Kasutera Zebra Cake Today am gonna make Japanese sponge cake, Kasutera with a little bit of twist. It’s Japanese invention in Nagasaki. But the name came from Portuguese. It means bread of Castilla, which is central region of Spain. This simple sponge cake has complicated history of name.
Marble or Zebra Green Tea Kasutera (Castella) The flavour was developed in the refrigerator. And it’s cooled in a wrap, so it stays moist. This is a Japanese sponge cake with rough bread flour, yet very soft and moist. Green tea is perfect for kasutera.
Prepare two batters.
Assembly
Green Tea Castella (Kasutera) Marble or Zebra Japanese Sponge Cake Recipe
Total time
Serves: 1 cake
Ingredients
- 3 eggs, medium-sized, separated
- ½ cup and 1 teaspoon of caster sugar (61 g)
- 2/5 cup bread flour (50 g)
- 2 tablespoons acacia honey
- ½ tablespoons matcha, green tea powder
- 2 tablespoons hot water
Instructions
- 1. Line the pan with parchment paper. Measure and cut the paper. Spray oil into the pan. Today I am using a pump oil spray, you can use butter if you want. And brush to apply oil evenly. And place the paper inside of the pan. Voila.
- 2. Sift the bread flour and set aside. Bread flour is made of hard protein wheat. It is coarser than cake flour.
- 3. Prepare two bowls and separate the eggs. Then on medium speed, beat the egg whites until hard peaks. Then add sugar little by little. Keep beating until soft peaks. This is French meringue.
- 4. Add egg yolks one at a time into the batter and beat until combined. Then pour in the flour and with a spatula, stir until just moistened. Add one spoon of hot water into honey and mix well. Choose light honey such as Acacia honey, not dark honey. The flavour of dark honey is too strong for castella. Then add in the batter and stir until combined.
- 5. Pass the batter through a sieve. You will get finer texture through this process. Then, in another bowl, set aside ⅓ of the batter. Add 1 tablespoon of hot water in the green tea and mix well. If you want strong green color, double the portion of green tea. And for more beautiful green color, make sure to use brighter green tea powder for pastry. Add the green tea mixture into ⅓ of the batter and stir until homogeneous.
- 6. In the prepared pan, add in the plain batter and evenly spread on the bottom with the back of a spoon. Then add in one tablespoon of green batter and spread. Repeat until you finish the batters. Make sure you fill only ⅔ of the loaf pan.
- 7. Tap the pan a little and insert in a chopstick and be creative to make beautiful patterns. With this portion, you can make 6 to 10 cupcakes or muffins depending on the size of pans.
- 8. Bake at 320 degrees F (160C) for about 40 mins. If they are cupcakes, bake for about 20-25 min.
- 9. Cover with parchment paper when the top is too much browned. If a skewer inserted should come out clean, it’s done.
- 10. Muffins out first, brush the honey mixture (1 tablespoon honey and 1 tablespoon of hot water) on the top of the cake. After 5 minutes, when they are still warm, cover with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator. As for the loaf, brush the honey mixture, too. After cooled a little, peel off the parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap and place the cake in the refrigerator. Reserve in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.
- 11. With a sharp knife, trim the sides and slice and serve.
LaTanjgee Harding says
Eugenie,
Where do you buy the Green tea powder, I’m guessing it is Matcha
EugenieKitchen says
Hi, Green tea powder (or Japanese Matcha) should be found at any Asian grocery market :)
Henywaty says
hi,eugenie..thanks for sharing this matcha castella recipe.i’m a fan of matcha and your recipe is simply to follow. I’m making this castella today,but after I insert a toothpick to the cake to check whether it’s done or yet,the cake sink and wrinkle immediately. Is there something wrong with my batter? Can you tell me what’s wrong? I’ll try bake it again next time. Hope you can give some advice so I can bake it perfectly like yours ;D
EugenieKitchen says
So happy to hear that, Jess. Thanks! :)
EugenieKitchen says
Happy cooking! :)
aiya chen says
if i doubled the recipe and baked in larger pan how can i adjust the time?