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Several years ago, we posted about a Japanese Strawberry Shortcake recipe on our blog which we thoroughly enjoyed. Since then, we have discovered a much better recipe that yields a cake that is much softer than the previous one. As one of our most popular recipes on this blog, we decided to share our updated and improved version of this recipe.
This Japanese Strawberry Shortcake recipe was adapted from one of our favourite Japanese cooking website. The original recipe yield an 8-inch round cake but we felt that was too much cake for the two of us to eat. Instead, we scaled back the recipe to make a 2 layered 6-inch round cake instead. Although it was still too much cake for the two of us to eat, it was more manageable 🙂
What is the difference between a Japanese Strawberry Shortcake vs. Western Strawberry Shortcake?
Western Strawberry Shortcake (or Strawberry Shortcake as most Americans know it as) is a dessert that is typically made with a sweet biscuit-like cake/scone that is split and filled with strawberries and sweetened whipped cream. The biscuits used for most shortcakes today generally use a lot of butter (opposed to Shortening which was traditionally used), rubbed into a flour mixture to produce a tender biscuit with a slightly flaky texture.
Japanese Strawberry Shortcake on the other hand is a dessert that is made of layered sponge cake with a strawberry and whipped cream filling and whipped cream frosting. As a result, this cake is much softer and lighter in texture in comparison to its American counterpart. Apparently in Japan, it is also commonly sold as “Christmas Cake” and often the cake of choice for Birthdays and the Christmas holiday.
Tips & Tricks to Succeed at this Japanese Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
1. Use Cake Flour
I used to think there was no difference between using all purpose flour vs cake flour when baking a cake but boy was I wrong. The cakes I’ve made using cake flour turns out much softer and lighter in comparison to cakes I’ve made using all purpose flour.
Cake flour is made from very finely milled soft winter wheat and it has a much lower protein content (~8-9%) thanall-purpose flour. As a result, it is finer, lighter, and softer. All purpose flour on the other hand has a protein content of ~10-14% and thus is not as light as cake flour. If you’re unable to get your hand on cake flour, you can substitute cake flour with all purpose flour by using the following formula – just make sure to sift the corn starch and all purpose flour mixture together:
1 cup All Purpose Flour – 2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour + 2 Tablespoons cornstarch = 1 cup cake flour
2. Chill your tools before whipping cream
It is best to make whipping cream in a chilled metal mixing bowl because metal will remain cold much longer than say a plastic or glass mixing bowl. It’s important to have really cold cream and metal mixing bowl before making whipped cream because the fat globules in the whipping cream emulsify much faster and stay emulsified longer when cold.
3. Completely chill your cake before frosting
Many people who start decorating cakes for the first time make the mistake of not letting the cake fully chill before they start to frost their cake. If the cake retains any residual heat after it has come out of the oven and you start to frost it prematurely, the frosting (including whipped cream) will likely just melt off the cake. This is not what you want! Be patient, chill the cake for at least an hour (or in the fridge if you want to speed up the process) and make sure the cake is completely cool to the touch before you start frosting.
4. Whip your whipping cream to stiff peaks
If you underwhip your whipping cream, it will be too watery and it won’t hold up when you try to frost and decorate your cake. You’ll know you achieved stiff peaks when you remove your whisk from the bowl and the whipping cream looks like this – you should also be able to flip the bowl upside down without any of the whipping cream falling out.
5. Do not overbake the cake
This may seem obvious but depending on the type/size of pan you use and the temperature of your oven, there is a chance you might overbake your cake. This will result in a cake that’s on the drier side. To avoid this, I always recommend people to check in on their cake 5-10 minutes before the recommended bake time just to see if the cake has fully cooked. It’s better to underbake the cake slightly because you can bake it more but you can’t undo it if you overbaked it. The moment that cake tester or toothpick comes out clean, take it out of the oven right away!
6. Don’t be afraid to use piping tips!
If you want that “Professional Finish”, use a piping tip to jazz up your cake! We piped little rosettes on top of our cake with the leftover whipping cream using Wilton’s 1M Open-Star piping tip.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s make Japanese Strawberry Shortcake! The instructions are quite detailed so follow carefully below.
If you made this recipe, please comment down below and tag us on Instagram @cookingwithteamj. If you enjoyed this recipe, check out our other Strawberry Recipes:
- Strawberry Panna Cotta
- Strawberry Scones
- Strawberry Sorbet
Japanese Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
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bycookingwithteamj
Category Cakes Japanese
Ingredients
For the sponge cake
- 20 g unsalted butter (1.5 Tbsp), melted
- 15 ml milk (1 Tbsp)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 60 g sugar (1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp)
- 60 g cake flour (roughly 1/2 cup)
For the Strawberry Puree Soak
- 2/3 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and chopped
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup cold water
For the cream
- 200 g heavy whipping cream
- 16 g granulated sugar (~1 Tbsp)
For decoration
- 200 g Strawberries (1/2 lb) , thinly sliced. Leave some whole to decorate the top of the cake.
Save to BigOven 
Persons
6
Serving Size
2 layered 6 inch round cake
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
17 minutes
Total Time
37 minutes
Instructions
- 1.Line the bottom of your 2 x 6 inch cake pans with a piece of round parchment paper. We traced the bottom of the cake pan with a pencil, cut out the rounds, and placed it on the bottom of the cake pan, pencil side down.
- 2.Preheat oven to 350F.
- 3.Add melted butter with the milk and whisk to combine. Set aside.
For the sponge cake
- 4.In the your metal/glass stand mixer bowl, whisk together your eggs and sugar.
- 5.In the large pot, prepare your double boiler by bringing about 2 inches of water to a boil and then reducing the heat to low to bring the water to a steady simmer. Then, set your stand mixing bowl directly on top of the pot (making sure the bottom of your mixing bowl doesn’t touch the water!) and whisk constantly so the eggs don’t become scrambled eggs. The purpose of this step is to help dissolve the sugar with the eggs but not to cook the eggs.
- 6.Whisk until the temperature of the egg mixture reaches 104F. Then, remove the bowl from the double boiler and place it back on the stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
- 7.Whisk on high speed until the mixture is fluffy, for about 2 minutes. The batter should be loose yet thick and glossy.
- 8.When the batter is pale and fluffy and tripled in volume, reduce to medium-low speed for several seconds. Stop and lift up your whisk of your stand attachment and check to see if your mixture is thick enough by seeing if the mixture leaves a ribbon when dripped from the whisk to the batter. If it does, it has reached the “ribbon stage” and you can move on to the next step.
- 9.Add half of the flour. Using a rubber spatula, fold the flour gently into the mixture as to not deflate the air from the mixture. Do this by rotating your bowl slowly, and simultaneously moving your spatula in a downward-then-over motion.
- 10.Add the rest of the flour and fold gently to make sure all the flour is incorporated.
- 11.Take out 1 (spatula) scoop of the batter from the bowl and add to the butter & milk mixture.
- 12.Mix very well. We incorporate butter into batter first because fat in butter will deflate the batter if we add the butter directly.
- 13.Add the mixture back to the batter by pouring over the silicon spatula. This prevents the mixture from deflating the batter and helps disperse the mixture. Gently fold in. When you lift the spatula, the batter should fold down like ribbon.
- 14.Pour the batter into the 6 inch cake pans and drop the cake pan on the counter to release air bubbles in the batter.
- 15.In the preheated oven, bake at 350F for ~17 minutes. We advise you check your cake around 10 minutes by inserting a skewer/toothpick in the middle of the cake to see if it comes out clean as different ovens have different temperature ranges. You do not want to risk overbaking this cake as it will dry it out.
- 16.As soon as you take out the cake pan from the oven, drop it on the counter to give shock to the cake (so it stops shrinking). Separate the cake from the pan by running a sharp knife or offset spatula around the pan. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.
- 17.Flip the cake out onto a wired cooling rack and peel off the parchment paper bottom. Allow to chill completely (about an hour) before you cut the cake in half horizontally to start working on the layers.
Decorating the cake
- 18. Prepare whipping cream by whisking the heavy whipping cream and sugar in a stand mixer/hand mixer on high speed until you reach stiff peaks.
- 19. Level the top of your cakes if necessary. Then, brush on a generous layer of the strawberry puree soak onto the bottom layer of cake to give the layer extra flavour and help the cake retain moistness.
- 20. Using an offset spatula or a piping bag filled with whipping cream, apply a generous layer of whipping cream onto the bottom layer of cake. Arrange thinly sliced strawberries on top of the whipped cream and then top with another layer of whipped cream.
- 21. Apply the top layer of the sponge cake and frost the cake generously with the rest of the shipping cream using an offset spatula. Decorate the top of the cake with rosettes using Wilton 1M piping tip. Top with whole strawberry.
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Tags
Cake,
Cake Decorating,
Desserts,
Strawberry
