Matcha green tea sponge cake recipe
I’ve been craving castella cake for a while now, and I finally got around to making one this weekend. Castella cake (also called kasutera cake) is a japanese sponge cake which is moist and spongy despite not using any oil. Instead, it is made using a technique by whipping eggs (with the yolks) until they form peaks.
A while back when I was in my castella cake baking craze, I had planned on baking a matcha flavored one. But on my attempt to bake it, I completely forgot to add the matcha powder. So it ended up being a regular honey sponge cake. This time I remembered to add the matcha powder.
For some reason, the taste of honey mixed with green tea powder through me off a little. I think next time I
make the green tea version I will leave out the honey.
Other than that though, the cake was as good as I remember. The castella cake is definitely one of my favorite cakes of all time. Unlike other sponge cakes, the cake isn’t as airy or light as cakes baked with whipped egg whites. Instead, this cake has a bouncy texture and tight crumbs. Despite it not having oil, you don’t miss it at all and can’t tell that is the case.
I’ve documented how to successfully make a good castella cake in previous posts as well as describing the castella cake in more detail so I’m not going to go into it again. Once you figure out how to make the cake, it’s actually not too hard. The tips I’ve learned can be found in my previous posts here and here. I used the same recipe I previously used except that I added 1 1/2 tablespoons of high quality matcha powder. The green tea powder should be added to the flour mixture. You can view the recipe here.
