Castella Cake
A honey sponge with an astonishingly fine, moist crumb and a dark top, baked in a wooden frame. Portuguese missionaries brought it to Nagasaki in the sixteenth century and Japan has been refining it since.
Photograph credit: Castella 001 by Ocdp · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Don't Make These Mistakes
The overnight wrapped rest is not optional. Cut on the day it is dry; cut on day two it is dense and moist.
Warming the eggs before whisking roughly doubles the volume you can get into them.
Bread flour, not plain. The extra protein is what holds this much air.
Cooking Castella Cake
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Heat the oven to 160°C / 320°F. Line the tin with paper, letting it stand well above the rim.
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Warm the honey with the milk until loose and set aside.
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Set the eggs and sugar in a bowl over a pan of hot water and whisk until the mixture reaches blood temperature.
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Take it off the heat and whisk on high for 8 to 10 minutes until it triples in volume and a ribbon drawn across the surface holds for 5 seconds.
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Whisk in the warm honey and milk on low speed.
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Sift the flour and salt over in three additions, folding each in with a spatula until just combined. Work gently but do not leave streaks.
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Pour into the tin from a height to burst the largest bubbles, then draw a skewer through the batter in an S shape to release the rest.
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Bake 50 to 55 minutes until deep brown on top and a skewer comes out clean. Cover with foil at 35 minutes if it is colouring fast.
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Drop the tin onto the worktop from 20 cm to stop it shrinking, turn out, brush the top with honey, and wrap tightly in cling film while still warm. Rest overnight before slicing.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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What's Going On Here
There is no butter and no baking powder: the entire rise comes from eggs whipped to the ribbon stage over gentle warmth, which holds far more air than cold eggs will. Wrapping the cake while still warm and resting it overnight redistributes moisture from the crust into the crumb, and that rest is what makes castella castella.
Leftovers, Reheating and Keeping
Wrapped, it keeps 4 days at room temperature and is best on days two and three. Freezes 1 month.
What to Serve Alongside
- Green tea, particularly sencha
- Black coffee
- Nothing else
Still Wondering?
How long does Castella Cake take to make?
25 minutes of preparation and 50 minutes of cooking, plus 8 hours of resting, so allow 9 hours 15 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 10.
Castella Cake Nutrition
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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