Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

(First version)

Japanese Strawberry Shortcakes are so light and fluffy and delicious! They are quite different from the shortcakes sold in American bakeries. Japanese short cake is sponge cake based while American short cake is more so vanilla cake or white cake based. The cream on Japanese short cake is also much more light and fluffy. The American shortcakes use whipped cream or butter cream. Either way, their cream is a bit more dense and buttery. So, in the end, it's really whether you prefer light fluffy cakes or dense rich cakes. I personally prefer fluffy cakes with the nice light yet sweet whipped cream. 

I've made this cake 3 times with some variations in each recipe. I just wanted to test out the differences and see which version produced the best results. The 2nd time I made was the BEST. It's the one I made for my boyfriend's birthday (perhaps it tasted good because I added a bit of "love" in it hahah)  

(Second version -- Best!! ^_^ )

(Birthday boy! Make a wish!)

This recipe is adapted from Cooking with the dog. I'm in love with her videos! She is an excellent cook and provides authentic Japanese recipes. Please check her out and subscribe to her :) You won't be disappointed!

First, if you want your sponge cake to rise nice and high like the one shown in cooking with the dog's video, you need use convection oven with a fan. A convection oven with a fan produces very different results from a regular oven. I needed to double her recipe in order to make my cake similar in height to hers. Her cake was still a bit taller than mine, but I think the height I made this time was actually perfect. 

The cake pan I used was also larger than hers. Mine was a 9 inch springform pan while hers was a 7 inch cake pan. 

If you have a convection oven, please reduce the ingredients of the sponge cake portion of the recipe by half. Also, if you can, use a 7 inch or 8 inch pan. It will probably give you better height results. 

Ingredients:

Sponge Cake:

• 6 eggs 
• 200 g sugar 
• 180 g cake flour 
• 30 g unsalted butter 
• 1 tbs milk

Syrup:

• 2 tbsp sugar 
• 3 tbsp hot water 
• 1 tbsp Kirsch or Rum (optional)

Toppings:

• 500 whipping cream 
• 3 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar (~4 tbsp)
• a box of strawberries (~1lb) 

Sponge Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 320 F or 160 C
2. Using a hand mixer, beat 6 eggs in a bowl until well beaten. Add 200 g of sugar and beat until well combined.
3. Put the bowl of of beaten eggs and sugar over a saucepan of hot water. (This is to dissolve the sugar in the eggs) Beat the mixture on high over the hot water sauce pan until the egg mixture comes to at least room temperature. The color of the mixture should start to be a pale yellow color with a thicker consistency.  
4. After the egg mixture has raised to a warm temperature, remove from hot water bath and continue beating with hand mixer until the batter forms a rippling pattern. 
• Test to see if the batter is ready by lifting the mixer and seeing if the batter drips down in a slow ribbon-like pattern that doesn't disappear too quickly. If the pattern disappears within 1-2 seconds, the batter is still too liquidy. Beat on high some more. This could take 10-15 minutes. 
5.  Meanwhile, as you beat the egg and sugar mixture until its consistency is right, put combine the butter and milk in a small bowl and place it into the saucepan with the hot water. Allow the butter and milk to melt.
6. When the batter is ready, use a whisk to beat the mixture and make sure the batter from the bottom and sides are mixed in evenly. 
7. Shift in the cake flour and use a spatula to fold the mixture GENTLY about 30 times or until well combined. Scoop from the bottom and let the batter fall gently back down.
8. Pour the melted butter and milk into the batter over the spatula. Fold gently about 50 times or until the batter is thick and glossy. Try not to break the foam or overbeat the mixture!
9. Pour the batter into a 9 inch springform pan and give it a few drops on the counter to release the air bubbles. 
10. Put the cake pan into the preheated oven and back for about 23 minutes. Check if the cake is ready by sticking a chopstick/bamboo stick and see if it's still runny inside. 
11. When it is done, get a piece of parchment paper. Put it over the pan and flip the pan upside down and let it cool on the wire rack with the parchment paper. Let the pan remain over the cake and let the cake cool in the pan upside down in order to retain its moisture.  it must be completely cool before you start frosting and assembling the strawberries!

Syrup:

1. Dissolve the sugar in hot water and stir it around with a pastry brush. Set aside to cool. 

Frosting:

1. Cut strawberries in half or 1/2 inch pieces. Pick a few good strawberries to keep it whole.  This is completely up to you. You can choose how to decorate the cake with strawberries, but the half sliced strawberries will go into between the layers. 
2. Pour the whipping cream and sugar into a bowl. Put the bowl over an ice water bath or chill the bowl before combining the whipping cream and sugar. This will make it easier to whip the cream. Try and whip this with a whisk instead of a handmixer. It only takes about 5 minutes or so and it will prevent the cream from becoming over whipped. You want a soft peak consistency. Not stiff peak. You want there to be a peak that forms when you lift the whisk up, but not so stiff. 

Assembly:

I hope you guys have a cake turntable and a nice icing spatula. I unfortunately do not so my cake decorations are not exactly up to par. It would be a lot easier to put the cake on the cake turntable and rotate it as you slice the cake in half and put whipped cream on it.

1. Make a mark around the cake at the half way point of the height. You're going to slice the cake in half with a serrated knife across the cake. The mark you make on the side will help give you a guide when slicing the cake.
2. Put the top half of the cake upside down so that the inside of the cake is shown. Put some syrup on the 2 cakes with a pastry brush
3. Add a generous amount of cream onto the bottom half. Spread it evenly with an icing spatula. Put the half cut strawberries onto the cake. Add another generous amount of cream on top of that until it covers the strawberries. 
4. Put the top half of the cake back on top and cover the whole cake with the left over whipped cream.
5. Assemble the strawberries on top however you like. 

Ta-da!! 

This recipe really isn't that difficult once you make it a couple times. Please check out cooking with the dog's video for a 7 inch cake pan and use of convection oven. This recipe is intended for those who use 9 inch cake pan and regular oven! Convection oven will allow your cake to rise much higher so you won't be needing to double the recipe.