EGGLESS JAPANESE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Ingredients
Eggless Sponge Cake
- 300 ml (1+1/4 cup) milk room temperature
- 18 g (1+1/4 tbsp) white vinegar or any vinegar or lemon juice
- 260 g (2 cups+2 tbsp) all purpose flour
- 50 g (5 tbsp) cornstarch you can substitute it with all purpose flour
- 10 g (2+1/4 tsp) baking powder
- 4 g (1/2 tsp) baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 225 g (1 cup) sugar
- 1+1/2 tsp vanilla paste or extract
- 160 g (3/4 cup) vegetable oil
Filling
- 600 ml (2+1/2 cups) heavy cream or long-life whipping cream chilled
- 65 g (1/2 cup) vanilla powdered sugar or simple powdered sugar+2tsp vanilla extract
- about 700 g (1,5 pound) fresh strawberries washed and well dried
Instructions
Eggless Sponge Cake
- In a medium size bowl, mix milk and vinegar and set aside for about 10 minutes. This is the homemade method to get buttermilk: if you have buttermilk, use it and skip vinegar (or lemon juice).
- Meanwhile sift and mix together into a large bowl flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar.
- Add vegetable oil into the milk mix.
- Gradually pour milk mix into flour mix and mix with a whisk until almost combined.
- Incorporate vanilla paste or extract and mix until well combined: do not overmix!
- Place the batter into a lined and greased baking sheet (30x38cm-12x15inch) and spread it eavenly.
- Bake in preheated oven (no-fan, upper and lower heat) at 180°C-350°F for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool down slightly then remove from the cake pan and cool down completely.
- When completely cooled down, divide the cake into 2 equal rectangles (30x19cm-12x7,5inch each one).
Filling
- Put a very large bowl in freezer for about 15 minutes to chill.
- Meanwhile cut in half about 500 g (1 pound) strawberries and place the cutted side onto kitchen paper to dry.
- Remove the bowl from the freezer and use it for whipping the cream until medium peaks form.
- Add powdered sugar (and vanilla if you're not using vanilla powdered sugar) and mix until medium-stiff peaks form. Be careful to not overmix whipping cream.
Assemble the Cake
- Spread a thin layer of whipped cream on top of one cake layer.
- Place halved strawberries on top, placing the largest ones obliquely on the corners of the cake.
- Spread a generous amount of whipped cream on top of strawberries and fill all the gaps both on top than on the sides of the cake.
- Place the second cake layer on top.
- Spread some whipped cream on top (you'll get whipped cream leftover for decorating the cake top).
- Put the cake in refrigerator for at least 4-5 hours to set.
- Remove the cake from refrigerator and cut the sides with a serrated knife.
- Decorate on top whith the remaining whipped cream and whole strawberries.
Video
Notes
Hello, I am Valentina! Welcome to How Tasty!
I am an Italian girl in love with baking and cooking. I’ve been raised in a cooking family, baking since I was a little girl and learning from my mom and my professional chef grandma.
I created the Youtube channel How Tasty in 2017 to share with you my passion.
You don’t need to be a professional cook to follow all my recipes thanks to the video tutorials and the tips & hints you can find here.
Let’s cook!
Don’t lose any recipe!
Tips:
If you usually bake eggless cakes, I suggest to bake them in a large and thin sheet pan. Thin eggless cakes bake better than taller cakes, without humid and heavy crumbles, they stay soft and fluffy, very similar to classic egg sponge cakes.
I’ve used a 30x38cm-12x15inch lined and greased baking sheet, but you can also bake this recipe in your oven tray (my oven is large 60cm-23,5inch, if you have an American large size oven, this recipe will give you thinner cake).
Whipping cream is very easy to make, but you should pay attention when you make it, mostly if you likve in hot climate and your whipped cream deflat easily. Here some tips:
- Remember to put your cream in refrigerator at least 4-5 hours before use it, it has to be very chilled!
- Chill the bowl in freezer for 15-30 minutes before use it, preferably a pyrex bowl that is freezer-safe.
- Use high fat whipping cream (like heavy cream) and long-life whipping cream that are more stabilized than low fat or fresh cream.
If my previous tips for perfect stabilized whipped cream didn’t help you, I suggest to add Mascarpone cheese (or cream cheese if you can’t find Mascarpone in your Country) to your whipping cream to get thicker and more stabilized frosting. Here the recipe of my Mascarpone Frosting:
- 300 g (10,5 oz) Mascarpone cheese (chilled)
- 240 ml (1 cup) Whipping cream (chilled)
- 75 g (2/3 cup) powdered sugar
- 1+1/2 tsp vanilla extract
In a large bowl place all the ingredients and mix with a hand mixer until become smooth and creamy. Do not overmix or it could turn into butter 😀
You can also make stabilized whipped cream using gelatine (or agar agar if you’re vegan) following my Japanese Strawberry Sandwich recipe here on my website.