Honey Castella ( Kasutera) Green Tea Layer Cake

 
Castella or Kasutera Cake has been a quite popular cake in Asia for a long while. I guess when I first have this cake I have no idea what is so special about this cake. It seem to be a spongy cake with hint of honey. The top always seem sticky and brownish. The cake texture is soft and even if leave outside it still remain it softness.


When I first started to bake, I heard about this cake. My friend make one for me when I was back home visit few yeas ago. My the Castella cake she make is so delicate and soft, moist and is very beautiful . Too bad I did not take picture. Well, you can go to her website and look at it ->Eelmsthebaker


After much research , I knew this cake required to bake in a wooden mold and the cake is baking sponge cake in low heat and not over beat the cake . Not suppose to crack, should raise evenly . The bigger mistakes one can make is incorporate too much of air while beating the eggs and mixing with the flour. The flour need to be bread flour which is high gluten.  So required to beat the egg on a bath of warm water this will help make the texture of the cake fluffy .


I come across this recipe by ->Kitchen Tigress. To me this is more like a chiffon cake method with egg white beat separately and mix the egg yolk in slowly.


I like her details and the you tube link to help understand how to make this cake. Which does make me feel more confident of it.


Below is the recipe adapt from the link above :


Ingredients:
( I double this portion , one is pure honey favour , another one is green tea favour. I added 15g green tea powder and melt in the milk)


85g Egg Whites
60g Castor Sugar
60g Egg Yolks
20g Honey
60g Bread Flour
20g Full cream milk


Method :


1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Beat (with hand held electric mixer in low speed ) egg whites till bubbles started to form and gradually add in castor sugar and continue beating.
3.Beat till the egg white is firm peak stage, reduce speed to remove big air bubbles and prevent over whisking. ( I did a z whisking method to break down the bubble)
4.Add in yolks to the white egg mixture , one by one till evenly mixed after each addition.( I used hand held whisker from now onwards)
5.Add honey and repeat the whisking.
6. Sift half of the bread flour into the batter, mix with whisk till almost even. Sift in the remaining flour . Mix till just even.
7. Drizzle the milk in the mixture , whisk skimming just top part of the batter , till no milk is seen.
8. Scrape down and fold the mixture with spatula, banging the bowl against worktop from time to time, till everything is well combine. Let batter rest 10sc or so in midway, then bang the bowl against worktop.
9. Pour batter into line cake pan, slowly and from about 30cm high so that the air bubble burst as they flow out of the bowl.
As I am doing the Green Tea layer, so what I did was, one scoop of pure honey batter, one scoop of green tea batter. Repeat till all the batter is finished.
10. Tap pan against the workshop 3-4 time .
11. Place the pan in the lower bottom of the oven and bake for 35min.


As mention above this cake was baked in a special wooden mould. Is such impossible task to find one in Australia. Even if I manage to get one from Asia , to bring in a WOOD product to Australia, might cost another AUD200- 300 to treat it before you can bring a wood item in this country.


I do consider to did what Kitchen Tigress did , using cardboard. However I can not find any cardboard to modify. At the end of the day , I found something in Daiso which is a rectangle paper baking mould. I am going to bake this cake is some rectangle small tin , it just fit in nicely in the paper baking mould.

Voila !!! So this is how I bake this cake. Another important note, once remove the pan from the oven. Remove the tin from the paper baking mould. Drop the cake tin from about 30cm high , 2-3times. Wait a few moment when the top of the cake start to wrinkle slightly, invert cake tin onto wooden chopping board. Wait till top of the cake is flat and smooth , about 30sc. Re-invert the cake tin and leave it to cool on wire rack. Unmould, trim edges , cut and serve.


I did not eat the cake immediately so I wrap it with baking paper and put in a Ziploc bag and place in the fridge . The cake is moist and soft , I might have pour in too much batter, so that is a slight crack in the cake. Is it actually ok to put some to a cupcake paper to bake it as cupcake to enjoy. I will do it next time so not to over fill in the cake tin.

Mango Yoghurt Mousse Cake

 This is birthday I created by adopting from a Mango Mousse Cake ->Bisousatoi-mango-mousse-cake.
When I am searching for recipe, this recipe attract me with the beautiful picture and the cotton cake in it.


I am looking for a cake base that is not easily shrink and give me a light texture so I decided to give this cake a trial with some tweeting in the mousse. The reason I would like to incorporate yoghurt in the mousse is to bring a different favour to the cake compare to the normal mousse cake. Another more realistic reason will be , I cannot  find some good mango in the market . Gosh, just when I thought is the mango season, it just seem goes pass too fast . Well is not this always the case, when you want something, you can not find it. When you do not want it , is always flashing in your eyes.



So here is the Mango Yoghurt Mousse Cake recipe :


Cotton Cake


Ingredients :


145g Cake Flour
15g Corn Flour
1 Egg
5 Egg yolks , lightly whish with fork ( if the egg is large should use 4 eggs instead)
150g Unsalted butter
65g Fresh Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence


5 Egg whites
80g Castor Sugar ( origin recipe is 100g)
1/4 tsp salt


Method : (for a 7" square tin)


1.Preheat oven 150C. Line the square tine with baking paper and wrap bottom of the pan with aluminium foil.
2.Combine butter and milk in a small sauce pan , heat up till warm and do not boil it. Take away from the heat and sifted all the flours in and mix well until combine without any lumps
3.Transfer to a bigger mixing bowl and add in the eggs ,egg yolks and vanilla essence. Continue to mix till smooth
4.In another mixing bowl, beat the egg while till frothy add in salt and sugar in 3 addition. Continue to beat till soft peak
5.Fold 1/3 of the egg white gently into the egg mixture till combine well. Continue to fold 1/3 of the egg white into the egg mixture till all finished and well incorporate .
6.Pour batter in the baking tin and tap out the air bubble on the bench tap before baking.
7.Bake the cake in a bath of hot water for about 45min.
8. Once the cake is baked, let it cool and slice horizontally into 2 slices and trim them into 6"x 6" square.


Mango Yoghurt Mousse


Ingredients :


2 Tbsp of Gelatine powder
4 Tbsp of water
300g whipping cream
3 Tbsp icing sugar
200g Mango yoghurt
200g Mango puree
140g slice Mango ( I prefer to slice the mango thin instead of dice , as the mango yoghurt has dice mango in it)


Method :
1. In a metal mixing bowl, whip the cream with icing sugar till soft peak and refrigerate to chill.
2. In a small bowl , pour in the water and sprinkle gelatine powder, let it bloom. Sit the bowl on a bigger bowl of hot water to dissolved it.
3.Mixed the mango yoghurt and mango puree together and pour in the dissolved gelatine
4.Add the mango yoghurt mixture well with the whipping cream till well combine.



Assemble the cake :


1. Place one of the cotton cake in the tin, pour half the mango yoghurt mousse in it.
2. Level the surface and make sure the side is cover well.
3. Layer the slice mango on top of the mousse and place another cake slice on top.
4. Pour in the reminding yoghurt mousse to the cake and smooth the surface.
5. Chilled in the fridge for about 2 hour before pouring the mango jelly/glaze.



Mango Jelly/Glaze

Ingredients :


100g Mango Puree
1 Tsp Gelatine powder
1 Tbsp Water
100g of slice Mango


Method :

1. In a bowl place the water and sprinkle the gelatine powder to let it bloom. Place the bowl onto a bigger bowl with hot water to dissolved the gelatine
2.Pour the dissolved gelatine into the mango puree . ( I do add some mango juice as the puree seem too thick to pour on the cake )


Take the chilled cake out from the fridge, layer with some slice mango and pour the mango jelly on top.


Refrigerate the cake for another 3-4 hours before serving.


The cotton cake is not as light as sponge cake. The texture is more dense then I expected. The original recipe does not put any vanilla essence, I find the cake is too eggy without the essence. The texture of the cake is more firm and it does not shirk. The method of the cake is like a chiffon cake yet using butter instead of cooking oil . Is like a sponge cake method yet not beating the egg yolk to fluffy and is bake in steam bake method.

I make 2 of this cake , one for a birthday celebration another one is for a customer order. The feedback from customer was the cake is dense and firm . They prefer the light fluffy sponge cake texture compare to this.


I personally think the same as well. Maybe it will be some people liking if they prefer a dense cake then expect something that is light.