Sabor Eats

Sabor for the kitchen & tea for the soul.
Sabor Eats is an experimental food blog created by Erica and Wasc, two students who love food, culture, and travelling.

Kasutera/Castella (Japanese Sponge Cake)

I’ve always wanted to try kasutera, ever since I’ve seen it in Japanese shows. I’ve been curious about its soft, spongy characteristics. I’ve eaten very spongy cakes before, but never moist, soft, spongy cakes. I’m very picky when it comes to “moist” because most people imply that to also mean soft. The word moist just means to be wet. To me, the cake has to also be soft—like a cloud. To be honest, after trying some of the kasutera I made, I did not consider it to be extra moist and soft. It was semi-soft and spongy, and not as moist as I would have liked. The cake was also more sweet than I would have liked, so I have modified the recipe below to fit my sugar liking. ;)


That is not to say the kasutera was bad at all, actually, it’s pretty tasty. There are a couple of reasons why it may not have come out as soft and moist as I wanted: 1) May have over-baked it by a minute or two. 2) The ziplock I used had small perforations in it, as it was meant to store veggies (I had no solid large ziplocks on hand) 3) I need to add the magic ingredient


Enjoy!

-Erica

Green Tea and Lemon Honey Marbled Kasutera (Castella)  adapted from Eat the Love


Ingredients:

  • 8 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cup of sugar + a little bit of reserve sugar to sprinkle on the bottom of the cake pan
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • a little less than 1/4 cup of honey + 1 tbsp reserve honey
  • 1 1/2 cup of flour
  • Zest of 1 1/2 medium lemons
  • 2 1/2 tsp matcha powder



Recipe:

  1. Bring a large pot of water to boil on the stove. Once it has come to a boil, turn the heat off.
  2. While the water is boiling, mix together eggs, sugar, salt, cream of tartar in a mixing bowl (make sure it is a bowl that will not melt or explode when put into the pot of super hot water.)
  3. After the heat on the pot of water has been turned off, place the mixing bowl from #2 into the hot water. Using a whisk, mix the ingredients over the hot water until the mixture is just warm to the touch. **NOTE: Do not let the eggs get too hot that they cook!!
  4. Remove from hot water once eggs are just warm. If you have a standing mixer, use it—otherwise, if you’re like me with a handicapped kitchen, use a hand mixer and whisk the warmed mixture on medium for 15-30 or more minutes until the mixture turns a white color. Be patient here, it does take a long while, but the mixture will turn white.
  5. While the egg mixture is whipping, place flour and lemon zest in another mixing bowl. Whisk to aerate the mixture.
  6. When the eggs are nearly done being whipped, add honey and milk to a pot over the stove. Heat on medium and stir until completely mixed together and remove from the heat. **NOTE: Do not let the milk boil!!
  7. When the egg mixture is white and whisks to small peaks, slowly drizzle in the milk honey mixture while whisking on medium still.
  8. Then slowly add in the flour mixture 1 tbsp at a time while whisking until incorporated.
  9. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
  10. To marble:  Spray a 12” or two 8” cake pan(s) with oil. Then line with parchment paper so that the paper hangs over the edges of the cake pan. Then sprinkle the reserve (about 1 tbsp) of sugar over the parchment paper.
  11. Divide the cake batter by pouring 1/3 of the batter into another mixing bowl. Add matcha and whisk until incorporated.
  12. Pour 1/2 of the white cake batter into the pan.
  13. Spoon 1/2 of the matcha cake batter over the white batter.
  14. Pour the rest of the white cake batter over the matcha batter.
  15. Lastly, spoon the rest of the matcha batter over the white layer—making sure to leave some white cake batter to show through so that the marbling will show.
  16. Take a knife and swirl the colors together in a decorative pattern. **NOTE: Do not over-swirl as this will mix the two colors so that the marbling will not show through as well.
  17. Place in oven for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. **NOTE: Make sure to watch the cake and pull it out AS SOON AS it is done, otherwise the cake will become too dry.
  18. While the cake is baking, mix 1 tbsp reserve honey with 1 tbsp water. Immediately after taking the cake out of the oven, brush cake with honey water until you use up the entire mixture.
  19. Let cool for 10 minutes. (I had to slice some pieces off in order to make it fit my ziplock—the original recipe calls for a 9” pan, but I had wayyy too much batter to fit in ONE tiny 9”! Next time, I will probably use 2 separate 8” as the cake became squished when crammed into the ziplock.
  20. Place the cake and the parchment paper into the ziplock and place into the refrigerator to cool for about 2 hours. This is important in locking in the cake moisture.
  21. Kasutera is originally served with the edges cut off so that the insides show. Serve at room temperature with tea or coffee.
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