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Kasutera Japanese Sponge Cake




Kasutera is a traditional Japanese sponge cake, usually flavored with honey. There are now many kinds of kasutera, made with various ingredients. For example, there are kasuteras made with powdered green tea, cocoa, and also brown sugar.

  • 60 g German #550 flour
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 7 Eggs
  • 1/4 cup Honey
  • 220 g Sugar
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 1/5 tsp Lemon juice
  1. Preheat the oven to 170C/340F. Line two 28x10cm loaf pans with parchment paper. Sift the flour and salt and set aside.
  2. Place the egg yolks, honey, 200 grams of sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat at high speed until the mixture is thick and pale. Fold in the sifted flour in two additions.
  3. Beat egg whites electric mixer on a low speed one minute, and then add in lemon juice. Increase speed to medium-high and continue to beat until foamy. Sprinkle in 20 grams of sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. With a rubber spatula, fold the egg whites in thirds. Pour batter into two prepared pans. Bake the cake in the center of hot oven for 35-45 minutes.


35 comments:

Ramya Vijaykumar 5/11/08 03:20

Hey nice and simple cake, just a coupla questions where do we get this German #550 flour and what about its gluten content??? Can it be substituted with any other flour???

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 5/11/08 06:48

Hallo Ramya

German #550 is more or less like AP wheat flour, which contains 10-12% protein, in the states. Use Dinkel flour if you could find them at the local stores.

[Reply]
Anonymous 5/11/08 12:50

Great recipe :D I love japanese sponge cakes, esp if it's green tea flavoured. My baking skills aren't that great, but never knew it was this easy to make!

Great photos by the way, do you use a dslr by any chance? nikon or canon?

Kang at Londoneater.com

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 5/11/08 20:26

Hallo Kang,
Oh, yeh, Matcha-flavoured sponge is one of my favs too. Try green tea chiffon cake, hmmm...I could finish a whole 10" chiffon...
I use Canon G3, still wait for the right price to get a dslr...maybe after x'mas? Hope so....;-)

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homeladychef 6/11/08 16:31

Hi Angie, are you baking delicious cakes for sale? How can you find so much time to do all these?! You are wonder woman.

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Angie's Recipes 7/11/08 06:45

hehe....:-))) Homeladychef, I like to try different recipes, and baked goods in Germany are way too sweet and greasy for me, and besides that, I actually bake for fun......

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Anonymous 14/12/08 08:06

Hi Angie,
Thanks for sharing all the recipes. I love your raisin bread recipe with water roux from your previous website - it turned out well and tasted really good. I really like your new website with all the pictures.
I'm still learning to bake - I tried making the Japanese sponge cake but it shrank to almost half the size as it cooled even though it seemed to expand pretty well while it was baking. Also, the batter at the bottom didn't rise or bake well either. I did the toothpick test at the end of baking and it was clean too. Any thought? Thanks a bunch.

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 14/12/08 21:32

Hi WB
Sounds like the cake is not done yet. The doneness-test alone is sometimes not enough. I usually pat the surface with the palm, gently of course, if the cake still sings "zzzzzzz" , then it has not finished baking yet.
Egg whites, which are not properly whipped, or not completely combined into the batter, could be the reason.

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Anonymous 15/12/08 01:27

I'll have to try it again.
Thanks so much for the tip.

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Anonymous 21/8/09 18:12

Hello,

I am trying to compare recipes, and i found that the texture and cut of your sponge cake to be the best of most. I also noticed that you have used 7 eggs with only 60 g of flour, whereas others have used 8 eggs and 200 g of flour. how come there is such a difference in quantities of flour??

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 21/8/09 19:12

@Anonymous
The ratio between egg yolks and flour in this recipe is about 1:1, (the egg yolks I used were pretty small, 10-11 grams), that means the finished baked would be extremely rich and soft. I did notice other foodies used lots of flour for this sponge cake, and the cake turned out to be rather dry and the texture seemed very crumbly and rough. There's no right or wrong, they are just different. However, I do prefer a richer sponge cake.

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Anonymous 12/2/11 21:58
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Anonymous 16/5/11 08:04

hi, this is second times that I tried your recipe, I use 4 large whole eggs. it is 77g yolks. I used two 9 inch by 4 inch loaf pan. The batter is 1/3 size of pan.

After baking 25 mins, the cake was reach top of pan, but after 30 mins, the middle of cake shrank almost in the bottom.

What was the problem?

Thanks.

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 16/5/11 20:41

@Anonymous
Have you seen the photos I posted above? The batter is about 3/4 full.
And if you just used 4 eggs, why did you use two loaf pans?
The cake will shrink a bit after baking.
If the cake rises too quick, you might need to lower the oven temperature slightly. And when egg whites are oven beaten, it would cause the same problem.

[Reply]
Anonymous 18/5/11 08:09

Thank you for your replying!

I used 4 eggs because you said total egg yolks you used are 70g to 77g for 60g flour.

I weighted my egg yolks. 4 yolks is 77g. I use 60g King Arthur AP flour. The batter is about 1/2 full.

How can I know the cake rises too quick? How many minutes after it is in oven?
The first time, I used 7 eggs, the batter was 2/3 full. It shrink very bad too.

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 19/5/11 06:36

@AnonymousI am really sorry that the recipe didn't work for you.
Have you separated egg yolks properly? I meant the weight of a large egg yolk is just 19 grams. And if you used 7 eggs of that size at first time, the batter should have reached the top, not just 2/3.
The cake should not rise too obviously in first 10 minutes.
Many things could cause a cake shrink, for example, too little batter in pan, overmixing, too long baking time. I would recommend you trying other sponge cake recipes and see how they turn out.

[Reply]
Anonymous 19/5/11 08:39

I use egg size large. It is 50g to 60g each, so is 4 eggs right amount in your recipe?

I have made some sponge cake and no seem the cakes shrink so much.

I love your cake flavor, that is why I still want to try.

Thank you for your time!

[Reply]
Angie's Recipes 23/5/11 16:28

@Anonymous
Sorry that I couldn't reply you earlier..actually I have been searching my recipes box, hoping that I could find the original recipe that I had jotted down, but got no luck.
I used the small size eggs...but if the pan was just 1/3 full, then I wouldn't be surprised to know that the cake shrank so much. This is basically a sponge cake that uses separated egg method. If you like soft textured foam cakes, then chiffon might be a better alternative.

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