Jan
23 The queen of the cakes
It's called a "strawberry short cake" in Japan. In reality, the cake
does not contain shortening which is the origin of the name "short
cake". It seems that the meaning of the word "short cake" is different
from country to country, but originally the basement of the cake
contains shortening and it tastes crispy because of the material. But in
Japan, the basement is a sponge cake and it's covered with fresh cream.
So I think it's softer than the original one.
They say that the difference is caused when a Japanese big confectionary company called Fujiya started selling a cake named "short cake" many years ago and the cake was in this style. As Western-style sweets were high-class and novel in those days, people didn't know how the real short cake was. Even now I have no experience of eating it myself. So this is a typical "short cake" for Japanese and it must be with strawberries. The contrast of red and white is the symbol of "short cake" for us and it is the queen of the cakes in Japan.
I often bake and make this cake in spring when strawberries are in season. Because I can get the tiny red fruit easily as a large quantity of them are on the market and less expensive than when those are out of season. But strawberries are on the market earlier than before at resonable prices recently, so I made the first one in this year yesterday.
It smells sweet and tastes good especially with cinnamon tea. See the bulky volume of my cake! There are 18 strawberries inside and 8 of them are on the top. Moreover it's covered with plenty of special fresh cream. I usually make this cake at least 10 while strawberries are in season.
