Honey Castella Cake

We love everything Japanese here at A Spoonful of Sugar, and Sarah is always keen to try out recipes for Japanese sweet treats. This week she treated us to a Honey Castella Cake which is a traditional Japanese sponge cake -  made without any oils or rising agents. It uses bread flour which gives it a chewy texture, and honey adds sweetness to the cake. It is a really moist, light cake, and is best eaten plain with a cup of tea.

Honey Castella Cake

• 5 Egg Yolks (room temperature)
• 4 Egg Whites (room temperature)
• 125g  (1/2 cup) Sugar
• 100g (0.8 cup) Bread Flour (sifted)
• 50g (2 1/2 tablespoons) Honey (diluted with 2–3 tbsp. hot water)

1. Line base and sides of a 7 inch square pan with baking paper. Preheat oven to 160 C (325 deg F)
2. Place egg whites in the bowl of your electric mixer and whisk on high speed for about 30 seconds, then add sugar a tablespoon at a time. Beat until firm peaks are formed.
3. Add egg yolks one at a time, and mix on low speed until well combined.
4. Add sifted bread flour and mix on low speed until just combined.
5. Add honey and hot water mix­ture and mix on low speed until combined.
6. Pour bat­ter through a sieve into cake pan, use a spat­ula or whisk to help the thick bat­ter go through the sieve.
7. Tap pan on the counter to remove any large bub­bles in the batter.
8. Bake in pre­heated oven for about 60 min­utes or until golden brown on top — check with a skewer to see if cake is ready.
9. If ready, take out of oven (with oven mitts) and drop the pan on the counter from about a foot in height to pre­vent shrinkage.
10. Cool cake. Place cake onto a piece of baking paper and wrap in plas­tic wrap, and leave in the fridge until ready to serve (at least overnight) to pre­serve mois­ture in cake.

Sarah was inspired by the recipe she found at Yummy Workshop. It reminds us of the cake we have eaten from bakeries in Japan.

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