Japanese Sponge Cake

I've been baking cakes for so many years and most of my cakes are mostly buttery and rich. Perhaps it is because I love rich, buttery cakes. I have never wanted to make chiffon cakes as there are so many on sale in bakeries and many of those are so cheap too. Those at Giant can be bought for only $1.99, a steal, huh.

I wanted a cake, light enough but not chiffon. I looked up many cake recipes and looked at Genoise, Victoria Sponge, Angel Cakes and anything that is light. I wanted one that is similar to those that are sold at Angie The Choice. Their light sponge cakes are really delicious.

Then last few weeks, I started to read up on Japanese Sponge Cakes or the Kasutera Cake. I read that it is a traditional cake that is usually baked during Christmas and they usually fill or top it with lots of whipped cream and fruits. Wow, that sounds like what I wanted. So I browsed many Kasutera Cakes online. There are many different ways of doing one and I have not yet decided to try a real Kasutera Cake which involves the use of quite a lot of eggs. I saw one that uses about 7 eggs! Wow, must be very rich indeed. Some recipes are a little complicated in their process.

I have an existing recipe for a Japanese sponge cake but it does not use honey like many Kasutera cakes does. So I decided to reduce the sugar and added honey instead to see how the end result may taste like. I divided the batter into two pans so I need not have to slice them to make a sandwich cake. Unfortunately I had run out of whipped cream!

I decided to stack them back together and cut them to see how it tasted like with honey. It has a nice golden brown colour, texture. It tasted delicious, moist and really good.


This cake uses very little butter so it was not oily at all. I actually like this cake because it was not as dense as butter cakes and not as feather light as chiffon cakes either. I believe it will taste even more delicious sandwiched with whipped cream and fruits! I have to make this again and get the whipped cream!


Here is the recipe:

100g Cake Flour
3 Eggs
70g Sugar
20g Butter, Melted
2 tbsp Fresh Milk
1 tsp Honey
1 tsp Vanilla


On high speed in your mixer, beat the eggs and sugar till it is a smooth consistency. The consistency should be flowing down in a stream, ribbon like. It should take about 8 minutes. When you have got that texture, bring down the mixing speed to low. Beat that for about a minute. This will break up the larger air bubbles so that you get a stable but light batter.

Fold in the flour that has been sifted. Add the melted butter and vanilla and stir it till it is mixed well. Mix the honey and milk together in a small bowl and stir into the flour mixture.

Bake on greased pan or parchment paper for about 180 deg C for 20 minutes till the cake is golden brown. Check with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean.

When the cake is done, you can sandwich the layers with whipped cream and fresh fruits like strawberries or peaches.