Strawberry shortcake, depending on where you are, can take on many different forms. In the United States, it’s usually a biscuit-like cake that’s served with whipped cream and strawberries. In Japan, on the other hand, it’s sponge cake, usually decorated with whipped cream and strawberries. Now how did the Japanese come up with this wondrous concoction?
Japan, sometime in the 1950s
Akiko was a pastry chef at a bakery in Tokyo. She was a young, attractive woman in her early 20s, freshly graduated from pastry school. As one of the sous chefs at the bakery, she really didn’t get paid much. How is a girl to survive on Â¥40,000 a month? Especially with the rising costs of everything. She one day dreamed of owning her own bakery, where she could call the shots.
On one of her rare days off, she found herself in her small kitchen, wanting to bake something. Even though she spent hours in the kitchen every day at work, she really found baking on her own time to be relaxing. She could do what she wanted, without any deadlines or requirements. She had some eggs in the fridge, but not too much butter. What could she do with these?
As she was fretting over what to make, the doorbell rang. Her boyfriend, Kenji, was at the door. He was a handsome young man with a thin build. Akiko had met him at an art exhibition that her friend had dragged her to. His paintings were the ones on display. There was a bright, cheerful quality to them that really drew her to them. When she met Kenji, she couldn’t believe her eyes. This beautiful man with long bangs and fair skin had painted these exquisite paintings. It was a dream come true for her.
Kenji walked in and kissed her. She started telling him about her baking dilemma, but, as usual when she started talking about baking, his eyes glazed over. As much as he loved her baked goods, he really didn’t know a single thing about baking them. He pulled out a basket of fresh strawberries from his messenger bag and presented them to her. He knew she liked fresh fruit, and strawberries were one of her favorites. Akiko squealed with delight. The bright red color of those round, ample berries… her mouth watered. So did her loins, strangely.
After storing the strawberries in the fridge (can’t let good berries go to waste now), Akiko grabbed her man and dragged him to her bedroom. The strawberries had awakened some kind of primal urge within her. She took him to her bed. Above her bed was a painting that he had made for her. It was a painting of bubbles glistening in the sunlight. There was a certain warmth and cheerfulness that she loved about that painting.
As she stared at the bubbles, Akiko ripped Kenji’s clothes off of him and gripped his manhood while straddling him on her bed. He moaned with delight. She took off her clothes as well, her naked body intertwining with his. Her ample breasts rubbed across his bare chest, while she rubbed her labia against his slightly hairy legs. Oh how she loved the feel of his body against hers. She was getting wet already. Their natural lubrication was getting them both hotter, as their bodies slid effortlessly against each other. Soon, he was nearing climax. His body convulsed, as he let out a loud moan. Kenji’s hips thrust upward, almost knocking Akiko off of her knees. His semen shot across the room and onto the painting he had given to her. As she watched this sight that some would consider disgusting, inspiration struck her.
Akiko was always thinking of baking. It was her passion. So when she saw his creamy liquid on top of bubbles, for some strange reason, she thought of a meringue with whipped cream. Sure, bubbles reminded her of meringue because they both had that protein structure necessary to support themselves. But whipped cream from semen? Sometimes, she frightened herself. It’s semen! Why would she think of whipped cream? But she couldn’t get it out of her head. She leapt off of him and rushed to the kitchen, hurriedly throwing her clothes on. She didn’t care that she hadn’t had an orgasm. Same story as usual anyway.
She started whipping some egg whites to stiff peaks, while trying to get the image of semen out of her head. Akiko liked to keep her baking life and her sex life completely separate. For sanitary reasons, you know. She put in some egg yolks for body, and then some flour and sugar, along with the small amount of butter she had. The batter was done. Into a cake pan it went, and then after half an hour or so, it had formed into a marvelous sponge cake. Meanwhile, Kenji had recovered from his mind-blowing orgasm. After he took a brief nap, he stumbled into the kitchen and asked what Akiko was doing. She didn’t have time to answer. Screw his hot body. She had a cake to bake.
Whipped cream was the next thing she couldn’t get out of her mind. Akiko happened to have some heavy cream in her fridge, so she just whipped it up with some powdered sugar to get a delightful whipped cream. But she couldn’t just serve a sponge cake with whipped cream, right? Oh strawberries! She knew that Kenji was good for something other than sex. She washed the strawberries her man had brought her and sliced them up. After torting her cake, she put a layer of whipped cream and sliced strawberries in the middle, and then covered the outside with whipped cream. Some strawberries on top, and she had a beautiful strawberry cake. She thought it looked kind of short and squat, so she called it a “shortcake,” despite her English being a bit lacking.
Kenji exclaimed that her cake was beautiful, and after he ate a slice of it, he nearly climaxed again. But what was she to do with the remaining three-fourths of her whipped cream-covered cake? Oh there was plenty of time they could still spend in bed…
So maybe it didn’t happen that way. I mean, I’m sure it’s been around longer than since the 1950s.
After seeing my friend Sharon make a Japanese strawberry shortcake, I wanted to make one of my own. The recipe is here. The story of my cake is somewhat tragic, actually.
Sponge Cake
4 eggs, separated
120 grams sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
120 grams cake flour
22 grams melted butter
So first, you whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, so they’re nice and glossy.
Then, the egg yolks get whisked into that, which turns the batter a bit yellow, as you might expect.
The milk and vanilla extract get mixed in, and then the cake flour, after being sifted, is carefully folded in. The melted butter is the last thing to go in.
By the way, if you’re like me and don’t have cake flour on hand, you can fake it by mixing all-purpose flour and cornstarch in a 7:1 ratio. So I just mixed 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, mixed it together, and then measured out 120 grams from that. I was only over by a little.
I poured the batter into my 6-inch cake pan lined with parchment paper. You’re supposed to use a 7-inch or 8-inch baking pan, but I only had 6 and 9, much like McDonald’s had with their Chicken McNugget sizes back in the 90s. So I went with the 6-inch pan for a smaller cake.
My cake took 35 minutes at 350F to bake, but if you have a 7-inch or 8-inch pan, it’s only supposed to take 25~30 minutes, according to the recipe.
This cake needs some whipped cream!
Sweetened Whipped Cream
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
The whipped cream is simple; you just combine the ingredients and whip the mixture to stiff peaks. Or at least, I thought it’d be simple. But it came back to haunt me later.
Here’s the cake out of the pan, after it cooled. Is it leaning, or is it my eyes?
I flattened the top. “Leveling” is what the professionals call it. And of course I ate the scraps that came off the top.
And then I split the cake in two. Professionals would call this “torting.”
The recipe recommends some simple syrup now.
Simple Syrup
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
Just combine the sugar and water in a saucepan, turn on the heat, and then bring it to a boil while stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Let this cool to room temperature.
I took the bottom half and brushed it with simple syrup. “Brushed” is a bit of a lie, since I don’t have a pastry brush. It was more like me taking a spoonful of syrup and pouring it over the bottom layer.
Then a layer of whipped cream. At this point, I probably should’ve noticed that the whipped cream wasn’t all that smooth.
Some sliced strawberries go on top of the whipped cream. Aren’t they pretty?
Some more whipped cream goes on top of the strawberries. I thought the cream might be a tad overwhipped at this point, but I thought it was still fine.
As you might have guessed, the top layer of the cake goes on top. I brushed the bottom of the top layer (the side facing the strawberries and whipped cream) with some simple syrup.
And then I tried decorating the cake with the whipped cream. I should have listened to that voice in my head telling me that I overbeat the cream, since actually applying it to the cake somehow managed to make it all curdle.
Well great, my cake looks like it’s covered in cottage cheese.
My fatal flaw seems to have been the super-high burst of speed from the hand mixer that I applied to the cream at the end. So I tried again with the remaining heavy cream I had in the fridge, this time more gently. It looks smoother already.
I tried scraping off as much as the overbeaten, cottage cheese-like whipped cream as I could, and I applied the fresh whipped cream to the cake. I think it’s hard to tell that it was a disaster mere minutes before this.
Whipped cream must be magical, there is no trace of the disaster! Except in the photo evidence.
I thought this cake was quite good. It had a light, airy texture while still being distinctly cake-like (in the best way possible). The whipped cream and strawberries weren’t overly sweet, so the cake ended up being just sweet enough for me. Not like those American cakes with the super-sugary icing.
Next time, I’ll go easier with the mixer so I don’t end up making a disastrous cake and then having to cover it up.