How to make Castella Cake (Japanese style fluffy cake) 〜カステラ〜 | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Saiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make castella. So in the previous video I made a Japanese style strawberry shortcake. I hope you check that out as well. But this castella has a little more longer tradition. It was kind of incorporated in Japanese cooking during the Edo era. During the time it was banned to make any exports or imports from foreign lands except for one part of Japan which is Nagasaki of Dejima. This style of cake was first introduced from Portugal and then it just kind of started incorporating into Japanese sweets. In Japan you can buy this in pretty much any wagashi stores or traditional Japanese sweet stores. And recently I just had an urge of making this and then just kind of looked up the recipe and tried it myself and it was actually not difficult at all. And it was also very delicious and it actually really doesn't require any special ingredients and it's definitely worth the effort. So I really hope you give this a try yourself. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for making castella. So for the main ingredients I have your eggs, then all-purpose flour or preferably if you have a Then sugar, honey, and then some kind of vegetable oil. Then let's get cooking. So the very first thing is to measure the dry ingredients. So first 100 grams of cake flour. So perfect. Then also 100 grams of sugar. So perfect. Then also another 40 grams of sugar to put in the bottom. That's good. Then that's enough for that. So as the next thing, for the cake form, I'm going to cut up the parchment paper. I'm going to roughly mark the parchment paper like this and then from the back side I'm going to fold a little bit inside of this line. So just like this. I'm going to cut along this lines right here. I'm going to put it inside and then fold it inside like this. So this parchment paper fits exactly in this cake form. Then that's enough for that. So before we go further, I'm going to preheat the oven at 180 degrees. So the next thing, let's whip the eggs. So in a big bowl like this, we're going to crack in the eggs. Make sure the eggs in the room temperature and not directly from the fridge. Then here we're going to put about a third of the sugar that we measured. Then we're going to whisk this using a mixer. So after mixing this for about a couple minutes, then we're going to put in also another third of the sugar. Then we're going to keep mixing this. So then after another couple minutes, I'm going to add in the rest of sugar. Then we keep mixing this. So after a while, you want to mix a little bit so it gets mixed evenly. You want to keep mixing until it gets a little thicker. As you can see, that's got much thicker. Then here I'm going to put in two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Then here also two tablespoons of honey. Then we're going to keep mixing a little bit more. Then once it gets a little bit thicker like this, then this is finished. Then here we're going to mix in the flour. As you do that, make sure you use a colander like this. You want to mix in first the half of the flour. Then using a spatula like this, we're going to mix this and just mix it very lightly. Try not to break the bubbles. Then once it's got thoroughly mixed like this, then this is finished. Now let's put in this cake form. For the custard, we want to put the sugar on the bottom that we measured earlier. This is 40 grams of sugar. You want to put that just like this, evenly spread out. Then here we're going to put in this batter. Then this is filled. Then what you want to do here is hit it like this a couple times. Let the kind of big bubbles come out. Then this is good. Let's put this in the oven. Then we're going to put this in here. Then we're going to first bake with 180 grams for 10 minutes and first let that surface bake. So the surface has gotten a little bit brown, then this is good. Then I'm going to turn down the temperature to 140 degrees and then keep baking this for another 30 to 40 minutes or so, depending on the size of the cake form. So 30 minutes has passed. Let's see how it looks. Oh yeah, this looks pretty good. To test if it's cooked through all the way, you want to use a something like this. Poke a hole just in the middle like this. If nothing sticks to it, then this is finished. Then let's take this out. Then let's take this out of the form. So this is still very hot, so you want to cool it down. But at the same time, you don't want to make it dry. So to do that, you can use aluminum foil or something like this. And on top of that, you leave this castella cake upside down. Then we're going to leave it like this for at least half an hour or so and let it cool down. So about an hour has passed. Let's take out of the form. So now I'm going to cut off the sides because they tend to be a bit dry. Then let's cut off some slices to eat. Oh, this is so fluffy and looks so good. Then let's put this on a plate. So then this is done. Let's eat. Oh, this looks so good. Let's eat. Oh, this is really good. It's exactly like home. So soft and not too sweet, yet very flavorful. So very delicious. And then to go with it, I have here Hojicha. This is the roasted green tea. So perfect to go with Japanese sweets. So soft and fluffy. Oh, that's so very delicious. Oh, that was so delicious. So as you just saw, making this castella is really not difficult at all. Just whisking the egg might be a little bit difficult, especially if you don't have this electric mixer. But other than that, there's not really any difficult steps. And it also doesn't have any special ingredients. So I really do hope you give this a try yourself. If you did enjoy this video, I'd love it if you could hit the like button for me. And if you have any questions, requests, and feedback, please feel free to write anything in the comments below. 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