Monthly Recipe: Strawberries & Cream Deco Roll Birthday Cake

This month it was my mum’s birthday, so I thought I would make her a Japanese deco roll cake! I think this second attempt was an improvement on my first attempt, but I still need to practice more. I couldn’t have done any of it without this wonderful book though:

Deco Cakes by Junko

Strawberries & Cream Deco Roll Birthday Cake

Ingredients for batter

• 4 eggs (divided into 1 white, 3 whites, and 3 yolks – discard 1 yolk)
• 65g sugar
• 60ml water
• 40ml vegetable oil
• dash of vanilla extract
• 80g plain flour
• 1 tsp plain flour
• 1 tsp corn starch/corn flour
• red food colouring

Ingredients for syrup

• 2 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 20ml hot water

Ingredients for filling

• 150ml fresh double cream
• 14g sugar
• about 10 strawberries

Ingredients for drawing & topping

• 1/2 tsp matcha powder
• double cream
• strawberries

Method

TIP: It will make your life a lot easier if you measure out all of your ingredients and prepare your pattern before starting to bake!

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C. First make the yolk batter. Put 3 egg yolks in a bowl and whisk.

Add half the sugar (35g) and beat with a hand mixer until lighter in colour. Add water, oil and vanilla and continue beating. Once mixed, sift in the flour (80g). Beat with a hand mixer until sticky.

Next, make the pattern. Put 1 tsp of the yolk batter into a separate small bowl. Stir in 1/4 tsp of flour. Add 2 tsp of yolk batter to another bowl. Stir in 1/2 tsp of flour. Add the red food colouring to make a pink colour.

In another bowl, whisk 1 egg white with a hand mixer. Add a pinch of corn starch and continue whisking until soft peaks form.

Stir 3 tbsp of the meringue into the first small bowl and 1/3 of the meringue into the second bowl. (Confusing instruction! I don’t think it matters too much though…)

Put the mixtures into icing piping bags. Place your pattern on a baking tray or swiss roll tin and cover with baking paper. Lightly grease the baking paper with oil. First use the white mixture to pipe the dots for the centres of the flowers.

Bake for 1 minute. Then use the pink mixture to pipe the flowers. Bake for another minute.

Next finish the cake batter. Put 3 egg whites into a separate bowl and beat with a hand mixer. Once soft peaks form, whisk in the remaining sugar (30g). Once glossy, add the remaining corn starch (1 tsp) and whisk until stiff peaks form.

Combine the remaining meringue from earlier with the meringue you have just made, and stir one third at a time into the batter. Stir thoroughly until smooth with no lumps.

Pour the batter over the pre-baked pattern. Whack the baking tray against the work surface to remove any air bubbles. Bake for about 14 minutes.

When baked, cover the surface of the cake with baking paper. Flip the baking tray over onto a wire rack. Remove baking tray and gently peel the baking paper from the surface. Be sure to do this straight away! Replace paper lightly and allow to cool.

Whilst the cake is cooling, make the filling. Add sugar to cream and whip until thickened. Quarter the strawberries.

Dissolve granulated sugar in hot water to make the syrup. Flip the cake over onto baking paper so the patter is on the bottom. Slice off the edges. Baste the cake with syrup. Spread the cream onto the cake. (What a mess I made!)

Arrange strawberry slices on the cake like this:

Lift up the front edge of the cake and carefully but quickly roll. (I decided to roll on the short side this time and I think it was much better than rolling on the long side like I did last time.)

Dissolve the matcha powder in hot water and use a paint brush to paint leaves on to the cake.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Before serving, prepare some more whipped cream and strawberries and, if you have them, a few mint leaves. Decorate the top of the cake with strawberries and cream like this:

Serve to a happy mum or friend!

Deco Cakes by Junko is available on Amazon.co.uk. It’s a great book – I highly recommend it! The book includes all sorts of different ideas for designs, and of course you can make up your own too!

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I’ll be back in July with a new recipe! If you have any suggestions, or perhaps you would like me to try one of your recipes from a book or website, please leave a comment below or get in touch! All the recipes I try on this blog have some connection to Japan and, because I don’t eat meat, they need to be vegetarian or pescetarian. I’m particularly interested in helping to promote Japanese recipe books, so do let me know if you have one I might like!