outwardly, the European and Japanese versions of this cake may seem the same, but after taking just a bite, you will feel the difference.

This biscuit texture is achieved thanks to a special set of ingredients and cooking technology. Since strict maintenance of a certain temperature is required, the dessert is usually made on an industrial scale, but it can also be made at home. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out the first time. With a little practice, you can pamper your family with a delicious treat.

Be sure to try this dessert. Despite the simple set of ingredients, the cake turns out to be very unusual. It's definitely not like the biscuits you've tried before.

Elastic Japanese sponge cake is a cake that is easy to work with, as it bends in different directions, like fabric. It can be used for making multi-layer cakes or as decoration. It is not difficult to prepare, and working with it is a pleasure. A step-by-step recipe with photos will help you bake Japanese custard sponge cake at home.

For the custard sponge cake we need:

• 1 egg (D-0);
• 120 grams of yolks;
• 165 grams of protein;
• 80 grams of sifted premium wheat flour;
• 80 grams of powdered sugar +6 grams of vanilla;
• 130 grams of milk;
• 70 grams of butter 72%;
• 2 grams of fine salt;
• food coloring of any color.

How to make Japanese sponge cake at home

To start cooking, take a ladle and heat the milk and butter in it. We wait until the butter completely melts.

Without removing the ladle from the heat, pour all the flour into the hot mass and brew it, vigorously stirring with a wooden spoon until a dense dough is obtained and a thin coating at the bottom of the ladle.

Transfer the hot dough to the bowl, add dye of any color and mix with a spatula until the dough has cooled.

Continue kneading the dough and add one egg to it, mix, then add the yolks one by one.

In a separate bowl, beat the whites with the addition of salt. When they reach a fluffy state, add powdered sugar and vanilla. Continue beating until the whites become fluffy and have stable peaks. After this, the whites can be combined with the dough or a spatula, or a mixer at low speed.

Place the dough on a silicone baking tray.

I prepared the dough with red dye in the same way, but I will bake it on parchment.

Place the baking sheet in an oven preheated to 160°C for 15-17 minutes. Then, remove the cake and drag it over the edge of the parchment onto a wire rack to cool.

The finished Japanese custard sponge cake resembles fabric in structure. It bends easily in different directions and does not break. You can bend it any way you want and it still holds its shape.

How to store Japanese biscuit

Cover the completely cooled cake with cling film and turn it over, holding the edges of the parchment.

Remove the parchment and continue wrapping the biscuit in film.

Now you can roll it up for easier storage in the refrigerator. I took a cardboard roller, which was the base of a disposable towel, placed it on it and rolled my cake on it. Now you can store it in the refrigerator.

And when you need to work with a biscuit, you just take it and unwrap it.

A real Japanese sponge cake, even after storage it looks as if it had just been prepared.

Castella is a popular biscuit in Japan, the recipe of which is already 5 centuries old. Moist, heavy, with the aroma and taste of honey, it is bright yellow inside and covered with a brown crust on top. Baking owes such an appetizing top to the large amount of sugar in the dough.

How castella biscuits ended up in Japan - an interesting history of ancient baking

Honey sponge cake, reminiscent of our Easter cakes, was brought to the land of the rising sun by Portuguese traders. Back in the 16th century, ships brought various strange goods from Portugal, including sweets. Europeans could trade only in Nagasaki. From this port the food gradually spread throughout all the islands.

Many months of Portuguese sailing across the seas did not spoil castella - bread from Castile. The Japanese, who tasted the overseas treat, liked the taste of the dish. And they began to bake such sweet bread themselves. At that time, sugar was very expensive. We have already written about this in. Due to the high cost of granulated sugar, the Japanese castella sponge cake was considered a delicacy for the elite. One of the famous wealthy samurai once presented it as a gift to the emperor himself as a sign of the great honor and respect that he and his family had for the ruler of Japan.

What is Japanese castella made from?

The dessert is baked at a temperature of 160-180 degrees for 35-40 minutes. The composition of the baked goods is simple and accessible. This is a large number of chicken eggs, sugar, sweet starch syrup, honey, flour. Honey gives sweets a unique characteristic taste and aroma that cannot be confused. Those who have once tasted a Japanese treat will find it easy to recognize it from all the others. For those who want to drink tea with a Japanese accent, we suggest making the overseas sweet yourself. There is nothing complicated in the process. You just need to familiarize yourself with the simple features.

What is the difference between Japanese castella sponge cake and ordinary European one?

There are differences and they are obvious :

• Compound: Add a small amount of honey and starch-based syrup to the base. These ingredients are responsible for the taste, aroma and consistency of baked goods.
• Cooking technology: beat the egg-sugar mass with a mixer at high speed for 5-10 minutes. Then honey and mizuame syrup are added. This starch syrup was prepared back in the days when sugar in Japan was available only to a select few and cost incredible amounts of money.

Beat the egg mixture with sugar and mizuame for another 3-5 minutes. Flour is poured in three additions. Before this, it is sifted three times. Thanks to this simple manipulation, the dough acquires the necessary fluffiness.

Baking powder is never used so as not to make the castella sponge cake too airy and light. The recipe for authentic baking does not require baking powder.

• Form: must be rectangular. Before baking, it is greased with vegetable oil, covered with parchment, and only after these manipulations the dough is poured. Then the base is compacted so that excess air escapes from the base. To do this, shake the container with the dough slightly or tap it on the table two or three times. Some people draw strokes on the dough with a long wooden skewer.

Cool the baked goods, wrapped in cling film, immediately after removal from the mold, in the refrigerator for one to two days.

This is how the baking acquires the necessary moisture, as in. The hot product is immediately placed in a film so that the hot steam escaping from it immediately returns back. This way the dessert becomes moist enough and can be stored for up to five days.

• Innings: castella is served cut into rectangles 12 by 3 cm.