Saturday June 13, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
A Pleasant Summer Day
One of my absolutely favorite desserts in the world is the Japanese style strawberry shortcake. Unlike the Western version where sweet biscuits are the base, in Japan they use sponge cake as a base. But the sponge cake in Japan is more delicate and fluffy than the ones I've made using Western recipes. So when I found out that ABC cooking was offering a class on how to make Japanese style short cake, I jumped at the opportunity.
It was surprisingly easy to make. But they taught me a new technique in making the sponge cake: whip the eggs and sugar over warm water for about 15 seconds which makes the mixture very frothy. This technique is key to a fluffy sponge cake or genoise cake as my instructor calls it. Here's how to make it:
Short Cake from ABC Cooking:
Genoise Cake Ingredients: 2 eggs, 70 grams of sugar, 70 grams of cake flour, 20 grams of melted butter, 10 cc of milk, few drops of vanilla essence
Syrup: 30cc of Sugar syrup made from boiling one part sugar and 2 parts water, plus 20cc Kirsch or strawberry syrup
Whipped Cream: 200 gram whipping cream and 10 grams sugar
Fruit for decoration: sliced strawberries, blueberries
Instructions: Beat eggs with handheld mixer on high, add sugar and beat a bit more, then beat over 70-80C warm water for only 15 seconds. Then remove from water and continue beating until super frothy. Sift flour over batter and blend with spatula until just blended.
In a small cup, mix melted butter, milk and vanilla essence. Pour over batter by first pouring onto the spatula and let the butter mixture drip into the batter. Blend using spatula gently.
Pour batter in a cake pan (15cm or so diameter). Tap the pan gently to remove air bubbles and bake in 180C electric oven for 23 min (170C for gas). When done remove from pan and let cool.
The batter should look like this before baking:
The baked cake
When cooled, slice in half. Brush 1/3 of syrup on top of bottom
half and brush rest of syrup on the top half. Make whipped cream by
beating the whipping cream with sugar. Frost and decorate with fruit.
And voila you have a Japanese Style Shortcake!
By spreading a thin layer of whipped cream, you can even out the surface which will make fancy decorating easier.
The end result: My first Japanese style Strawberry Shortcake