Western style sweets

[helenjp]

The mochiko was just called mochiko, but I found it in the local branch of Isetan...haven't seen the powder form in any supermarkets. It was produced by a small firm in Asakusa though, so there's hope that it could be available in specialty stores around Tokyo.

[easternsun]

i was watching a cooking show last night - i cant remember the name! the lady with short hair on lala tv. she does a lot of chinese cooking. "something- ko"

she was preparing spring foods and she made momo no babaroa. i am assuming this is babaloa in english. what is the origin of this dessert?

it had nama cream, geletin, peach juice, fresh peaches.

thanks!

Edited March 19, 2005 by easternsun (log)

[torakris]

babaroa ババロア　is bavarian cream.

history of bavarian cream

The Japanese love this and do it quite well, I had never eaten it until I came to Japan.....

[torakris]

and the woman is Yamamoto Reiko, her is some information on her show, including the recipes (even the momo-peach bavarin cream).

[easternsun]

thank you kristin!

i am going to try to make babaroa for my dh one of these days! also thanks for the links!

[torakris]

my favorite babaroa is a mint flavored one a Japanese friend taught to me, just make as a for a normal bavarian but add a couple tablespoons of mint liquer to the cream. Wonderful!!

[torakris]

black sesame cream puff, there is a black sesame custard inside as well (the gray stuff in the right bottom corner)

I really enjoyed this.

[torakris]

another cream puff

coffee jelly cream puff, this was extremely enjoyable at only 50yen!

[SummerSun]

A local farmer in my area gave me some of his last crop of beautiful, organic strawberries of the year.

I would like to create a Japanese strawberry shortcake, but don't know where to begin. As an American who knows little about Japanese pastry techniques, I could use some help solving the "short-cakie" mystery. Is the difference, from American shortcakes in the type of flour used, in the mixing, or something else? Does anyone care to share a good recipe?

And since I'm on the subject of mysterious/alluring baked goods, can anyone shed some light on the Japanese cheesecake?

As a side-note, I realize that these sweets are not what Japan is necessarily the most proud of or famous for, but I love them anyways! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Cheeko]

Is the difference, from American shortcakes in the type of flour used, in the mixing, or something else? Does anyone care to share a good recipe?

It's funny, sometimes I forget that even within the US, there are different types of strawberry shortcake. Where I grew up (New England) the strawberry shortcake I saw and ate at restaurants were scone-like biscuits that were soaked in mascerated strawberries, then covered in whipped-cream. Very delicious

However at home, mom made the strawberry shortcake that she knew and it was definitely not a scone. It was (and still is) a very simple sponge cake. I'll post her recipe, but keep in mind, she's one of those "cook it 'til its done" types so you might want to combine your own baking experiences to make this one work. If you've made kasutera, this recipe is very much like that. Anyways:

6 eggs, room temperature

1 cup of sugar

1 cup and 2 tablespoons of AP Flour*

Beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture becomes very thick and a pale yellow. This could take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. Again, if you've made kasutera, basically you'll need to beat them to that consistency. Add the flour and (as mom would say,) if you want you can add vanilla extract. She usually adds a generic teaspoon. Pour batter into two parchment lined cake pans

Now here comes the maddening part. She bakes it at 350 "until its done." Might be 20 minutes? I don't know for sure. She just takes it out when she says she "smells cake." I know what she means - once you start to smell the cake, do the usual toothpick test and if it comes out clean then its done. Recently, she's been getting very fancy with adding a sugar-rum syrup when they first come out of the oven. Its pretty good, but not really necessary when you're dealing with really good strawberries.

Then she just whips up whipped cream (about 2 pints) with confectioners sugar (to taste) and divides the batch in half. To one batch she'll mix in some chopped-up, macerated strawberries and sugar. She'll use this mixture for filling inbetween the two cakes. The other half covers the cake, then decorate the top with whole strawberries.

I have a Tsujiguchi recipe for shortcake - from all places, a Hello Kitty netsuke! Its in Japanese and I don't have it translated. Might be time to do that....

* I'm not sure - but I think Japanese flour might have slightly more gluten in it than American flour? If thats the case, you can make the cake with bread machine flour. That's what I use for kastura.

[sanrensho]

A local farmer in my area gave me some of his last crop of beautiful, organic strawberries of the year.

I would like to create a Japanese strawberry shortcake, but don't know where to begin. As an American who knows little about Japanese pastry techniques, I could use some help solving the "short-cakie" mystery. Is the difference, from American shortcakes in the type of flour used, in the mixing, or something else? Does anyone care to share a good recipe?

And since I'm on the subject of mysterious/alluring baked goods, can anyone shed some light on the Japanese cheesecake?

As a side-note, I realize that these sweets are not what Japan is necessarily the most proud of or famous for, but I love them anyways! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

←

If you can read Japanese, you might try the strawberry shortcake recipe on the CakeChef site:

http://www.cakechef.info/special/chef_waka...cake/index.html

I haven't tried that particular cake recipe myself, but I've never had any problems with the recipes on the CakeChef site. Bonus is that the ingredients list is very short and simple:

10 eggs

255g sugar

255g flour (I'd use cake flour)

18g butter

For Japanese cheesecake, do a Google search using keywords "Japanese" "souffle" "cheesecake" and you will come up with lots of recipes. I've used this one before and was pleased with the results, although I haven't experimented with many other recipes:

http://www.kyokoskitchen.com/recipes/recip...esecake〈=en

I will say that (good) Japanese strawberries are consistently sweeter than almost anything I have had here in Canada. The sugar content is much higher.

I actually think these two cakes are quintessential Japanese cakes, along with the mont blanc.

Edited September 15, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[Hiroyuki]

It was (and still is) a very simple sponge cake.

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YES!! What I have learned from eGullet and elsewhere is that Japanese "short cake" is actually sponge cake.

[torakris]

For more on Japanese cheesecakes check out the Western style sweets thread starting with this post.

[Hiroyuki]

It took some time, but I finally found Kris's description of flour in Japan:

Flour in Japan

There are three main types of flour you will see for sale in the local Japanese supermarket

強力粉(kyourikiko) protein 11.5 - 13.5% bread flour,used pretty much only for bread making

中力粉(chuurikiko) protein 8.5 - 10.5% this is the flour to make udon (this can be a little harder to find)

薄力粉(hakurikiko) protein 7.0 - 8.5% cake flour, used mostly for okashi (snacks) okonomiyaki & tempura

from here

[SummerSun]

Thank you to all for helping me cover the bases.

From your links I have uncovered a couple of cheesecake recipes that I am anxious to try as well!

I gather from your posts that the "spong cake" creating the short cake is a classic French genoise that borrows exclusively from French tecnique and ingredients. Out of curiosity, is there usually a soaking syrup applied to the cakes prioir to the cream being layered? Does Japanese confectionary sugar, or 10x, contain any corn starch? American 10x does, but as far as I know, the French version does not.

[sanrensho]

Out of curiosity, is there usually a soaking syrup applied to the cakes prioir to the cream being layered?

The Cake Chef recipe that I linked to does not use soaking syrup, and I don't recall soaking syrup in the versions I've had. However, there are many variations out there and I'm sure some use syrup.

http://www.cakechef.info/special/chef_waka...tte3/index.html

Edited September 18, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[Hiroyuki]

Out of curiosity, is there usually a soaking syrup applied to the cakes prioir to the cream being layered?

The Cake Chef recipe that I linked to does not use soaking syrup, and I don't recall soaking syrup used in the versions I've had. However, there are many variations out there and I'm sure some of them may use a syrup.

http://www.cakechef.info/special/chef_waka...tte3/index.html

←

I thought sanrensho was right, but when I goggled, I found a number of recipes that call for applying syrup , like this one:

http://woman.excite.co.jp/kondate/regulars/283/040327_4.dcg

I don't want to use syrup for my home-made cakes.

[prasantrin]

Beard Papa....I've tried the last few monthy special flavours--strawberry, berry berry, and now cherry. What the hell is up with the whipped cream-based filling? It sucks! Couldn't they make a pastry cream-based flavoured filling, like they did with matcha and cocoa???

If they bring back matcha and cocoa flavours as whipped cream fillings, I'm going to be very upset!

By the way, there was some discussion somewhere on eGullet about if the cream puffs are made in-house or not. At the Beard Papa at my train station (just a little take-out only place), they were cutting up pounds and pounds of butter into chunks. They must be making something in-house, but what, I don't know.