Castella Cake!

My husband left!! Well... he went to a board game convention and I don't really want to spend my days between sweaty board geeks anyway, so he went with one of his friends. He did miss out on the best castella cake I ever made!

Castella cake has been circulating around cooking blogs for a while and I don't really remember where I first saw it, but the idea of a fluffy, dense cake with no butter inside sounded awesome to me. Castella is a Japanese cake which probably was introduced by the Portuguese people. Its made with eggs, sugar, flour and honey. Traditionally there should also be some mirin in the recipe, but I don't have that in my kitchen usually.

As you can see on the picture the cake is very dense, to get that texture you whip the eggs on low speed in a warm water bath. I have a cheap stand mixer, which is basically a hand mixer you click into a stand, so I put the whole thing in my sink with some warm water. Kenwood introduced a stand mixer with a heating element a while ago, that would make making Castella and other warm egg whipping recipes so much easier! But being a poor student, I can't possible afford one of those, so the warm water in the sink method is just fine for now. The recipe I used is based on the one found on Anncoo Journal. I've tried making the marbled version, but somehow it never turns out like the pretty one on the picture. 

Ingredients

6 Eggs on room temperature

120 grams of sugar
100 grams of flour, sieved twice
2 tablespoons of honey dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water

Before you start line a loaf pan with some foil and then a sheet of parchment paper. Finally rub some oil on the paper.

1. Beat the eggs on low speed. Either put your stand mixer in some hot water or you can also heat up the egg in a water bath, beat and warm it up again when it gets cold. The eggs should be warm to the touch, but not hot.
2. When the eggs start to turn foamy add the sugar gradually.
3. Keep beating on low speed till the egg is almost white. You can test if it is done by taking a spoonful and dropping it back in the bowl. The mixture should retain it's form on the surface and not sink back in right away.
4. Add the flour gradually while still beating and when the flour is incorporated add the honey mixture.
5. Beat for another minute.
6. Sieve the mixture and pour the mixture into the loaf pan.
7. Bake the cake at 160 degrees Celsius for about one hour
8. Keep the cake in the over for half an hour after its done to prevent shrinkage.
9. Take the cake out of the oven and drop it a few times on your counter top, also to prevent shrinkage
10. When the cake is cooled down enough to handle, take it out of the pan and either put it in a plastic bag or wrap it in a clean towel. Refrigerate overnight or at the least 4 hours.
11. When ready to serve slice the cake with a very sharp knife, cleaning the knife after each slice. You can trim the edges off too make your slices prettier, but I usually leave them on. I only sliced the edges off for the pictures :)

The cake should be dense, but still light and fluffy. It should also be moist and not too sweet.
You could try to add some green tea powder or chocolate powder to create matcha or choco castella.

If you are allergic to honey, or dislike honey, you can substitute the honey with sweetened condensed milk.