Japanese cooking; Japanese style strawberry shortcake
When I came to the states, one of the things that gave me culture shock was a strawberry shortcake.
It was in FL state where my parents in law took everyone to FL.
At one street vendor place, my mother in law or my father in law asked me if I would like a strawberry shortcake.
I love strawberry shortcake back home so, I said “Yes” with no hesitation.
Well…. what I got and what I imagined in my head was very different.
Back home, strawberry shortcake is staple birthday cake and this is also popular at Christmas time (On Christmas day, we eat special meal and finish the great dinner with strawberry shortcake) and it consists of sponge cake layered with whipping cream and fruits (strawberry) and decorated with whipping cream and strawberries.
Both sponge and whipping cream are not heavily sweetened like typical American cakes.
These strawberry shortcakes are very simple, but tasty and they are fluffy light cake.
Over here, apparently, strawberry shortcake is very different from ours and it consists of crumbly biscuits layered with whipping cream, macerated strawberries and top it off with another layer of biscuit.
If you ask me one thing that I miss from Japan is Japanese style cake. They use a lot of fruits for color,flavor and cakes tend to be light and not so sweet.
I miss them and every time I go back to Japan, Japanese cakes are in my to do list,lol.
Anyway, recently, my husband had birthday,and I have made “Japanese style strawberry shortcake” with twists.
If I could use liquor in it, I would have because I love baking/making dessert with liquor.
However, because of our little prince, I did not use any liquor. If you use liquor, you could mix Marsala (sweet) wine mixed with sugar and soak the sliced strawberry and use that to decorate the cake/use it as filling.
Or, you could add bit of Lemon cello in sponge along with fresh lemon zest.
Or, you could add in brandy/whiskey in whipping cream.
I like to use liquor like that.
This time, I made strawberry peach shortcake Japanese style. Peach is good for color and taste. I really liked it and so did my husband and our little prince.
Because I knew that prince Liam would eat the cake as well, the cake and whipping cream got lower sugar amount but it was good enough to enjoy.Not too sweet, not too bland.I liked how it came out actually.
I now bake with weight of the ingredients for consistent result. Therefore, you would not see as much measuring cup amount for each ingredients.
Strawberry peach shortcake..
Ingredients for fruits layer;
1 whole strawberry uncut except stem off (This single strawberry goes in the center on top layer)
145gram (5 oz) sliced strawberries
75 gram (2.5 oz) canned peach chopped (this is for middle layer)
30gram ( 1 oz) canned peach thinly sliced (this is for top layer)
Ingredients for whipping cream;
400ml heavy cream
2tbs white sugar
** You would have extra whipped cream. You can use the leftover whipped cream in strawberry shortcake sandwich that I make here and there when I got extra whipped cream.
- On the white bread, smear the whipped cream and top it off with chopped fresh berries and fold into half and eat
Ingredients for Sponge cake;
120 gram (4.25 oz) unbleached all purpose flour
120 gram (4.25 oz) white sugar
20 gram (0.7 oz) butter melted
4 eggs
<Whipped cream>
1. In the bowl,pour 400ml heavy cream,2 tbs white sugar and whisk till stiff peak
**Best to prepare right before the decoration
<Sponge cake>
1. Line 2 count of 9″ round cake pan with foil or non stick spray
2. preheat the oven at 355F
3. Over a bowl, place kitchen sieve and pour 120 gram (4.25 oz) unbleached all purpose flour,and shift through and set it aside
4. Melt the 20 gram(0.7 oz) butter and set it aside
5. In another bowl, place the kitchen sieve and shift through 120 gram (4.25 oz) white sugar, and to that, add 1 egg and start beating the egg and sugar and add 1 egg at a time (totaling 4 whole eggs) at a time
6. When the mixture gets whiten in color (about 7 min on med speed) continue mixing 3 more minutes or so until the mixture is fluffy,and drip down to the bowl like ribbon and the dropped ribbon prints stay when you stop the mixer and lift it up.
7. It is time to add the shifted flour. Add flour to the egg-sugar mixture with small amount at a time and stir gently with wooden spoon
** As a kid, when my mother and I were making sponge, she taught me to move the wooden spoon as if you will draw the number “11” and then, move the wooden spoon gently as if you will draw circle from closest to you, about a few times or till added flour gets evenly mixed well
8. Scoop up one ladle worth of egg-sugar-flour mixture into small bowl and add in butter and mix well. Then, pour it back into the egg-sugar-flour mixture and mix gently as much less stir as possible.
** If you overmix the batter,it would not puff up well.
9. Pour the half batter into one pan and another half batter into other pan, and place kitchen towel on top of the counter and gently toss the pan from about 4″-5″ height about 10 times to get the air bubbles in the batter gets out
10. Bake about 25 minutes or until toothpicks inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean
11. When baked, remove it from the pan when it got cool down a little
Makes: 2 count of 9″round sponge
<How to assemble>
1. Place one round cake on the plate, and smear it with whipped cream and decorate it with sliced strawberries (stem cut side out,tip side inner) around the edge and then more in the center
2. Sprinkle chopped canned peach over strawberries
3. On other plate, place one layer of cake and smear the whipped cream and put the whipped cream side over the fruits top
4. smear the whipped cream on top layer and smear the edges with whipped cream
5. When all covered with whipped cream, decorate the very top layer with strawberry and peach. I like to decorate it with sliced strawberries on outer edge this time stem cut side in tip side out alternating with sliced canned peach and then decorate the center part with more sliced strawberries this time tip side out, stem cut side in and place the whole uncut strawberry right in the center
6. Serve
Makes; 1 cakes ( ” round cake)
** If you had more time to spend in the kitchen, and you had more strawberries you need to use up, you can make strawberry jam.
You can cut stem off and chop to about 1/2″ and heat it with bit of sugar and cook it down til thicken.
I like to enjoy strawberry jam toast once in a while.
Enjoy!
