Castella Cake (蜂蜜长崎蛋糕）

Castella is a popular Japanese Sponge Cake made of flour, sugar, eggs, milk and honey. Though simple, tastes awesome and is not an easy recipe to attempt. Though the cake contains no butter or oil, the texture is still very moist. The moistness can only be achieved by refrigeration the cake overnight.

I was mesmerized by the look of this Castella fine texture while browsing through Helena's Kitchen  and the fact that it uses a wooded mould to bake. As I don't have a wooden mould, I tried baking it with a normal baking tin. Suprisingly it works. I will attempt baking this again, hopefully I can get the wooden mould soon.

Another thing to take note is this cake need a really sharp knife to cut. I have to constantly wash the knife to get rid of the stickiness so that the cake can be cut nicely.

   

   

 Castella Cake (蜂蜜长崎蛋糕）

Recipe Source: Helena's Kitchen

Ingredients:

4 whole eggs ( separated & room temperature

3 tbsp honey 

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp maltose sugar ( very important, it makes the texture of the cake look nice, moist & smooth)

120g bread flour

75g caster sugar)

1 tbsp mirin (optional)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven at 160C. Fill 2 little loaves pans with water. Fill up 1/4 of the pan. Place them into the oven and place each pan on both sides of the pan so that the cake batter will be in the middle fo the 2 filled pans with water.

2.  Put milk in a bowl and microwave for 10 seconds to warm. Stir in maltose sugar, honey & mirin until well melted and incoroporated.

3.  In a large mixing bowl, beat egg whites till soft peak, Then, slowly add in the sugar. Beat until stiff peak and the egg white batter will becomes thick and glossy.

4.  Next beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Beat well until mixture turns to a pale whit colour or approximately 5 mins. ( or fill the batter in a 100ml container,the batter should weigh around 23-25g).

5.  Swith your mixer to the lowest setting, Then add shifted flour slowly until mixture well incorporated.

6.  Then, slowly pour the warm honey mixture into the batter until well mixed. Using a sifter, pour the batter into it and into the pan. Gently drop the baking pan on the bench top to minimize air bubbles.

7.  Place pan in between the two filled pans with water. Baked for about 60 mins or until golden brown.

8.  Once the cake is done, remove from oven, place a non-stick parchment paper on top of the cake and follow by another cake pan, turn up side down the cake. Cool on a wire rack.

9.  When the cake is cool enough to handle but still warm (about 15mins), invert the cake again, remove the pand and wooden box. Continue to cool on a wire rack.

10. Once cake is cooled, wrap nicely with paper and film. Refrigerate overnight. (This step is critical to ensure the Castella has a moist texture).

* I don't have a wooden tray so I used a normal  baking tin instead.