How to make a Japanese Fluffy Black Forest Gateau
What is a Japanese Fluffy Black Forest Gateau?
We’ve been huge fans of Japanese baking since our visit to Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima in September. It doesn’t matter which bakery you drop into, or which city you’re in - the quality of baking is phenomenal. In particular the Japanese specialise in super light fluffy cakes, you can find videos of fluffy cheesecakes all over Instagram and Pinterest.
This recipe blends their light, souffle based, Taiwanese Castella Cake recipe with a classic Black Forest Gateau flavouring. You get the deep, luxurious flavours but with a super soft, cloud like, sponge. We were particularly inspired by Aloft in Hiroshima (near the Peace Park), their savoury and sweet bakes were, frankly, phenomenal!
The cake has basically two parts to its creation. First the dry mixture, and then a soft whipped meringue. The two are GENTLY combined together so that the air remains in the sponge, then it is baked long and slow with a water bath underneath. The resulting combination creates very very light sponges. The addition of the black cherry cake filling and the Chantilly cream will naturally push some of the air out of the sponge but it is still less dense than a normal sponge base.
Here we’ve made the Black Forest mixture simple, by quickly whipping cream and sugar together and then making a quick ganache. The cherries are from a tin of black cherry cake filling. Easy!
How to make the Japanese fluffy souffle sponge.
Ingredients for the Castella cake:
4 x Egg yolks
4x Egg whites
50g x all purpose (plain) flour
25g x cocoa powder
75g x unsalted butter
60ml x milk (we use whole milk)
70g x caster sugar
How to make the Castella cake:
Preheat the oven to 125C (fan) and sift the flour and cocoa into a large bowl
Line a cake tin with baking paper, make sure there are no creases in it.
Mix the butter and milk in a small saucepan and gently heat until the butter has completely melted into the milk, DON’T allow it to boil or scald.
Remove from the heat and add to the flour/cocoa bowl. Beat together and then add the egg yolks. Mix really well to combine. You should have a relatively smooth, chocolate looking texture.
Now to make the soft meringue mixture. Add the sugar to the egg whites in another bowl and whisk at a medium speed on an electric double hand whisk. You want soft peaks, don’t overwhip it as this will result in less jiggle in the final cake. We recommend the Ninja Foodi 2in1 hand blender, really versatile and whips a lovely meringue!
Now to combine the mixtures in a way that preserves the air inside. Add half of the meringue to the cake batter and beat in carefully with a spatula. Whisk the remaining meringue again and then very very gently fold it into the batter mix. You need to preserve as much air as possible, while also trying to thoroughly combine the two mixtures. It takes a little care but once you’re done you should have a consistent mix.
Pour it into your cake tin (ensuring it is a fully sealed one) and tap the tin to bash out any bubbles.
Wrap the bottom of your tin in foil and then place into a water bath of boiling water.
Place in the oven for around 50 minutes.
How to make the easy Black Forest Gateau
Ingredients for the Black Forest Filling:
1 x Tin of black cherry cake filling
125g x Dark chocolate
500ml x double cream
3 tbsp x icing sugar
How to make the filling for the Japanese Black Forest Jiggly Cake:
Heat 200ml of double cream in a small pan, don’t boil and don’t scald it. Get it hot enough to melt chocolate.
Break up the dark chocolate and then add to a heatproof bowl. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and combine until thoroughly melted and mixed in. Place to one side to cool enough to spread.
Pour the remaining 300ml of double cream into a bowl with the icing sugar and whisk until thick. Again we recommend the Ninja Foodi hand blender for this.
Once the Japanese cloud cake has cooked and cooled, slice in half and then evenly spread the cream and black cherry filling on top of one half. Place the other half of cake on top and then spread the chocolate, the cream and finally the cake filling on top of this.
Smooth over until it looks reasonably presentable and then serve!
