Japanese Desserts: Cake Recipes

The Japanese are usually associated with traditional food whose recipes have been thousands or hundreds of years in the making – it\'s true, many of Japan\'s food are like that. However, a common misconception is that their food are always made of noodles, rice, seafood, tofu, and soy sauce. That is not true. The Japanese have cakes too!

The Japanese love cakes. Cakes are usually considered small forms of luxury, and many of the Japanese eat cake for special occasions or as comfort food. One of the more common, cheaper, and simpler cakes is the kasutera.

Kasutera, a specialty cake from Nagasaki, is a sponge cake that is made of flour, sugar, starch syrup and eggs. The cake actually originates from Spain, but the Japanese has assimilated it into their culture and turned it completely Japanese that it\'s considered Japanese in its entirety.

Kasutera\'s ingredients are all natural, which is why it has a fairly simple taste and why many people love it. Japan has many kinds of kasutera, which are made of different ingredients, like green tea, cocoa, and brown sugar.

The usual ingredients for basic kasutera are sugar, honey, vanilla and lemon extract, a bit of salt, a lot of eggs, cake flour, some cream of tartar, and the flavoring, which is usually green tea or cocoa. The sugar, honey, extracts, salt and the egg yolks are whisked in a bowl. Afterwards, the bowl is placed on a pan with hot water on it and beaten until it becomes a pale yellow color. Then it is folded into sifted flour.

The rest of the egg whites are beaten in another bowl until the mix is foamy, and then sugar and cream of tartar is mixed into it. The whole thing is beaten until the mix is stiff, though not dry. It is then folded and poured into the pan, and baked until spongy. It is usually allowed to cool overnight before being served.

The steps needed to make a kasutera is relatively easy, and can be found in many sites all over the Internet. The good thing about the kasutera is that it is easy to make, and is simple in presentation.