Viola~! It should end up like this!

Whenever Christmas comes around, the first thing I usually think of is cooking and baking. Lots of cooking and baking, although it’s mainly baking for me. Second thing I think of is how much anime I’ll be able to watch over the winter break. Third would have to be a combination of both, like the “X-mas cakes” you can often find during Christmas specials in said anime.

These cakes are often times round, covered in whipped cream and decorated with strawberries. Sometimes, they might even have a chocolate card with “Merry Christmas” written on it. After some research via Anime Central (or Acen for short), it’s apparently a Japanese tradition to have this cake around the holiday season.

Therefore, since I love anime and baking so much, I figured why not try my hand at making this? With a quick Google image search on the cake, it appears to be just a regular sponge or shortcake decorated with strawberries and whipped cream. Basically a strawberry shortcake.

I’ve settled on a recipe from Sugar & Snapshots, since they seem to have the same idea as me (“it’s from anime, I want to make this”). That, and they’re keeping it original to the Japanese way of making it where it’s not an “ordinary” sponge cake at all, but a “Castella” sponge cake. Or Kasutera, because accents. Have to admit, from reading the recipe alone, it looks pretty challenging; however, I won’t know if I can achieve it if I don’t try, yeah?

The Recipe

From Sugar & Snapshots:

Ingredients

Kasutera sponge cake

• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup flour, sifted
• 1 pt fresh strawberries (sliced up + 6 whole/cut in half)

Stabilized whipping cream

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 4 tsp cold water
• 4 tsp agar agar or unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup frosting sugar

Kasutera Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 5”x9” cake pan with parchment paper.
2. Pour milk into a microwave safe bowl and heat in the microwave for 10 seconds. Afterwards, take it out and mix the honey in. Set aside.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk the eggs with a hand mixer. Add the sugar gradually until combined.
4. In a larger bowl, pour warm water into it and then place the bowl with the egg-sugar mixture overtop. Continue to whisk it using the hand mixer until it turns pale yellow/cream in color.
5. Remove from the egg-sugar mixture from the warm water and then add the milk+honey mixture, whisking it in. Allow to cool.
6. Sift the flour over the mixture, holding the sieve high up to allow more air to incorporate into the flour. Then, with a whisk, fold the flour into the egg mixture (be sure to get at the bottom, too).
7. Pour the batter into the lined pan and tap gently to get rid of the air bubbles. Pop into the pan and bake for 10 minutes, and then set the oven at 300°F. Continue baking for 40 minutes1, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Once done, take the edges of the parchment paper and remove the cake from the pan2.

Stabilized Whipped Cream Instructions

1. Pour heavy cream into the bowl of your stand-mixer or a metal bowl. Pop into the refrigerator to chill (40 minutes)
2. Take the bowl of cream and – with a whisk attachment – whip. Add in the sugar, and then whip until soft peaks form (when you pull the whisk up from the mixture and it looks like it wants to stand up, but still melts into the rest of the mixture).
3. In a microwavable bowl, whisk water and gelatin until smooth. Microwave for 10 seconds until smooth and syrup-like, and then let cool. Drizzle into the cream.
4. Whip the mixture until stiff peaks form (when you can remove the whisk and the cream stands up by itself).

Assemble It

1. Re-line the cake pan with parchment paper, and then take the cake and cut in half.
2. Place the bottom half of the cake into the pan, then spread a thin layer of whipped cream on the cake. Arrange strawberries (I sliced mine up and lined them in the pan, spacing them just far enough to see a bit of the whipped cream between each slice) on top of the cream
3. Spread more whipped cream onto the strawberries – but leave just enough to top the cake – then place the top half of the cake overtop, pushing down to spread the cream evenly
4. With the rest of the cream, spread across the top of the cake. Take six whole (or cut in half) strawberries and whatever slices leftover. Decorate the top.
5. Place in fridge to set, and then when you’re ready to serve it, just take it out of the pan (I left mine in the fridge for about four hours).

Notes

• My cake came out with a really tough bottom, which is explainable since I left it in the pan to cool instead of taking it out and letting it cool on a wire rack.
• If you’re doing this for a party/it needs to be presentable, make another batch of whipped cream or leave extra leftover to spread on the sides.
• Stabilized whipped cream is hard to make. ;n;
• Despite how challenging it was, however, it was really good so the troubles are so worth it.